REIGN OF GEORGE III.
Accession of George III.--His Conduct--Ascendency of Bute--Meeting
of Parliament--Enthusiastic Reception of the King's Speech--Bute's
Cabals--Hostility to Pitt--Ministerial Changes--Marriage of the
King--Queen Charlotte--Misfortunes of Frederick--Ferdinand of
Brunswick's Campaign--Defeat of the French in the East and West
Indies--Negotiations for Peace--Pitt's large Demands--Obstinacy of
Choiseul--The Family Compact suspected--Resignation of Pitt--Bute's
Ministry--War with Spain--Abandonment of Frederick--Policy of
the new Czar--Resignation of Newcastle--Bute at the head of the
Treasury--Successes in the West Indies--Capture of Manila--Bute's
Eagerness for Peace--The Terms--Bute's Unpopularity--Close of
the Seven Years' War--Successes of Clive--Defeat of the Dutch in
India--Final Overthrow of the French in India--Fate of the Count
de Lally--Bute and the Princess of Wales--The Cider Tax--Bute's
Vengeance--His Resignation--George Grenville in Office--No. 45
of the North Briton--Arrest of Wilkes--His Acquittal--Vengeance
against him--The King negotiates with Pitt--Wilkes's Affairs in
Parliament--The Wilkes Riots--The Question of Privilege--The
Illegality of General Warrants declared--Wilkes expelled the
House--Debates on General Warrants--Rejoicing in the City of London.
George III., at the time of the sudden death of his grandfather, was
in his twenty-second year. The day of the late king's death and the
following night were spent in secret arrangements, and the next morning
George presented himself before his mother, the Princess-dowager,
at Carlton House, where he met his council, and was then formally
proclaimed. This was on the 26th of October, 1760.
The conduct of the young king, considering his shyness and the defects
of his education, was, during the first days of his sudden elevation,
calm, courteous, affable, and unembarrassed. "He behaved throughout,"
says Horace Walpole, "with the greatest propriety, dignity, and
decency." He dismissed his Guards to attend on the body of his
grandfather. But it was soon seen that there would be great changes in
his Government. Pitt waited on him with the sketch of an address to his
Council; but the king informed him that this had been thought of, and
an address already prepared. This was sufficient for Pitt; he had long
been satisfied that the favourite of mother and son, the Groom of the
Stole, and the inseparable companion, Bute, would, on the accession of
George, mount into the premiership.
On the morning of Monday, the 28th, the king's brother, Edward, Duke
of York, and Lord Bute were sworn members of the Privy Council. It
was obvious that Bute was to be quite in the ascendant, and the
observant courtiers paid instant homage to the man through whom all
good things were to flow. The king declared himself, however, highly
satisfied with his present Cabinet, and announced that he wished no
changes. A handbill soon appeared on the walls of the Royal Exchange
expressing the public apprehension: "No petticoat government--no Scotch
favourite--no Lord George Sackville!" Bute had always championed Lord
George, who was so bold in society and so backward in the field; and
the public now imagined that they would have a governing clique of the
king's mother, her favourite, Bute, and his favourite, Lord George.
Parliament, which had been prorogued for a few days on account of
the demise of the king, assembled on the 18th of November. The king
delivered a speech, composed by Lord Hardwicke, and revised by
Pitt, and containing a passage, said to be inserted by himself, as
follows:--"Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of
Briton!" In the addresses these words produced the most enthusiastic
responses. "What a lustre," exclaimed the Lords, "doth it cast upon the
name of Briton, when you, sir, are pleased to esteem it amongst your
glories!" For the rest, the speech expressed the royal determination
to prosecute the war with all vigour; praised the magnanimity and
perseverance of his good brother, the King of Prussia; and recommended
unanimity of action and opinion in Parliament. Nothing could appear
more unanimous or more liberal than Parliament.
But the smoothness was only on the surface--beneath were working the
strongest political animosities and the most selfish desires. The
little knot of aristocratic families which had so long monopolised all
the sweets of office, now saw with indignation tribes of aspirants
crowding in for a share of the good things. The aspirants filled the
ante-chamber of Bute, the angry and disappointed resorted to Newcastle,
who was in a continual state of agitation by seeing appointments given
to new men without his knowledge; members rushing in to offer their
support to Government at the next election, who had hitherto stood
aloof, and were now received and encouraged.
[Illustration: GREAT SEAL OF GEORGE III.]
Meanwhile, Bute was sedulously at work to clear the way for his own
assumption, not merely of office, but of the whole power of the
Government. He acted as already the only medium of communication with
the king, and the depositary of his secrets. He opened his views
cautiously to Bubb Dodington, who was a confidant of the Lichfield
House party, and still hungering after a title. Dodington advised him
to induce Lord Holderness to resign and take his place, which, at
first, Bute affected to disapprove of, but eventually acted upon. The
first object was to get rid of Pitt, who, by his talents and haughty
independence of manner, was not more acceptable to the king and his
counsellor, Bute, than by his policy, which they desired to abandon.
Pamphlets were therefore assiduously circulated, endeavouring to
represent Pitt as insatiable for war, and war as having been already
too burdensome for the nation.
On the 21st of March Parliament was dissolved by proclamation, and the
same day the _Gazette_ announced several of the changes determined on
in the Ministry. The Duke of Bedford retired from the Lord-Lieutenancy
of Ireland, and his place was taken by the Earl of Halifax. Legge, who
was considered too much in the interest of Pitt, was dismissed, and
Lord Barrington now took his place of Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Charles Townshend took Barrington's former office, and Sir Francis
Dashwood became Treasurer of the Chambers in room of Townshend. Both
Townshend and Dashwood had gone over to the party of Bute. Lord
Holderness was now made to do what Dodington had before suggested; he
resigned his office of Secretary of State, and in due course Bute was
gazetted as appointed to that post. No notice of this change had been
communicated to Pitt, the other and Chief Secretary, till it took place.
On the 8th of July an extraordinary Privy Council was summoned. All
the members, of whatever party, were desired to attend, and many were
the speculations as to the object of their meeting. The general notion
was that it involved the continuing or the ending of the war. It
turned out to be for the announcement of the king's intended marriage.
The lady selected was Charlotte, the second sister of the Duke of
Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Apart from the narrowness of her education, the
young princess had a considerable amount of amiability, good sense, and
domestic taste. These she shared with her intended husband, and whilst
they made the royal couple always retiring, at the same time they
caused them to give, during their lives, a moral air to their court.
On the 8th of September Charlotte arrived at St. James's, and that
afternoon the marriage took place, the ceremony being performed by the
Archbishop of Canterbury. On the 22nd the coronation took place with
the greatest splendour.
We must now step back a little to observe the war on the Continent from
the opening of the present campaign. Frederick of Prussia lay encamped
during the winter in Silesia, surrounded by difficulties and enemies.
His resources both in money and men appeared well nigh exhausted.
The end of autumn, 1760, brought him the news of the death of George
II., and, from what he could learn of the disposition of his successor
and his chief advisers, it was certain that peace would be attempted
by England. This depressing intelligence was confirmed in December
by the British Parliament indeed voting again his usual subsidy, but
reluctantly, and he found it paid with still more reluctance and delay.
Whilst thus menaced with the total loss of the funds by which he
carried on the war, he saw, as the spring approached, the Russians and
Austrians advancing against him with more than double his own forces.
Disasters soon overtook him. The capture of Schweidnitz enabled the
Austrians to winter in Silesia, which they had never yet done during
the war; and the Russians also found, to their great satisfaction, on
arriving in Pomerania, that they could winter in Colberg. The Russian
division under Romanzow had besieged Colberg both by land and sea, and,
despite the attempts of the Prussians sent by Frederick to relieve it,
it had been compelled to surrender. In these discouraging circumstances
Frederick took up his winter quarters at Breslau. His affairs never
wore a darker aspect. He was out-generaled and more discomfited this
campaign than by a great battle. His enemies lay near in augmented
strength of position, and his resources had ominously decreased.
The campaign against the French was opened in February by Prince
Ferdinand of Brunswick attacking the Duke de Broglie, and driving him
out of Cassel. Prince Ferdinand followed up this advantage by attacking
them in Marburg and Göttingen, and applied himself particularly to the
siege of Cassel. But Broglie, now recovered from his surprise, first
defeated the hereditary Prince of Brunswick, Ferdinand's nephew, at
Stangerode, and then repulsed Ferdinand himself from Cassel.
The destruction of the French magazines delayed their operations till
midsummer, when Broglie advanced from Cassel, and the Prince Soubise
from the Rhine, to give Ferdinand battle. On the march they fell
in with Sporken, and this time defeated one of his posts, and took
nineteen pieces of cannon and eight hundred prisoners. The Allies
awaited them in front of the river Lippe, and between that river and
the Aest, near the village of Kirch-Denkern. The French were routed at
all points, having lost, according to the Allies, five thousand men,
whilst they themselves had only lost one thousand five hundred. The
effect of the victory, however, was small.
If the French had been by no means successful in Germany, they had been
much less so in other quarters of the globe. In the East Indies we had
taken Pondicherry, their chief settlement, from them, and thus remained
masters of the whole coast of Coromandel, and of the entire trade with
India. In the West Indies, the French had been fortifying Dominica,
contrary to treaty, and Lord Rollo and Sir James Douglas were sent
thither, and speedily reduced it. France, indeed, was now fast sinking
in exhaustion. Louis XV. was a man of no mark or ability, inclined to
peace, and leaving all affairs to his Ministers, and still more to his
mistress, Madame de Pompadour. Choiseul was a man of talent, but of
immense vanity, and little persistent firmness. He was now anxious for
peace, but, too proud to make the proposal directly, he induced the
Courts of Russia and Austria to do it. It was suggested that a congress
should be held at Augsburg for settling the peace of Europe. England
and Prussia readily consented. But the Duke of Choiseul, anxious to
have a clear understanding of the terms on which England and France
were likely to treat, proposed a previous exchange of views, and
dispatched M. Bussy to London, whilst Mr. Pitt sent to Paris Mr. Hans
Stanley.
Choiseul made, undoubtedly, a large offer for peace. It was that each
power should retain all such of its conquests as should be in its
hands, subject to exchanges and equivalents, in Europe, on the 1st of
May next; in America, the West Indies, and Africa, on the 1st of July;
and in the East Indies on the 1st of September. But Pitt had declared
that he would never make another peace of Utrecht. He considered that
we had France down, and he determined to retain everything of value.
He therefore replied that the proper period for the principle of the
treaty to take place was that on which the treaty was really signed,
that it might so happen that it would not be signed at the dates named,
and he did this in order to complete a scheme, which he had already
nearly accomplished, that of seizing on Belleisle, an island on the
coast of France. It surrendered in July, and the news of this loss was
speedily followed in Paris by that of the loss of Dominica in the West,
and of Pondicherry in the East Indies.
These reverses were calculated to make France more compliant; yet
Pitt was astonished to find, instead of compliance, a great spirit
of resistance. Choiseul would by no means admit that Belleisle was
an equivalent for Minorca. He demanded Guadeloupe and Belleisle too,
simply in lieu of the French conquests in Germany. He now demurred
to the surrender of Cape Breton, or in any case to forego the right
of fishing along its coasts. He was not content with Amaboo or
Acra; he demanded Senegal or Goree. He declined also to destroy the
fortifications of Dunkirk, raised in contempt of the treaty of Utrecht.
All captures made at sea previous to the declaration of war must be
restored; and in Germany, though he was willing to withdraw the French
troops, it was only on condition that the troops commanded by Prince
Ferdinand should not reinforce the Prussian army.
The secret of this wonderfully augmented boldness of tone on the part
of France soon transpired. Choiseul had been endeavouring to secure the
alliance of Spain, and saw himself about to succeed. Spain was smarting
under many losses and humiliations from the English during the late
war. Whilst General Wall, the Spanish minister at Madrid, urged these
complaints on the Earl of Bristol, our ambassador there, Choiseul was
dexterously inflaming the minds of the Spanish Court against Britain
on these grounds. He represented it as the universal tyrant of the
seas, and the sworn enemy of every other maritime state. He offered to
assist in the recovery of Gibraltar, and to make over Minorca to Spain.
By these means he induced Spain to go into what became the celebrated
Family Compact--that is, a compact by which France and Spain bound
themselves to mutually succour and support each other; and to admit the
King of Naples, the son of the Spanish king, to this compact, but no
prince or potentate whatever, except he were of the House of Bourbon.
Besides the general compact, there was a particular one, which
engaged that, should England and France remain at war on the 1st of
May, 1762, Spain should on that day declare war against England, and
should at the same time receive possession of Minorca. The existence
of these compacts was kept with all possible secrecy; but Mr. Stanley
penetrated to a knowledge of them in Paris, and his information was
fully confirmed from other sources. If these, however, had left any
doubt, it would have been expelled by the receipt of a French memorial
through M. Bussy, to which a second memorial on Spanish affairs was
appended. Pitt received the proposition with a tone of indignation
that made it manifest that he would suffer no such interference
of a third party--would not yield a step to any such alliance. He
declared, in broad and plain terms, that his majesty would not permit
the affairs of Spain to be introduced by France; that he would never
suffer France to presume to meddle in any affairs between himself and
Spain, and that he should consider any further mention of such matters
as a direct affront. A similar message was dispatched to the Earl of
Bristol in Spain, declaring that England was open to any proposals of
negotiation from Spain, but not through the medium of France. This was,
in fact, tantamount to a defiance to both France and Spain, and would
undoubtedly have put an end to all further negotiation had there not
been a purpose to serve. The Spanish treasure ships were yet out at sea
on their way home. Any symptoms of hostility would insure their capture
by the British, and cut off the very means of maintaining a war.
General Wall, therefore, concealed all appearance of chagrin; admitted
that the memorial had been presented by France with the full consent
of his Catholic majesty, but professed the most sincere desire for the
continuance of peaceful relations.
Pitt was not for a moment deceived, and in August the Family Compact
was signed. He broke off the negotiation, recalled Stanley from Paris,
dismissed Bussy from London, and advised an immediate declaration of
war against Spain, whilst it was yet in our power to seize the treasure
ships. But there was but one Pitt--one great mind capable of grasping
the affairs of a nation, and of seizing on the deciding circumstances
with the promptness essential to effect. The usually timid Newcastle
became suddenly courageous with alarm. Bute pronounced Pitt's proposal
as "rash and unadvisable;" the king, obstinate as was his tendency,
declared that, if his Ministers had yielded to such a policy, he would
not; and Pitt, having laboured in vain to move this stolid mass of
ministerial imbecility through three Cabinet Councils, at last, in the
beginning of October, declared that, as he was called to the Ministry
by the people, and held himself responsible to them, he would no longer
occupy a position the duties of which he was not able to discharge. On
the 5th he resigned, and his great Ministry came to an end.
The Bute Ministry was now in power, and determined on reversing
the policy of Pitt--policy which had added so magnificently to the
territory and glory of the country. Bute had now to seek powerful
connections to enable him to carry on. The commonplace man seeks to
make up for his feebleness by associating with him, not men of merit,
but men of aristocratic connection. For this reason he conferred the
Privy Seal on the Duke of Bedford, and the Seal of Secretary on the
Earl of Egremont. To break the force of popular indignation for the
loss of Pitt from the helm--for the people knew who was the great
man and successful minister well enough--the king was advised to
confer some distinguished mark of favour on Pitt. He was offered the
government of Canada as a sinecure, with five thousand pounds a year.
Pitt was not the man to undertake a highly responsible office without
discharging the duties, and he was next offered the Chancellorship of
the Duchy of Lancaster; but he preferred a simple pension of three
thousand pounds a-year, and that a title should be conferred on his
wife. By this arrangement he was left in the House of Commons, and
in a position to continue his exertions for the country. Both these
suggestions were complied with.
Ministers were soon compelled to pursue the policy which Pitt had so
successfully inaugurated. With all the determination of Lord Bute and
his colleagues to make a speedy peace, they found it impossible. The
Family Compact between France and Spain was already signed; and in
various quarters of the world Pitt's plans were so far in progress
that they must go on. In East and West, his plans for the conquest
of Havana, of the Philippine Isles, and for other objects, were not
to be abruptly abandoned; and Ministers were compelled to carry out
his objects, in many particulars, in spite of themselves. And now
the unpleasant truth was forced on the attention of Ministers, that
the war which Pitt declared to be inevitable was so, and that he had
recommended the only wise measure. The country was now destined to pay
the penalty of their folly and stupidity in rejecting Pitt's proposal
to declare war against Spain at once, and strip her of the means of
offence, her treasure ships. Lord Bristol, our ambassador at Madrid,
announced to Lord Bute, in a despatch of the 2nd of November, that
these ships had arrived, and that all the wealth which Spain expected
from her American colonies for the next year was safe at home. And
he had to add that with this, Wall, the Minister, had thrown off the
mask, and had assumed the most haughty and insolent language towards
Great Britain. This was a confession on the part of Lord Bristol
that he had suffered Wall to throw dust in his eyes till his object
was accomplished, and it made patent the fact that Pitt had been too
sagacious to be deceived; but that the new Ministers, whilst insulting
Pitt and forcing him to resign, had been themselves completely duped.
Spain now, in the most peremptory terms, demanded redress for all her
grievances; and, before the year had closed, the Bute Cabinet was
compelled to recall Lord Bristol from Madrid, and to order Fuentes,
the Spanish ambassador in London, to quit the kingdom. On the 4th of
January, 1762, declaration of war was issued against Spain. Neither
king nor Ministers, seeing the wisdom of Pitt's policy and the folly
of their own, were prevented from committing another such absurdity.
They abandoned Frederick of Prussia at his greatest need. They refused
to vote his usual subsidy. By this execrable proceeding--for we not
only abandoned Frederick, but made overtures to Austria, with which he
was engaged in a mortal struggle--we thus threw him into the arms and
close alliance of Russia, and were, by this, the indirect means of that
guilty confederation by which Poland was afterwards rent in pieces by
these powers. On the 5th of January, 1762, died the Czarina Elizabeth.
She was succeeded by her nephew, the Duke of Holstein, under the title
of Peter III. Peter was an enthusiastic admirer of the Prussian king;
he was extravagant and incessant in his praises of him. He accepted the
commission of a colonel in the Prussian service, wore its uniform, and
was bent on clothing his own troops in it. It was clear that he was
not quite sane, for he immediately recalled the Russian army which was
acting against Frederick, hastened to make peace with him, and offered
to restore all that had been won from him in the war, even to Prussia
proper, which the Russians had possession of. His example was eagerly
seized upon by Sweden, which was tired of the war. Both Russia and
Sweden signed treaties of peace with Frederick in May, and Peter went
farther: he dispatched an army into Silesia, where it had so lately
been fighting against him, to fight against Austria. Elated by this
extraordinary turn of affairs, the Prussian ambassador renewed his
applications for money, urging that, now Russia had joined Frederick,
it would be easy to subdue Austria and terminate the war. This was an
opportunity for Bute to retrace with credit his steps; but he argued,
on the contrary, that, having the aid of Russia, Frederick did not want
that of England; and he is even accused of endeavouring to persuade
Russia to continue its hostilities against Prussia; and thus he totally
alienated a power which might have hereafter rendered us essential
service, without gaining a single point. The Duke of Newcastle, man of
mediocre merit as he was, saw farther than Bute into the disgraceful
nature of thus abandoning a powerful ally at an extremity, as well as
the impolicy of converting such a man into a mortal enemy; and, finding
all remonstrances vain, resigned. Bute was glad to be rid of him; and
Newcastle, finding both his remonstrance and resignation taken very
coolly, had the meanness to seek to regain a situation in the Cabinet,
but without effect, and threw himself into the Opposition.
[Illustration: GEORGE III.]
On Newcastle's resignation Bute placed himself at the head of the
Treasury, and named Grenville Secretary of State--a fatal nomination,
for Grenville lost America. Lord Barrington, though an adherent of
Newcastle, became Treasurer of the Navy, and Sir Francis Dashwood
Chancellor of the Exchequer. Bute, who, like all weak favourites, had
not the sense to perceive that it was necessary to be moderate to
acquire permanent power, immediately obtained a vacant Garter, and thus
parading the royal favours, augmented the rapidly growing unpopularity
which his want of sagacity and honourable principle was fast creating.
He was beset by legions of libels, which fully exposed his incapacity,
and as freely dealt with the connection between himself and the mother
of the king.
But in spite of Bute's incapacity the expeditions planned by Pitt
were uniformly successful. The British fleets were everywhere busy
attacking the Spanish colonies, and cutting off the Spanish ships
at sea. A fleet had been dispatched, under Admiral Rodney, at the
latter end of the last year, against Martinique, carrying nearly
twelve thousand men, commanded by General Monckton. They landed on the
7th of January at Cas de Navires, besieged and took Port Royal, the
capital, St. Pierre, and, finally, the whole island. This was followed
by the surrender of St. Vincent, Grenada, and St. Lucia, so that the
English were now masters of the whole of the Caribbees. A portion of
this squadron, under Sir James Douglas, then proceeded to join an
expedition, which sailed from Portsmouth on the 5th of March; the fleet
commanded by Admiral Sir George Pococke, and the army by the Earl of
Albemarle. The squadron arrived before Havana on the 4th of June--King
George's birthday--and effected a landing without much difficulty.
It was not, however, till the 12th of August that they were ready
with their batteries. The effect of the bombardment was almost
instantaneous. Within six hours nearly all the enemy's guns were
silenced, and the next day the Spaniards capitulated, agreeing to yield
not only the place, and the vessels in the harbour, but the country for
a hundred and eighty miles to the westward; in fact, all the best part
of Cuba. The booty taken was valued at nearly three million pounds.
In the East Indies, immediately afterwards, another severe blow was
inflicted on Spain. An expedition sailed from Madras, and Admiral
Cornish conveyed in a small fleet a body of men amounting to two
thousand three hundred, and consisting of one regiment of the line, in
addition to marines and sepoys. Colonel William Draper, afterwards so
well known for his spirited contest with the still undiscovered author
of "Junius's Letters," was the commander. They landed near Manila,
the capital of the Philippine Islands, on the 24th of September,
the Spanish garrison there being taken completely by surprise. The
whole of the Philippines submitted without further resistance; and
Draper, besides being made a knight of the Bath, was, with the naval
commanders, thanked by Parliament, as well they might be.
The brilliant successes of this campaign had clearly been the result
of Pitt's plans before quitting office. Bute and his colleagues had
no capacity for such masterly policy, and as little perception of the
immense advantages which these conquests gave them in making peace.
Peace they were impatient for--less on the great grounds that peace
was the noblest of national blessings, than because the people grumbled
at the amount of taxation--and because, by peace, they diminished, or
hoped to diminish, the _prestige_ of the great Minister, who had won
such vast accessions to the national territory. Bute was eager to come
to terms with France and Spain, regardless of the advantages he gave
to prostrate enemies by showing that impatience. Had he made a peace
as honourable as the war had been, he would have deserved well of the
country; but to accomplish such a peace required another stamp of mind.
Bute made overtures to France through the neutral Court of Sardinia.
Louis XV. and his Ministers caught at the very first whisper of such
a thing with the eagerness of drowning men; a sufficient intimation
to an able and cautious minister, that he might safely name his own
terms. The ambassadors, however, soon found that the real business of
the treaty was transacted between Bute, on the part of Britain, and the
Duke de Choiseul, on that of France; and that not through ambassadors,
but through Sardinian envoys.
The conditions first agreed upon were, that both England and France
were to withdraw their support, either by men or money, to the war in
Germany. France was to evacuate the few towns that she held there, as
well as Cleve and Guelders. Minorca was to be restored in exchange for
Belleisle, which thus fully justified Pitt's capture of that little
and otherwise useless island. The fortifications of Dunkirk were to be
reduced to the state required by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
France ceded Canada, Nova Scotia, and Cape Breton, stipulating for the
free exercise of their religion by the inhabitants of Canada, and for
their leaving the country if they preferred it, carrying away their
effects, if done within eighteen months. Nova Scotia and Cape Breton
were given up unconditionally. The boundaries of Louisiana were more
clearly defined. The French retained the right to fish on part of the
coast of Newfoundland and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and to retain the
two little islets of St. Pierre and Miquelon, as places of shelter for
their fishermen, on condition that no batteries should be raised on
them, nor more than fifty soldiers keep guard there. Their fishermen
were not to approach within fifteen miles of Cape Breton.
In the West Indies it was decided that Great Britain should, of the
French islands that she had taken, retain Tobago, Dominica, St.
Vincent, and Grenada, but restore to France Guadeloupe, Martinique,
and St. Lucia.
In the East Indies France agreed to keep no troops, and raise no
fortifications in Bengal, and on these conditions their settlements
were restored, but merely as places of trade. Goree, on the coast of
Africa, was restored, but Senegal was surrendered.
As for Spain, she abandoned all designs on Portugal, and restored the
colony of Sacramento; and she surrendered every point on which her
declaration of war against England was based--namely, the right to fish
on the coast of Newfoundland; the refusal to allow us to cut logwood in
Honduras; and to admit the settlement of questions of capture by our
courts of law.
These certainly were large concessions, but it was to be remembered
that we had not received them for nothing; they had cost vast sums, and
the national debt had been doubled by this war, and now amounted to
one hundred and twenty-two million six hundred thousand pounds. These
territories had, in fact, cost us upwards of sixty million pounds; and
it is certain that Pitt would have exacted a more complete renunciation
from France of the conquered countries. There was a clause inserted
which Pitt would never have permitted--namely, that any conquests that
should be made after the signing of these articles, should be restored
by all parties. Now, Bute and the Ministry knew that we had expeditions
out against Cuba and the Philippines, and that the only conquests
likely to be made were in those quarters. To throw away without
equivalent the blood and money expended in these important enterprises
was a most unpatriotic act. Still, there was opportunity for more
rational terms, for Grimaldi, the Spanish ambassador at Paris, held
back from signing, in hope that we should be defeated at Havana, and
that then he could raise his terms. When the news of the loss of both
Havana and Manila arrived, Grimaldi was in great haste to sign, and
Mr. Grenville and Lord Egremont very properly insisted that we should
demand an equivalent for the conquest in Cuba. Pitt would have stood
firm for the retention of that conquest as by far the most important,
and as justly secured to us by the refusal of the Spanish ambassador
to sign at the proper time. But Bute would have signed without any
equivalent at all. Fortunately, there was too strong an opposition to
this in the Cabinet, and the Duke of Bedford was instructed to demand
Florida or Porto Rico in lieu of Havana. Florida was yielded--a fatal,
though at the moment it appeared a valuable concession, for it only
added to the compactness of the American colonies, hastening the day of
independence, whilst Cuba would have remained under the protection of
the fleet, one of the most valuable possessions of the British empire.
This point settled, the preliminaries of peace were signed at
Fontainebleau on the 3rd of November. To console Spain for her losses
by her unlucky alliance with France, Louis XV. ceded Louisiana to that
country by a private convention.
The violent discontent with the conduct of Bute and his Ministry
gave considerable strength to the Opposition, at the head of which
now stood Pitt, supported by Lord Temple and the Duke of Newcastle.
George Grenville, not satisfied with the terms of the peace, resigned
the post of Secretary to Halifax, and took his new one at the head
of the Admiralty; and Henry Fox, Paymaster of the Forces, became the
leader of the Commons. The Duke of Devonshire and the Marquis of
Rockingham also resigned their places in the royal household; and the
king, in his vexation, striking Devonshire's name out of the list of
Privy Councillors, the Duke's kinsmen, Lords George Cavendish and
Bessborough, also resigned.
Such was the formidable opposition with which Parliament came to the
consideration of this peace. It met on the 25th of November, and the
tone of the public out of doors was then seen. The king, as he went
to the House of Lords, was very coolly received by the crowds in the
streets, and Bute was saluted with hisses, groans, and the flinging
of mud and stones. On the 19th of December he moved in the Lords an
address in approbation of the terms of the peace. Lord Hardwicke
opposed the motion with great warmth and ability, but there was no
division. Very different was the reception of a similar address in
the Commons the same day, moved by Fox. There Pitt, who was suffering
with the gout, denounced the whole treaty, as shamefully sacrificing
the honour and interests of the country. When he rose he was obliged
to be supported by two of his friends, and was at length compelled to
beg to be allowed to address the House sitting. He yet made a vehement
speech of three hours and a half against the conditions accepted. The
Ministry, however, had a large majority, three hundred and nineteen
voting for them against sixty-five. With this brief triumph of Bute's
unpopular party closed the year 1762.
The year 1763 opened with the signing of the definitive treaty
at Paris on the 19th of February, whence it was called the Peace
of Paris. Five days later, a peace was signed between Prussia and
Austria at Hubertsberg, in Saxony, to which Saxony, as the ally of
Austria, was a party. Indeed, when England and France, Russia and
Sweden, had withdrawn from the contest, there was little prospect of
the continuance of the war. Both parties were exhausted, and yet,
of the two, Frederick, in his dogged firmness, and in the almost
unparalleled endurance of his people, was more than a match for
Austria. If Maria Theresa could not cope with him when she had France,
Russia, Saxony, and Poland, all united with her to put him down, the
case was now hopeless. The English had stipulated that France should
evacuate all the places in Germany and Flanders that belonged to those
countries, and Frederick had easily induced the German states, in these
circumstances, to a maintenance of neutrality. Austria, therefore,
consented to this peace. She stood out the longest for the retention of
Glatz, the only place won from Frederick still in her hands, but she
was compelled to yield that, too. Both parties returned to the same
situations as before the commencement of this fatal Seven Years' War.
[Illustration: TEMPLE BAR IN 1800.]
Whilst this war was raging in Europe, and carrying its ramifications
to the most distant regions of the world, Clive and Eyre Coote were
extending the British Empire in India, and, in the case of Clive,
with as much ability as Frederick of Prussia showed in enlarging his
kingdom in Europe. Clive, in 1757, put down Surajah Dowlah, the Nabob
of Bengal, and in June of that year defeated him at Plassey with a mere
handful of men against his enormous host. He set up Surajah Dowlah's
General-in-chief, Meer Jaffier, and hailed him Nabob of Bengal, Orissa,
and Bahar. We claimed from Meer Jaffier two million seven hundred and
fifty thousand pounds as the share of the Company, the fleet, and
the army. Clive's own share was two hundred and fifty-four thousand
pounds, and the shares of the members of the committee ran from twenty
thousand to one hundred thousand pounds each. Besides this, it was
stipulated that the French factories and effects should be given up
to the English, and the French never again allowed to enter Bengal.
The territory surrounding Calcutta, within a given distance of the
town, was to be granted them on zemindary tenure, the company paying
the rent, like the other zemindars or landholders. Thus the British,
who were before merely the tenants of a factory, became in reality the
rulers of Bengal.
[Illustration: LORD BUTE AND THE LONDONERS. (_See p._ 175.)]
At this moment Meer Jaffier found it impossible to retain his seat
without the support of the English. Shah Allum, the eldest son of
the Great Mogul, was coming against him with a large army. Clive met
and defeated him, and for this service he received from his puppet a
jaghire, or domain worth twenty-seven thousand pounds a year.
Scarcely had Colonel Forde returned from this expedition, towards the
end of the year 1759, when the Dutch, envious of the English success,
sent an armament of seven men-of-war and one thousand four hundred
soldiers from Java. They landed on the Hooghly, and began committing
ravages; but Forde surprised and defeated them, taking every one of
their ships. They were glad to apologise, and pay the expenses of the
war. In February, 1760, a few weeks after these events, Clive, whose
health was failing, set sail for England, where he was received with
the highest éclat, and made an Irish peer, as Lord Clive, Baron of
Plassey. He soon after entered Parliament.
Our next great move was against the French in the Carnatic. After
various actions between the French and English in India during
the Seven Years' War, General Count de Lally, an officer of Irish
extraction, arrived at Pondicherry in April, 1758, with a force of
one thousand two hundred men. Lally attacked and took Fort St. David,
considered the strongest fort belonging to the East India Company, and
then, mustering all his forces, made his appearance, in December of
that year, before Madras. He had with him two thousand seven hundred
French and four thousand natives, whilst the English had in the town
four thousand troops only, of which more than half were sepoys. But
Captain Caillaud had marched with a small force from Trichinopoly,
which harassed the rear of the French. After making himself master of
the Black Town, and threatening to burn it down, he found it impossible
to compel Fort St. George to surrender, and, after a severe siege of
two months, on the appearance of Admiral Pococke's squadron, which had
sailed to Bombay for more troops, he decamped in the night of the 16th
of February, 1759, for Arcot, leaving behind him all his ammunition and
artillery, fifty-two pieces. Fresh combats took place between Pococke
and D'Aché at sea, and the forces on land. Colonel Brereton attempted
to take Wandewash, but failed; and it remained for Colonel Eyre Coote
to defeat Lally. Coote arrived at Madras on the 27th of October, and,
under his direction, Brereton succeeded in taking Wandewash on the
last of November. To recover this place, Lally marched with all his
force, supported by Bussy, but sustained a signal defeat on the 22nd
of January, 1760. Arcot, Trincomalee, and other places fell rapidly
into the hands of Colonel Coote. The French called in to their aid the
Nabob of Mysore, Hyder Ali, but to little purpose. Pondicherry was
invested on the 8th of December, and, on the 16th of January, 1761, it
surrendered, Lally and his troops, amounting to two thousand, remaining
prisoners. This was the termination of the real power of France in
India; for though Pondicherry was restored by the treaty of 1763, the
French never again recovered their ground there, and their East India
Company soon after was broken up. The unfortunate Lally on his return
to France was thrown into the Bastille, condemned for high treason, and
beheaded in the Place de Grève on the 9th of May, 1766.
The Earl of Bute became more and more unpopular. The conditions of the
peace were greatly disapproved, and the assurance that not only Bute,
but the king's mother and the Duke of Bedford, had received French
money for carrying the peace, was generally believed. The conduct of
Bute in surrounding the king with his creatures, in which he was joined
by the Princess of Wales, added much to the public odium. George was
always of a domestic and retiring character, and he was now rarely
seen, except when he went once or twice a-year to Parliament, or at
levees, which were cold, formal, and unfrequent. Though, probably,
the main cause of this was the natural disposition of himself and
queen, yet Bute and the princess got the credit of it. Then the manner
in which Bute paid his visits to the princess tended to confirm the
rumours of their guilty intimacy. He used always to go in an evening
in a sedan chair belonging to one of the ladies of the princess's
household, with the curtains drawn, and taking every other precaution
of not being seen. There were numbers of lampoons launched at the
favourite and the princess. They were compared to Queen Isabella and
Mortimer, and Wilkes actually wrote an ironical dedication of Ben
Jonson's play of "The Fall of Mortimer," to Bute.
All these causes of unpopularity were rendered more effective by the
powerful political party which now assailed him. Pitt led the way,
and the Dukes of Devonshire, Bolton, and Portland, the Marquis of
Rockingham, the Earls of Temple, Cornwallis, Albemarle, Ashburton,
Hardwicke, and Bessborough, Lords Spencer, Sondes, Grantham, and
Villiers, James Grenville, Sir George Savile, and other Whigs,
presented a formidable phalanx of opponents in both Houses. The
measures, too, which he was obliged to bring forward, were certain
to augment his discredit. The funded debt had grown to upwards of a
hundred millions, and there were three millions and a half besides
unfunded. It was necessary to raise a new loan, and, moreover, to
raise a new tax, for the income was unequal to the expenditure, even
in time of peace. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Dashwood, was not
a man likely to make these new burdens go down easily. He issued the
new loan to the public with so little advertisement, that the friends
of the Ministers secured the greater part of the shares, and they soon
rose to eleven per cent. premium, by which they were enabled, at the
public cost, to make heavy sums. The tax which Sir Francis proposed was
one on cider and perry, besides some additional duties on wines. There
was at once an outcry in the City against this tax, led on by the Lord
Mayor, Alderman Beckford, a great friend of Pitt. The cry was only too
sure to find a loud echo from the cider-growing districts. Bute and
his Chancellor were quickly compelled to reduce the proposed impost
from ten shillings a hogshead, to be paid by the buyer, that is, by the
merchant, to four shillings, to be paid by the grower. The tax thus cut
down was calculated to produce only seventy-five thousand pounds--a sum
for which it was scarcely worth while to incur so much odium.
The cider tax passed, opposed by thirty-nine Peers and a hundred and
twenty Commoners; but it left a very sore feeling in the western
counties, that cider, worth only five shillings a hogshead, the poor
man's meagre beverage, should have a tax levied on it nearly doubling
the price; whilst that at fifty shillings a hogshead, the rich man's
luxury, only paid the same. The growers even threatened to let the
apples fall and rot under the trees, rather than make them into
cider, subject to so partial a tax. No imposition had excited so
much indignation since Sir Robert Walpole's Excise Bill, in 1733. In
the cider counties bonfires were made in many places, and Bute was
burnt emblematically as a jack-boot--Jack Bute--and his supposed royal
mistress under that of a petticoat, which two articles, after being
carried about on poles, were hurled into the flames.
Instead of taking means to conciliate the public, Bute, stung by
these testimonies of dislike, and by the pamphlets and lampoons which
issued like swarms of wasps, revenged himself by others, which only
intensified the hatred against him. Still worse for him, he had caused
the Dukes of Newcastle and Grafton, and the Marquis of Rockingham, to
be dismissed from the Lord-Lieutenancies of their respective counties,
because they voted against the peace on Bute's terms. With a still more
petty rancour he had visited the sins of these noblemen on the persons
in small clerkships and other posts who had been recommended by them,
turning them all out. Sir Henry Fox joined him relentlessly in these
pitiful revenges, and would have carried them farther had he not been
checked by others.
For a time, Bute and his colleagues appeared to brave the load of
hatred and ignominy which was now piled everywhere upon them, but it
was telling; and suddenly, on the 7th of April, it was announced that
the obnoxious Minister had resigned. Many were the speculations on this
abrupt act, some attributing it to the influence of Wilkes, and his
remorseless attacks in the _North Briton_; others to the king and queen
having at length become sensitive on the assumed relations of Bute and
the king's mother; but Bute himself clearly stated the real and obvious
cause--want of support, either in or out of Parliament. "The ground,"
he wrote to a friend, "on which I tread is so hollow, that I am afraid
not only of falling myself, but of involving my royal master in my
ruin. It is time for me to retire."
George Grenville succeeded to both Bute and Dashwood, becoming first
Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the king
announced that he had intrusted the direction of affairs to him, and
the Lords Egremont and Halifax, the Secretaries of State, whence they
soon acquired the name of "The Triumvirate." The Duke of Bedford
quitted his post as ambassador at Paris, and was succeeded by the Earl
of Hertford. The Earl of Sandwich became head of the Admiralty, and
the Earl of Shelburne head of the Board of Trade. Old Marshal Ligonier
was removed from the post of Master of the Ordnance to make way for
the Marquis of Granby, but received a peerage. These changes being
completed, the king closed the Session of Parliament on the 19th of
April, with a speech, in which he declared the peace honourable to his
Crown, and beneficial to his people.
This avowal in the royal speech called forth John Wilkes in No. 45
of the _North Briton_, destined to become a famous number indeed.
Wilkes had ceased in the _North Briton_ to employ mere initials when
commenting on leading men in Parliament or Government; and he now
boldly declared that the speech put into the king's mouth by the
Ministers was false in its assertion, that the peace was neither
honourable to the Crown nor beneficial to the country. This was
regarded as a gross insult to his Majesty, though it was avowedly
declared to attack only the Ministry; and on the 30th of April Wilkes
was arrested upon a general warrant, that is, a warrant not mentioning
him or any one by name, but applying to the authors, printers, and
publishers of the paper in question. George Grenville, the new
Minister, had, of course, the credit of this proceeding; though it was
thought that Bute still secretly directed the movements of Government,
and that he or the king might be the real author of the order.
Wilkes entered the Tower in all the elation of spirits which the
occasion of acting the political hero inspired. He was soon visited by
the Dukes of Bolton and Grafton, and Lord Temple, who, as well as his
own friends, his solicitor, and counsel, were refused admittance. His
house was entered, and his papers were seized and examined by Wood,
the Under-Secretary of State, and Carteret Webb, the Solicitor to the
Treasury. On the 3rd of May Wilkes was conveyed to the Court of Common
Pleas, before Sir Charles Pratt, where his case was stated by Mr.
Serjeant Glynn, and then Wilkes himself made a speech of an hour long.
On the 6th of May he was brought up to hear the joint opinion of the
judges, which was that, though general warrants might not be strictly
illegal, the arrest of Wilkes could not be maintained, on account of
his privilege as a member of Parliament; that nothing short of treason
felony, and an actual breach of the peace, could interfere with that
privilege, and that a libel could not be termed a breach of the peace.
The judgment of the Bench, therefore, was that Mr. Wilkes be discharged
from his imprisonment.
The release of Wilkes by the Court of Common Pleas was a triumph over
Ministers, which, had they been wise, would have induced them to take
no further notice of him. They had only made a popular demigod of him.
The people, not only in London, but all over the country, celebrated
his exit from the Tower with the liveliest demonstrations, especially
in the cider districts, still smarting under the new tax, and where
they accordingly once more paraded the jack-boot and petticoat, adding
two effigies--one of Bute, dressed in a Scottish plaid and with a blue
ribbon, the other no less a person than the king, led by the nose by
Bute.
The English Government, instead of treating Wilkes with a dignified
indifference, was weak enough to show how deeply it was touched by him,
dismissed him from his commission of Colonel of the Buckinghamshire
Militia, and treated Lord Temple as an abettor of his, by depriving him
of the Lord-Lieutenancy of the same county, and striking his name from
the list of Privy Councillors, giving the Lord-Lieutenancy to Dashwood,
now Lord Le Despencer.
Meanwhile by the advice of Bute the king sent for Pitt. On the 27th
of August he had an audience of the king at Buckingham House. Pitt,
however, insisted on having in with him all, or nearly all, his old
colleagues, and this was too much for the king; whilst not to have
had them would have been too little for Pitt, who was too wise to
take office without efficient and congenial colleagues. The king,
nevertheless, did not openly object, but allowed Pitt to go away
with the impression that he would assent to his demands. This was
Saturday, and Pitt announced this belief to the Dukes of Devonshire
and Newcastle, and the Marquis of Rockingham. But on Sunday Grenville
had had an interview with the king, and finding that he considered
Pitt's terms too hard, had laboured successfully to confirm him in that
opinion. Accordingly, on Monday, at a second meeting, the king named
the Earl of Northumberland, Lord Halifax, and George Grenville, for
leading posts in the Cabinet, saying, "Poor George Grenville, he is
your near relation, and you once loved him." Pitt said that it would
not do, bowed and retired; the king saying, "My honour is concerned,
and I must support it."
Grenville, chagrined as he was, still clung to the Government, and
called in the Duke of Bedford as President of the Council, Lord
Sandwich as Secretary of State. Lord Hillsborough succeeded Lord
Shelburne at the Board of Trade. Such was the Government which was to
supersede the necessity of Pitt; Lord Chesterfield declaring that
they could not meet the Parliament, for that they had not a man in the
Commons who had either abilities or words enough to call a coach.
Parliament met on the 15th of November, and the very first object which
engaged the attention of both Houses was Wilkes. In such fiery haste
were Ministers, that Lord Sandwich, in the Peers, started up, before
the king's speech could be considered, and declared that he held in his
hand a most filthy and atrocious libel, written by Wilkes, called "An
Essay on Woman." Wilkes never had published the filth. He had written,
as it appeared, by the assistance of a profligate and now deceased son
of Archbishop Potter, this "Essay on Woman;" but he had never published
it. It had lain in his desk, and had only been read to two persons--one
of whom was Sandwich himself. When Wilkes, however, was driven to set
up a printing press in his own house, he had printed a dozen copies
of the "Essay on Woman," to give to his dissolute friends, whom he
used to meet at the Dilettanti Club, in Palace Yard. Sandwich, aware
of the existence of the essay, had bribed one of Wilkes's printers,
named Curry, to lend him a copy of it, and had paid him five guineas
as a guarantee for its safe return. The whole thing was a stupid
parody of Pope's "Essay on Man;" in which, instead of the inscription
to Bolingbroke, commencing "Awake, my St. John!" there appeared an
invocation beginning, "Awake, my Sandwich!" and there were also
ridiculous notes attributed to Warburton.
In the Commons, on the same day, Grenville delivered a message from the
Crown, announcing to the House the imprisonment of one of their members
during the recess. Wilkes immediately rose in his place, and complained
of the breach of that House's privilege in his person; of the entry
of his house, the breaking open of his desk, and the imprisonment of
his person--imprisonment pronounced by the highest legal authority to
be illegal, and therefore tyrannical. He moved that the House should
take the question of privilege into immediate consideration. On the
other hand, Lord North, who was a member of the Treasury board, and
Sir Fletcher Norton, Attorney-General, put in the depositions of the
printer and publisher, proving the authorship of No. 45 of the _North
Briton_ on Wilkes, and pressing for rigorous measures against him. A
warm debate ensued, in which Pitt opposed the proceedings to a certain
extent, declaring that he could never understand exactly what a libel
was. Notwithstanding, the Commons voted, by a large majority, that
No. 45 of the _North Briton_ was "a false, scandalous, and malicious
libel," tending to traitorous insurrection, and that it should be burnt
by the common hangman.
[Illustration: JOHN WILKES.]
The consequences were an intense excitement in favour of Wilkes, and
execration against the Commons. Wilkes was reported to be delirious,
and crowds collected in the streets before his house, calling for
vengeance on his murderers. Sandwich was especially denounced; in
return for his dragging forth the obscenity of Wilkes, his own
private life was ransacked for scandalous anecdotes, and they were
only too plentiful. Horace Walpole says that Sandwich's conduct to
Wilkes had brought forth such a catalogue of his own impurities
as was incredible. The "Beggar's Opera" being just then acted at
Covent Garden, when Macheath uttered the words, "That Jemmy Twitcher
should peach, I own surprises me!" the whole audience burst into most
tumultuous applause at the obvious application; and thenceforth Jemmy
Twitcher was the name by which Sandwich was more commonly known.
Still the affairs of Wilkes continued to occupy almost the sole thought
and interest of the Session. On the 23rd of November the question of
privilege came up; and though he was absent, having been wounded in a
duel, it was actively pushed by the Ministers. Mr. Wilbraham protested
against the discussion without the presence of Wilkes, and his being
heard at the bar in his defence. Pitt attended, though suffering
awfully from the gout, propped on crutches, and his very hands wrapped
in flannel. He maintained the question of privilege, but took care to
separate himself from Wilkes in it. The rest of the debate was violent
and personal, and ended in voting, by two hundred and fifty-eight
against one hundred and thirty-three, that the privilege of Parliament
did not extend to the publication of seditious libels; the resolution
ordering the _North Briton_ to be burnt by the hangman was confirmed.
These votes being sent up to the Lords, on the 25th they also debated
the question, and the Duke of Cumberland, Lord Shelburne, and the
Duke of Newcastle, defended the privilege of Parliament as violated
in the person of Wilkes. In the end, however, the Ministers obtained
a majority of a hundred and fourteen against thirty-eight. Seventeen
peers entered a strong protest against the decision. On the 1st of
December there was a conference of the two Houses, when they agreed to
a loyal address to the king, expressing their detestation of the libels
against him.
Simultaneously with these proceedings, the actions commenced by Wilkes,
and the printer, publishers, and others arrested under the general
warrant, were being tried in the Common Pleas. All the parties obtained
verdicts for damages, and that of Wilkes was for a thousand pounds.
Chief-Justice Pratt, strengthened by the verdicts, made a most decided
declaration of the illegality and unconstitutional nature of general
warrants.
As this excitement closed the old year, so it opened the new one. No
sooner did Parliament meet, after the Christmas recess, than, on the
17th of January, 1764, the order for Wilkes's attendance at the bar was
read. It was then found that he had thought it best to retire into
France. Still he did not hesitate to send over a medical certificate,
signed by one of the king's physicians and an army surgeon, affirming
that his wound was in such a condition that it was not safe for him to
leave Paris. The House of Commons paid no attention to the certificate,
but proceeded to examine evidence, and the famous No. 45 of the _North
Briton_; and after a violent debate, continuing till three o'clock in
the morning, passed a resolution that the paper in question contained
the grossest insults to his Majesty, to both Houses of Parliament, and
tended to traitorous insurrection against the Government. Accordingly,
the next day, he was formally expelled the House, and a new writ was
issued for Aylesbury.
On the 13th of February the Opposition in the Commons brought on the
question of the validity of general warrants. The debate continued
all that day and the next night till seven o'clock in the morning.
The motion was thrown out; but Sir William Meredith immediately made
another, that a general warrant for apprehending the authors, printers,
and publishers of a seditious libel is not warranted by law. The
combat was renewed, and Pitt made a tremendous speech, declaring that
if the House resisted Sir William Meredith's motion, they would be
the disgrace of the present age, and the reproach of posterity. He
upbraided Ministers with taking mean and petty vengeance on those who
did not agree with them, by dismissing them from office. This charge
Grenville had the effrontery to deny, though it was a notorious fact.
As the debate approached its close, the Ministers called in every
possible vote; "the sick, the lame were hurried into the House, so
that," says Horace Walpole, "you would have thought they had sent a
search warrant into every hospital for Members of Parliament." When
the division came, which was only for the adjournment of Meredith's
motion for a month, they only carried it by fourteen votes. In the City
there was a confident anticipation of the defeat of Ministers, and
materials had been got together for bonfires all over London, and for
illuminating the Monument. Temple was said to have faggots ready for
bonfires of his own.
Government, not content with expelling Wilkes from the House of
Commons, had commenced an action against him in the Court of King's
Bench, where they succeeded in obtaining a verdict against him for a
libel in the _North Briton_. Temple paid the costs, and the City of
London turned this defeat into a triumph, by presenting its freedom to
the Lord Chief Justice Pratt, for his bold and independent conduct in
declaring against the general warrants. They ordered his portrait to be
placed in Guildhall; and the example of London was followed by Dublin
and many other towns, who presented their freedom and gold snuff-boxes
to Pratt. The City of London also gave its thanks to its members for
their patriotic conduct.