ARLINGTON STREET, _Thursday, March_ 31, 1768.
I have received your letter, with the extract of that from Mr.
Mackenzie. I do not think any honours will be bestowed yet. The Peerages
are all postponed to an indefinite time. If you are in a violent hurry,
you may petition the ghosts of your neighbours--Masaniello and the
Gracchi. The spirit of one of them walks here; nay, I saw it go by my
window yesterday, at noon, in a hackney chair.
_Friday._
I was interrupted yesterday. The ghost is laid for a time in a red sea
of port and claret. The spectre is the famous Wilkes. He appeared the
moment the Parliament was dissolved. The Ministry despise him. He stood
for the City of London, and was the last on the poll of seven
candidates, none but the mob, and most of them without votes, favouring
him. He then offered himself to the county of Middlesex. The election
came on last Monday. By five in the morning a very large body of
Weavers, &c., took possession of Piccadilly, and the roads and turnpikes
leading to Brentford, and would suffer nobody to pass without blue
cockades, and papers inscribed "_No. 45, Wilkes and Liberty_." They tore
to pieces the coaches of Sir W. Beauchamp Proctor, and Mr. Cooke, the
other candidates, though the latter was not there, but in bed with the
gout, and it was with difficulty that Sir William and Mr. Cooke's cousin
got to Brentford. There, however, lest it should be declared a void
election, Wilkes had the sense to keep everything quiet. But, about
five, Wilkes, being considerably ahead of the other two, his mob
returned to town and behaved outrageously. They stopped every carriage,
scratched and spoilt several with writing all over them "No. 45,"
pelted, threw dirt and stones, and forced everybody to huzza for Wilkes.
I did but cross Piccadilly at eight, in my coach with a French Monsieur
d'Angeul, whom I was carrying to Lady Hertford's; they stopped us, and
bid us huzza. I desired him to let down the glass on his side, but, as
he was not alert, they broke it to shatters. At night they insisted, in
several streets, on houses being illuminated, and several Scotch
refusing, had their windows broken. Another mob rose in the City, and
Harley, the present Mayor, being another Sir William Walworth, and
having acted formerly and now with great spirit against Wilkes, and the
Mansion House not being illuminated, and he out of town, they broke
every window, and tried to force their way into the House. The Trained
Bands were sent for, but did not suffice. At last a party of guards,
from the Tower, and some lights erected, dispersed the tumult. At one in
the morning a riot began before Lord Bute's house, in Audley Street,
though illuminated. They flung two large flints into Lady Bute's
chamber, who was in bed, and broke every window in the house. Next
morning, Wilkes and Cooke were returned members. The day was very
quiet, but at night they rose again, and obliged almost every house in
town to be lighted up, even the Duke of Cumberland's and Princess
Amelia's. About one o'clock they marched to the Duchess of Hamilton's in
Argyle Buildings (Lord Lorn being in Scotland). She was obstinate, and
would not illuminate, though with child, and, as they hope, of an heir
to the family, and with the Duke, her son, and the rest of her children
in the house. There is a small court and parapet wall before the house:
they brought iron crows, tore down the gates, pulled up the pavement,
and battered the house for three hours. They could not find the key of
the back door, nor send for any assistance. The night before, they had
obliged the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland to give them beer, and
appear at the windows, and drink "Wilkes's health." They stopped and
opened the coach of Count Seilern, the Austrian ambassador, who has made
a formal complaint, on which the Council met on Wednesday night, and
were going to issue a Proclamation, but, hearing that all was quiet, and
that only a few houses were illuminated in Leicester Fields from the
terror of the inhabitants, a few constables were sent with orders to
extinguish the lights, and not the smallest disorder has happened since.
In short, it has ended like other election riots, and with not a quarter
of the mischief that has been done in some other towns.
There are, however, difficulties to come. Wilkes has notified that he
intends to surrender himself to his outlawry, the beginning of next
term, which comes on the 17th of this month. There is said to be a flaw
in the proceedings, in which case his election will be good, though the
King's Bench may fine or imprison him on his former sentence. In my own
opinion, the House of Commons is the place where he can do the least
hurt, for he is a wretched speaker, and will sink to contempt, like
Admiral Vernon,[1] who I remember just such an illuminated hero, with
two birthdays in one year. You will say, he can write better than
Vernon--true; and therefore his case is more desperate. Besides, Vernon
was rich: Wilkes is undone; and, though he has had great support, his
patrons will be sick of maintaining him. He must either sink to poverty
and a jail, or commit new excesses, for which he will get knocked on the
head. The Scotch are his implacable enemies to a man. A Rienzi[2] cannot
stop: their histories are summed up in two words--a triumph and an
assassination.
[Footnote 1: In 1739 our Government had declared war against Spain.
"There was at the time among the members of the Opposition in the House
of Commons a naval captain named Vernon, a man of bold, blustering
tongue, and presumed therefore by many to be of a corresponding
readiness of action. In some of the debates he took occasion to inveigh
against the timidity of our officers, who had hitherto, as he phrased
it, spared Porto Bello; and he affirmed that he could take it himself
with a squadron of six ships. The Ministry caught at the prospect of
delivering themselves from his harangues, and gave him half as many
ships again as he desired, with the temporary rank of Vice-admiral; and
on July, 1739, he sailed for the American coast. When he reached it he
found that the news of the rupture of the peace had not yet reached the
governor of the city, and that it was in no condition to resist an
attack. Many of the guns were dismounted; and for those that were
serviceable there was not sufficient ammunition. A fire of musketry
alone sufficed to win the fort that protected the entrance to the
harbour, and an equally brief cannonade drove the garrison from the
castle. The governor had no further means of defence; and thus in
forty-eight hours after his arrival Vernon had accomplished his boast,
and was master of the place." In a clever paper in the "Cambridge Museum
Philologicum" Bishop Thirlwall compared the man and his exploit to Cleon
and his achievement at Sphacteria in the Peloponnesian War. (See the
Editor's "History of the British Navy," c. 9.)]
[Footnote 2: "_Rienzi._"
Then turn we to her latest tribune's name,
From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,
Redeemer of dark centuries of shame,
The friend of Petrarch, hope of Italy,
Rienzi; last of Romans.
("Childe Harold," iv. 114.)
His story is told with almost more than his usual power by Gibbon (c.
70). Born in the lowest class, "he could inherit neither dignity nor
fortune; and the gift of a liberal education, which they painfully
bestowed, was the cause of his glory and his untimely end." He, while
still little more than a youth, had established such a reputation for
eloquence, that he was one of the deputies sent by the Commons to
Avignon to plead with the Pope (Clement VI.). The state of Rome,
aggravated by the absence of the Pope, was miserable in the extreme. The
citizens "were equally oppressed by the arrogance of the nobles and the
corruption of the magistrates." Rienzi recalled to their recollection
"the ancient glories of the Senate and people from whom all legal
authority was derived. He raised the enthusiasm of the populace;
collected a band of conspirators, at whose head, clad in complete
armour, he marched to the Capitol, and assumed the government of the
city, declining "the names of Senator or Consul, of King or Emperor, and
preferring the ancient and modern appellation of Tribune.... Never
perhaps has the energy and effect of a single mind been more remarkably
felt than in the sudden, though transient, reformation of Rome by the
Tribune Rienzi. A den of robbers was converted to the discipline of a
camp or convent. Patient to hear, swift to redress, inexorable to
punish, his tribunal was always accessible to the poor and the stranger;
nor could birth, nor dignity, nor the immunities of the Church protect
the offender or his accomplices." But his head was turned by his
success. He even caused himself to be crowned, while "his wife, his son,
and his uncle, a barber, exposed the contrast of vulgar manners and
princely expense; and, without acquiring the majesty, Rienzi degenerated
into the vices of a king." The people became indignant; the nobles whom
he had degraded found it easy to raise the public feeling against him.
Before the end of the same year (1347) he was forced to fly from Rome,
and lived in exile or imprisonment at Avignon seven years; and returned
to Rome in 1354, only to be murdered in an insurrection.]
I must finish, for Lord Hertford is this moment come in, and insists on
my dining with the Prince of Monaco, who is come over to thank the King
for the presents his Majesty sent him on his kindness and attention to
the late Duke of York. You shall hear the suite of the above histories,
which I sit quietly and look at, having nothing more to do with the
storm, and sick of politics, but as a spectator, while they pass over
the stage of the world. Adieu!
_FLEETING FAME OF WITTICISMS--"THE MYSTERIOUS MOTHER."_