Liberty,” a broadside consisting of two engraved designs, “The Return
of Liberty,” and “Liberty Revived,” with verses in praise of Wilkes and
reflecting adversely upon his antagonists. In the upper compartment
is shown the Court, or administrative faction, destroying the Temple
of Liberty (an allusion to Earl Temple), raised above the statue of
Wilkes, with the cap of liberty, as usual, elevated on the staff of
maintenance. Lord Bute trampling on Magna Charta, is foremost of the
destroyers who are wrecking the whole edifice, the very foundations
of which are being razed; the “Laird of Boot” is exclaiming, “Well
said, guid friends, down with the mighty _Temple_,” in allusion to the
protection and patronage that nobleman had already extended to Wilkes;
the Duke of Bedford, Lord North, and other ministers are aiding. The
second design shows “the Temple of Liberty built by John Wilkes,
A.D. 1762,” reinstated, “never to fall again.”

Nothing daunted by his defeat for the city of London, Wilkes at once
offered himself for the county of Middlesex. In his “Memoirs of the
Reign of George III.,” Walpole gives certain glimpses of the election
proceedings, which are as descriptive as a more detailed account:--

    “On the 23rd of March the Election began at Brentford; and
    while the irresolution of the Court and the carelessness of the
    Prime Minister, Grafton, caused a neglect of all precautions,
    the zeal of the populace had heated itself to a pitch of fury.”

The other candidates were Sir W. Beauchamp Proctor and Mr. Cooke, the
former members. Cooke, who had sat from 1750, was confined with the
gout; a relation, who appeared for him, was roughly handled. Amidst the
wrecking of carriages which ensued, that of Proctor did not escape the
attention of the roughs; it “was demolished by the mob.”

The coach-glasses of such as did not huzza for “Wilkes” and “Liberty”
were broken, the paint and varnish of chariots and coaches, met and
stopped for miles round, were spoiled by the mob--scratching them
with the favourite “45.” Lord Bute, generally the object of popular
disfavour, was denounced by an attack made on his residence, where the
mob broke his windows, as usual, but failed to effect an entrance; the
same unwelcome attention was paid to Lord Egremont’s, in Pall Mall, as
the chief signatory to the warrant for Wilkes’s committal. The Duke of
Northumberland had the honour of appearing, whether he would or no, of
being forced to supply the mob with liquor, and to drink with them to
Wilkes’s success. The demonstration assumed formidable proportions;
all the windows from West to East were illuminated to please the mob,
otherwise they were broken by the riotous “true loyal Britons and
friends of Liberty,” who performed some curious feats; some of the
regimental drummers, not the Scotch regiments it may be premised,
beating their drums for Wilkes. This astute diplomatist, finding his
election secure, very prudently dismissed his enthusiastic partisans,
such as the weavers, back to town, the polling[50] was ended, and by
the next morning quietude was resumed in the vicinity of Brentford.
Some of the incidents were particularly ludicrous, the mob going out of
the way to perpetuate the number of the _North Briton_ so objectionable
to the Court. The Austrian Ambassador, the Count de Seilern, described
by Horace Walpole in a letter to the Earl of Hertford as the most
stately and ceremonious of men, was obliged to get out of his coach,
and ignominiously held with his legs in the air while the figures “45”
were chalked on the soles of his shoes. This insult formed the grounds
of an official complaint. It was as difficult for the minister to help
laughing at the gravity of his representations as to redress the slight
offered to a friendly power in the person of its representative.

Wilkes was now master of the situation; all his expectations were
verified. Elated with success, his audacity enabled him to make the
most of his undeserved triumph, and assuming a tone which heaped
fresh mortifications upon the Court, he printed an address of
acknowledgment to his constituents, in which he invited them to give
him their instructions from time to time, and promised that he would
always defend their civic and religious rights. Although posing as
the champion of liberty, Wilkes’s parliamentary career was a dismal
failure; in the House he was of no account whatever.

It is interesting to note contemporaneous opinion on a point which is
so strongly distorted by partisanship that independent impressions
are rare. Dr. Franklin, whose genuine passion for liberty it must be
admitted was as absorbing and unaffected as Wilkes’s assumed patriotism
was shallow and self-serving, happened to be in London at the time
of the violent ferment occasioned by the Middlesex election in 1768.
Although lately returned from Paris, and himself, a citizen of the
land which complimented Paine, he thus unreservedly sums up the popular
candidate, together with the political agitation associated with his
pretensions.

    “’Tis really an extraordinary event to see an outlaw and
    exile of bad personal character, not worth a farthing, come
    over from France, set himself up as a candidate for the
    capital of the kingdom, miss his election only by being too
    late in his application, and immediately carrying it for the
    principal county. The mob, spirited up by numbers of different
    ballads, sung or roared in the streets, requiring gentlemen
    and ladies of all ranks as they passed in their carriages,
    to shout for ‘Wilkes and Liberty;’ marking the same words on
    their coaches with chalk, and ‘No. 45’ on every door, which
    extend a vast way along the roads into the country. I went
    last week to Winchester, and observed that for fifteen miles
    out of town there was scarcely a door or window-shutter next
    the road unmarked, and this continued here and there quite to
    Winchester, which is sixty-four miles.”

The day of Wilkes’s election appeared the portrait of “John Wilkes,
elected Knight of the Shire for Middlesex, March 28, 1768, by the free
voice of the people,” with, according to the allegorical taste of the
time, Hercules and Minerva as supporters, the latter crowning the elect
M.P. with a wreath, while the former tramples upon the serpent of Envy;
the genius of Liberty is holding the staff of maintenance, surmounted
by the cap of liberty (as invariably associated with Wilkes), and is
pointing to the portrait as her champion. Simultaneously appeared
an engraving commemorative of other incidents of the return from
Brentford, showing the valour of the chief magistrate of the city. The
guards on duty at St. James’s Palace had orders to be in readiness to
march at beat of drum to suppress any riots which might take place; it
has been described how certain drummers took to drumming for Wilkes,
while his sympathizers marched through Westminster to the city,
upsetting all in their way, chalking doors, breaking window-glass,
both in houses and carriages, inscribing vehicles and foot-passengers
impartially with “45.” “Wilkes and Liberty” was the cry, and woe to
those who did not join in shouting, for they, without further inquiry,
were promptly knocked down. In the city, the mob grew more outrageous,
the lord mayor being the Hon. Thomas Harley, who had been elected for
the city, at the top of the poll, when Wilkes, his name lowest on the
list, had been defeated ignominiously; moreover, the lord mayor was a
courtier, and was denounced subsequently in the _North Briton_ as “a
political gambler,” nor was the charge groundless. The mob accordingly
attacked the Mansion House and the lord mayor’s private residence
in Aldersgate Street; neither of these places being illuminated in
honour of Wilkes was a sufficient offence in the sight of the mob, who
proceeded to demolish the windows: every pane of glass was broken,
even to those of the lady mayoress’s bed-chamber. Then they erected
a gallows, on which was suspended a boot and petticoat to symbolize
the Princess of Wales, only too well-known, according to popular
clamour, in association with the Earl of Bute, the “Laird of the Boot”
thus indicated in close proximity; these suggestive emblems of hated
“secret influence” were also marked “45” for the nonce. The pictorial
satire evoked on this topic, “The Rape of the Petticoat” (March 28,
1768), exhibits the lord mayor making a sally from the Mansion House,
supported by constables armed with long staves; the chief magistrate
has himself seized the obnoxious boot and petticoat, amid the ridicule
and laughing resistance of the rabble, who are treating his lordship
to indignities. Below the design is inscribed, “He valiantly seiz’d
the Petticoat and Boot at the portal of his own Mansion.--_Daily
Advertiser._”

This loyal zeal was rewarded with signal favour. Harley was made a
councillor of State, and subsequently, through Lord Suffolk, obtained
a lucrative contract. To the impression of this print in the _Oxford
Magazine_ the following verses were added:--

    “Sing thou, my muse, the dire contested fray,
    Where Harley dar’d the dangers of the day;
    Propitious Day, that could at once create
    A Merchant Tailor[51] Councillor of State!
    A numerous multitude contriv’d to meet;
    And Halloo _Forty-Five_ thro’ every street;
    And (what’s incredible) were heard to cry
    Those words seditious, _Wilkes and Liberty_!
    On lofty standards in the air did float
    Those hieroglyphics ‘_Boot_ and _Petticoat_.’
    Soon as their dreadful shouts accost the ear
    Of grocer knights, and traders in small-beer,
    Confounded and amaz’d the Guildhall court
    Forget their custard, and forsake their port;
    Away, with ghastly looks, lo, Harley ran,
    And thus, in doleful plight, their dismal tale began:
    ‘Most honour’d, most belov’d, thou best of men!’

    Then from his mansion rush’d the val’rous chief,
    To serve his country, or to--take a thief:
    But more resolv’d to crush Rebellion’s root,
    And triumph o’er the Petticoat and Boot;
    In equal balance hung the fierce dispute
    Between the warlike Magistrate and Boot.
    The Boot and Petticoat at length gave way,
    And now remain the trophies of the day.”

On the 20th of April, Wilkes appeared before the Court of King’s
Bench, Westminster, of which event an engraving was published. On his
surrendering to his outlawry, the Attorney-General moved for Wilkes’s
commitment, but the judges refused to grant an order to that effect,
on the ground that he was not legally before the court; Wilkes then
left, accompanied by the plaudits of the spectators. “The Scot’s
Triumph; or, a Peep behind the Curtain” gives a further illustration of
this subject; this print, and another following, are announced in the
_Public Advertiser_:--

    “To Connoisseurs.--This day is published a satirical scratch
    in the style of Rembrandt, entitled The Scotch Triumph; with
    the representation of their amazing exploits in St. George’s
    Fields; the murder of the innocent, and the sacrifice of
    Liberty, by Molock; with some curious anecdotes.”

In the first version, Wilkes and his friends are driving to surrender
in state; their coach is about to crush a Scotch thistle by the way;
the mob have taken the horses from the vehicle and are dragging it
themselves on the road to the Bench; Wilkes is thus addressing his
vociferous supporters--“Gentlemen and Friends, let me beg you to
desist; I’m willing to submit to the laws of my country.”

All the leading political personages are introduced as spectators.
Lord Holland, an alleged adviser of Lord Bute, is observing, “We have
got him safe in a trap at last.” “Jemmy Twitcher” (Lord Sandwich) is
responding, “Yes, but I much doubt whether we shall be able to keep him
there.” On the 27th of April, Wilkes again came up for judgment, and
was then committed to the King’s Bench Prison. On his way thither, in
the custody of two tipstaffs of Lord Mansfield, the coach was stopped
by the people, a further popular demonstration was made, the horses
were removed, and the vehicle drawn through the city by an enthusiastic
crowd, the marshal’s deputies being invited to get out. He finally was
escorted to a public-house, the Three Tuns Tavern, in Spitalfields
(or Cornhill, according to Walpole’s account); from thence, after the
departure of his demonstrative admirers, Wilkes judged it prudent
to make his escape, and surrender himself again, this time at the
prison gates and to the marshal of the King’s Bench. When the news
of his incarceration reached the mob there was a fresh uproar; the
day following, the prison was surrounded, the palings enclosing the
footpath were torn up and made into a bonfire, and the inhabitants of
Southwark found themselves under the necessity, either of illuminating
their houses, or of taking the consequences; the mob dispersed on the
arrival of a small guard.

Meanwhile Sergeant Glynn was arguing before all the judges of the Court
of King’s Bench respecting the errors of Wilkes’s outlawry; while,
from his place of confinement, Wilkes next proceeded to address his
sympathizing constituents:--

“TO THE GENTLEMEN, CLERGY, AND FREEHOLDERS OF THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX.

    “GENTLEMEN,

    “In support of the liberties of this country against the
    arbitrary rule of ministers, I was before committed to the
    Tower, and am now sentenced to this prison. Steadiness,
    with, I hope, strength of mind, do not however leave me;
    for the same consolation follows me here, the consciousness
    of innocence, of having done my duty, and exerted all my
    abilities, not unsuccessfully, for this nation. I can submit
    even to far greater sufferings with cheerfulness, because I
    see that my countrymen reap the happy fruits of my labours
    and persecutions, by the repeated decisions of our Sovereign
    courts of justice in favour of liberty. I therefore bear up
    with fortitude, and even glory, that I am called to suffer in
    this cause, because I continue to find the noblest reward,
    the applause of my native country, of this great, free, and
    spirited people.

    “I chiefly regret, gentlemen, that this confinement deprives
    me of the honour of thanking you in person, according to my
    promise; and at present takes from me, in a great degree, the
    power of being useful to you. The will, however, to do every
    service to my constituents remains in its full force; and when
    my sufferings have a period, the first day I regain my liberty
    shall restore a life of zeal in the cause and interests of the
    county of Middlesex.

    “In this prison, in any other, in every place, my ruling
    passion will be the love of England and our free constitution.
    For those objects I will make every sacrifice. Under all the
    oppressions which ministerial rage and revenge can invent, my
    steady purpose is to concert with you, and other true friends
    of the country, the most probable means of rooting out the
    remains of arbitrary power and Star-chamber inquisition, and of
    improving as well as securing the generous plans of freedom,
    which were the boast of our ancestors, and I trust will remain
    the noblest inheritance of our posterity, the only genuine
    characteristic of Englishmen.

  “JOHN WILKES.

    “_King’s Bench Prison, May 5th, 1768._”

By this letter it will be seen that Wilkes chiefly appealed to what is
best described as clap-trap sensationalism; he continued, however,
to be the cause of constant apprehension, the military and other
authorities taking every precaution to preserve the peace of the
metropolis.

While Wilkes was kept a prisoner in the King’s Bench, the authorities
made demonstrations of resorting to armed force for the ostensible
purpose of preserving the peace of the metropolis, and, taught
precaution by the famous “45” demonstration which followed Wilkes’s
election for Middlesex, to check further rioting with firmness, which
unfortunately degenerated into ferocity.

Parliament met on the 10th of May, Lord Camden being now lord
chancellor. It seems the misconception had arisen that Wilkes’s
outlawry would be reversed, and that in any case he would be suffered
to attend the assembling of parliament. With the design of conveying
him thither in triumph, a great body of people were gathered at the
King’s Bench. Finding their expectations disappointed of seeing the
idol of the hour set at large and reinstated as “the tribune of the
people,” they demanded him at the prison, and grew very tumultuous;
whereupon the Riot Act was read by two justices of Surrey, but the
mob threw stones and brickbats while it was reading, when one of the
spectators, seeing other persons run, ran too, but was unhappily
singled out by a picket of the Scotch Guards, who broke their ranks--a
breach of military discipline--and followed him about five hundred
yards into a cowhouse, and there shot him dead. “Soon after this, the
crowd increasing, an additional number of the Guards was sent for, who
marched thither, and also a party of horse grenadiers (two regiments
had, it appears, been under arms in St. George’s Fields throughout the
disturbances), when, the riot continuing, the mob were fired on by the
soldiers, and five or six were killed on the spot, and about fifteen
wounded, among them being two women, one of whom subsequently died of
her wounds. She was, it appears, trying to move her oranges out of
danger. Another account says (_Gentleman’s Magazine_) several of the
people killed were passing along the road at a distance; and, later
on, it is said not one of the persons actually concerned in the rioting
were hurt by the firing. Several versions of the fatal affair appeared
immediately. The case of the inoffensive youth who was thus barbarously
slaughtered excited general sympathy; his name was William Allen, and
his father was master of the Horseshoe Inn and Livery Stables, Blackman
Street, Southwark. On the Scotch faction was heaped all the opprobrium
of this regretable transaction.”

Among others, appeared the illustration of “The Scotch Victory,” 1768;
on the wall of the outhouse, to which the lad had fled for shelter
when pursued, is “’45,” an allusion to the cruelties of the Highland
raid in 1745, as well as to the “XLV. North Briton.” Alexander Murray,
the officer, Donald Maclury, a corporal, and MacLaughlin, a grenadier,
are shown in the act of assassinating Allen. A halter which lies near
the feet of the soldiers and a sketch of a gallows and a man hanging
indicate the public sentiments on the matter. The letterpress is to
this effect:--

    “The monumental inscription on a tombstone erected over the
    grave of Mr. William Allen, junior, in the churchyard of St.
    Mary Newington, Surrey. ‘Sacred to the memory of William Allen,
    an Englishman of unspotted life and amiable disposition, who
    was inhumanly _murdered_ near St. George’s Fields, the 10th day
    of May, 1768, by Scottish detachments from the army.’

    “’Twas Grafton plann’d the horrors of that day;
      ’Twas Weymouth urg’d th’ enforcing his commands;
    ’Twas Barrington that gave th’ exciting pay,
      The price of blood flow’d through his guilty hands.”

The Duke of Grafton was first lord of the treasury. Viscount Weymouth,
afterwards Marquis of Bath, was one of the secretaries of state; he
had urged the advisability of calling out military aid to strengthen
the civil authority. Viscount Barrington was secretary at war. He had
thought proper to convey to the field-officer in command of the Foot
Guards the royal approval of the men’s behaviour.

[Illustration: “WILKES AND LIBERTY” RIOTS. THE SCOTCH VICTORY. MURDER
OF ALLEN BY A GRENADIER. MASSACRE OF ST. GEORGE’S FIELDS. 1768.

  [_Page 174._]

    He begged “that they may be assured that every possible
    regard shall be shown to them in return for their zeal and
    good conduct on this occasion,” “and in case any disagreeable
    circumstance should happen in the execution of their duty,
    they shall have every defence and protection that the law
    authorities, and this Office (the War) can give.”

Justice Gillam, who was the first to give the order to the third
regiment of Guards to fire on the people, was tried for the murder of
Redburn, a weaver; the judges acquitted him of all responsibility,
and complimented him on the humane manner in which he had exercised
his authority. Sergeant Glynn, Wilkes’s friend and adviser, was for
the prosecution. In the course of the evidence it appeared that there
had been assembled in St. George’s Fields a disorderly concourse,
where, after shouting “_Wilkes and Liberty_,” they made an attack on
the King’s Bench Prison, threw stones into the marshal’s house, and
at length burst open the outward gate of the prison, to the terror of
the keepers, who not only feared for the security of their prisoners,
but imagined their own lives were endangered; notwithstanding their
apprehensions, the keepers guarded the inner gates from the mob, so
that the rioters dispersed without effecting their purpose.

The marshal, anticipating another attack the day following, applied
to the magistrates for assistance, as shown in the foregoing. On the
10th of May, a larger mob assembled, repeating the cry of “Wilkes and
Liberty;” whereupon the magistrates began to expostulate with them. The
Riot Act was then read, and its intentions endeavoured to be explained.
The rabble hissed and hooted the soldiers, who endeavoured to scatter
them. At last, a stone struck Justice Gillam, and he ordered the
firing, though, as far as could be proved, there existed no absolute
necessity for this extreme measure. Gillam, who was exhibited to
ridicule as “Midas, the Surrey justice,” appears to have been most
unpopular, if not altogether unfit for the responsible position in
which he was placed; “the note sent to a bookseller by a magistrate” is
attributed to this hero: “Sir, Send me the ax Re Latin to a Gustus of
Pease.” On his trial, James Derbyshire, a bookseller, deposed that Mr.
Gillam said publicly in the hearing of the soldiers, “_that his orders
from the ministry were, that some men must be killed, and that it were
better to kill five and twenty to-day than one hundred to-morrow_.”
According to the Rev. John Horne (afterwards Tooke, and known to fame
as the “Brentford Parson”), who was present at the riot, it was he who
procured the warrant for the arrest of the soldiers. The trial did not
take place until the 9th of August. Witnesses appeared against Donald
Maclury, who was charged with firing the fatal shot; it was Maclury
(or M’Laury) who said “Damn him, that’s him, shoot him.” Mr. Allen’s
ostler declared that when Allen fell, after the prisoner had fired,
Maclury said, “Damn it, it is a good shot.” On his way to gaol, the day
after the murder, it was proved Maclury acknowledged “that what they
had done was in consequence of orders, and he hoped they should obtain
mercy.” The defence was that MacLaughlin, a grenadier, acknowledged to
Mr. Gillam and six soldiers that it was he who shot Allen, and _that
his piece went off by accident_. He had since deserted, and, it was
openly stated in the papers, received one shilling a day to keep out
of the way. The verdict was “not guilty;” and it was admitted that, in
order to save the life of the soldier, who was liable for murder, it
had “been found necessary to suffer the prosecutors to persist in their
mistake in apprehending and impeaching an innocent man, and in the mean
time giving the grenadier who actually fired the gun an opportunity
to escape.” Both soldiers were charged at the King’s Bench, when, by
arrangement, the guilty man was admitted to bail, to be smuggled out of
harm’s way; “the other was remanded back to prison as the person who
actually shot the lad,” according to the proceedings, May 16, 1768.

Another version of the “Scotch Victory,” with the rebus of the
jack-boot standing under a petticoat, and enclosed by Scotch thistles,
forms part of a mock dedication: “To the Earl of (Bute), Protector of
our Liberties, this plate is humbly inscribed by F. Junius Brutus.”

“The Operation,” a frontispiece to the _Political Register_ for June,
1768, shows Lord Bute stabbing Britannia with a dagger, while the
ministers already mentioned in association with the death of Allen are
catching the blood which flows from her wounds:--

    “The Blood of Vitals from her wounds he drew,
    And fed the Hounds that help’d him to pursue.”

  (DRYDEN.)

The _Oxford Magazine_ for 1769 gives an engraving of the monument
finally erected over the grave of Mr. Allen, junior. It represents
an altar tomb enclosed by iron rails: on one side is introduced
the reprobated Scotch thistle, with the legend, “Murder screen’d
and rewarded;” on the other side is shown a Scotch soldier of the
third regiment of Foot Guards, evidently intended for the murderous
MacLaughlin, approaching and pointing to the inscription on the tomb,
exclaiming, “I have obtain’d a pension of a shilling a day, only for
putting an end to thy days!”

CHAPTER VII.

MIDDLESEX ELECTIONS, 1768-9.

Within a month of his return died George Cooke, the Tory colleague
of Wilkes in the representation of Middlesex, who had sat from 1750;
he was prothonotary of the Court of Common Pleas, one of the joint
paymasters of the forces, and colonel of the Middlesex Militia.
Consequent on his decease a seat for the county was to be contested
in December, 1768, and the public were indulged with another exciting
struggle at the Brentford hustings. The candidates were John Glynn, the
friend and advocate of Wilkes, and Sir William Beauchamp Proctor, the
candidate defeated in the previous election. The superheated state of
popular feeling had not had time to cool down; moreover, Wilkes, the
chosen of the electors, was a prisoner. Both parties on this occasion
seem to have resorted to terrorism; mutual recriminations as to the
hiring of ruffians and bludgeon-men were made during the inquiries into
the disturbances which ensued. A view of the situation, “Scene at the
Brentford Hustings,” 1768, exhibits the violent and brutal behaviour
of mercenaries in the pay of Proctor’s faction--chiefly reckless
bullies, according to the engraving of the Brentford election. Females
are beaten causelessly; a fruit-stall is wrecked, and a respectably
attired person is taking advantage of the confusion to help himself
from the stock, whilst the proprietress is wantonly beaten with a
heavy cudgel; the legion of bludgeons is enlisted in the cause
of “Liberty and Proctor;” a hero whose head is shaven, and who is
evidently a professional pugilist of the Figg and Broughton type, is
made to exclaim, “For a guinea a day; damn Glynn and all his friends.”
Other beaters--chairmen, linkmen, and the like--are driving all before
them, and carrying the hustings by assault, demanding, “Bring down
the poll-book--Proctor shall be the man.” The scattered remnants of
a rival mob are retiring; one of these is exclaiming, “D---- ye, you
dogs--we’ll match you all presently.”

[Illustration: THE HUSTINGS AT BRENTFORD, MIDDLESEX ELECTION, 1768.
SERJEANT GLYNN AND SIR W. BEAUCHAMP PROCTOR.

  [_Page 178._]

The _Oxford Magazine_ (vol. i.) has printed the correspondence which
ensued upon the disgraceful violence and the attack on the hustings,
in which several persons were injured and at least one fatally. The
candidate ultimately returned, John Glynn, began by addressing a
“Letter to the Freeholders of Middlesex,” pledging himself that the
blood of his constituents so wantonly shed should be vindicated, and
the charge brought home both to the hired and the hirers--“the more
exalted their stations and the more privileged their persons, the
louder is the call for justice.” The serjeant continues, “The freedom
of a county election is the last sacred privilege we have left; and
it does not become any honest Englishman to wish to survive it. There
is virtue still left in the country; we are come to a crisis, and the
consequence of this struggle shall determine whether we shall be Slaves
or Free.”

Following suit, Sir W. Beauchamp Proctor also addressed a letter to the
freeholders of Middlesex, rebutting the charges made against him. After
referring to twenty years, during which, by fair and honourable means,
he had endeavoured to obtain their esteem,--

    “Calumniated as I have been during a long-depending canvass,
    I was in hopes that every topic of defamation had been
    exhausted; and I never expected that the daring and tumultuous
    interruption of last Tuesday’s poll would have been ascribed to
    me in so illiberal and inflammatory a style as my antagonist
    has thought proper to use. For his conduct in the course of
    this business the serjeant appeals to me, and I appeal to the
    sense of mankind, whether a _band of writers_ has not been
    let loose to be the _assassins of my reputation_? whether the
    serjeant has not, in a manner unworthy of a gentleman and a
    lawyer, exerted every effort to set up _usage_ in opposition to
    the law of the land, and endeavoured in a dictatorial manner
    to compel the sheriffs to close the poll in one day, to the
    prejudice of the electors, and in violation of the authority
    vested in the returning officers, by the wisdom of the
    legislature.”

Proctor declared that he was not only struck by “the banditti,” but in
the utmost peril of his life.

    “If a signal was given,--if _Proctor and Liberty_ appeared in
    the hats of the ruffians, how that might be contrived by the
    election arts of my adversaries need not now be mentioned. It
    was the opinion of my counsel, when a riot was artfully talked
    of by my opponents, _above an hour_ before it happened, that
    the sheriffs in that case should resort immediately to the
    protection of parliament.” Finally, he expressed hopes “to
    bring this dark transaction into open daylight, and to show the
    world who has been the man of blood;” moreover, the writer “has
    full confidence that on the last day of the poll lawless men
    will not again dare to invade the rights of the freeholders.”

The disavowal, which “doth protest too much” as published by Proctor,
goaded the virtuous indignation of the friends of freedom up to fever
heat, and acted like a red rag on an infuriated bull in the instance
of John Horne (Tooke), “the Brentford parson;” he addressed a scathing
philippic to Proctor, declaring that Sir William’s refutations
“subscribed his own guilt, and that the Court candidate had signed his
name to a lie:”--

    “I here declare in form, that you, Sir William Beauchamp
    Proctor, did both hire and cause to be hired, that mob
    which committed the outrages at Brentford; that mob, which
    immediately after the total interruption of the poll, demanded
    which was the house that belonged to the parson of Brentford;
    and to whose fury a neighbouring clergyman, who heard them ask
    after my house, was apprehensive of falling a sacrifice, by the
    mistake of a person who called himself by my name. Boast of
    your humanity, Sir William, to Captain Read; that gentleman,
    to save his own life, declared himself your friend. Persuade
    Mr. Allen they were not your mob; that gentleman brought you to
    the side of the hustings where they were, and heard them answer
    to his question, and to your face, that you, Sir W. Beauchamp
    Proctor, were the person that gave them orders for what they
    were about.”

As to the “band of writers,” Parson Horne frankly avowed himself the
author of most of the letters that appeared against Proctor in the
papers, and concluded with a stinging reference to those “new-fashioned
constables,” as Sir John Fielding termed the hireling bullies.

    “Where you endeavour to justify your proceedings by the usage
    of all contested popular elections, and where you affect
    to consider your hired ruffians, the Irish chairmen, as
    ‘assistants to the civil magistrates.’ The business of the
    approaching poll prevents my saying half what I have to tell
    you; but I promise you, you shall hear from me again and again,
    if you will please to issue out your orders to your ruffians to
    grant me a _Reprieve_ till after the election.”

The main features of this ill-advised attack, which, it was believed,
was intended to put an end to the election should the polling prove
adverse to the party in whose pay the hired mob acted, are given in the
_Oxford Magazine_:--

    “Thursday, Dec. 8, 1768. This day being appointed for the
    Middlesex election, the candidates appeared on the hustings
    at ten minutes before nine. Notwithstanding this, the opening
    of the poll was delayed till near eleven. One of the narrow
    avenues leading to Brentford butts was occupied very early
    by a hired mob, with bludgeons, bearing favours in their
    hats, inscribed, ‘Proctor and Liberty.’ A much larger, but
    very compact body, armed as the former, and with the same
    distinctions, were placed near the hustings, on an eminence,
    and in a disposition which was evidently the arrangement of an
    experienced sergeant. The rest of these banditti were stationed
    in different quarters of the town, to strike a general terror
    into the honest part of the freeholders; there was besides a
    ‘corps de reserve’ which was to sally forth on a signal given.

    “When these dispositions were secured, a chosen party of
    butchers, in the same interest, traversed the town, and
    insulted the hustings with marrow-bones and cleavers. When Sir
    William Beauchamp Proctor’s numbers were nearly exhausted, and
    the course of the Poll declared decisively for Mr. Serjeant
    Glynn, who had still great multitudes unpolled, the signal
    was given. An instantaneous and furious, but regular attack,
    was made on the hustings. The sheriffs, the candidates (Glynn
    declares himself as having been the last to depart), the
    clerks, and the poll-books, all vanished in a moment.

    “The whole town was presently a scene of blood. It was not
    enough to knock down an unhappy man; the blow was followed till
    he was utterly disabled. Those who have been exposed to riots
    declare they never saw such cruelty. All doors and windows were
    barricaded. There was no shelter, nothing was safe; nor can
    anything equal the consternation of the frightened people but
    the abhorrence and execration with which every tongue repeats
    the name of Proctor.

    “It appears from every account of the above proceedings, that
    the people who began the riot there were the friends of the
    court candidate; and, in particular, it is affirmed that when
    the Irish chairmen, and the professed bruisers at their head,
    had proceeded so far in their cruel and villainous intention of
    murdering and wounding the people, that the gentlemen upon the
    hustings began to be in danger of their lives,--one gentleman
    went up to the court candidate, and expostulated with him on
    the base conduct of _his mob_. ‘My mob!’ replied the courtier.
    ‘Yes, sir, _your mob_!’ and the gentleman added, ‘Sir, I insist
    upon your speaking to those fellows who are knocking down the
    people there.’ But the courtier refused to say anything to
    appease their fury; upon which the gentleman who had spoken
    to him, finding himself in danger of his life, seized him by
    the greatcoat, and showed his star to the armed ruffians,
    who instantly took off their hats and huzza’d him; while the
    ruffians were thus huzzaing, the gentleman escaped.”

When the mob had cleared the hustings, they went into the town
of Brentford, and attacked the Castle Inn, which was one of the
candidate’s houses of entertainment, and did considerable damage to it.
The inhabitants of the town, observing this mischief, and beginning to
fear their own houses would next be destroyed,--

    “a general indignation took place: they sallied forth, attacked
    the rioters with great spirit, and drove them out of the town;
    and some of the voters vented their rage upon one or two of the
    houses opened for the other candidate. A number of persons with
    Proctor’s cockades in their hats assembled about ‘The Angel
    Inn’ at Islington in a riotous manner, armed with bludgeons.”

These well-paid hirelings were the worse for their potations, and, with
the ringleader, were taken into custody.

It seems to have been a generally recognized stratagem imported into
election tactics, where, as in war, nothing was considered “unfair,” to
get freeholders locked up on some fictitious pretence, such as false
writs, actions, summonses, or impounded as witnesses at trials, etc.;
where the principal never appeared, and the hearing never came on,
while the victims “to error” were detained in durance until after the
poll was finished. On the occasion under consideration, it appeared
that a number of freeholders were particularly summoned as jurymen,
to prevent their voting for the popular candidate; this manœuvre was
defeated, as concerned the Old Bailey, where the lord mayor, Turner,
behaved in a truly patriotic manner.

    “When the jury was called, his Lordship asked them, upon their
    honour, if any of them were freeholders of Middlesex; it
    appeared that about eighteen of them were so (specially called
    in order that their votes might be lost), on which his Lordship
    immediately dismissed them, that they might not be hindered
    from discharging their duty at Brentford.”

    “Richard Dingham maketh oath that ‘the morning after the
    meeting of Sir William Beauchamp Proctor, at St. Giles’s, he
    saw four link-lighters named Welch, Hinton, Brady, and Quinn,
    disputing about some money they had received from Sir William,
    and they said that they had signed an agreement to go down,
    with several others, to Brentford on the day of Election to
    head a mob, and to put an end to the said Election, when they
    should receive orders, etc.’”

In the interval, and during the progress of the election, several men
were committed to prison, including a chairman recognized as having
acted as a leader, who was known as the “Infant,” being, in fact, a
Hercules over six feet high; the true facts of the case came out upon
examination, and, before the close of the poll, four affidavits were
published in the papers, the tenour of which went to prove criminal
complicity.

    “Atkinson Bush maketh oath that he was at Brentford on the day
    of the election, and seeing a large body of men with labels in
    their hats, whereon was written, ‘Proctor and Liberty,’ this
    deponent asked them whether they were all voters for Proctor?
    upon which they declared they had no votes, but had in their
    hands what was as good, and showed him their bludgeons; and
    being asked who they supposed would get the election, they
    replied Proctor, swearing, if Glynn got the advantage, ‘By
    G----, we will have his blood!”

Broughton, the notorious pugilist, happened to find congenial
occupation, having been selected as a temporary generalissimo of the
forces, with special recruiting powers as to the enlistment of his
desperadoes.

    “William Wheeler, Joyce, Davis, and other chairmen made oath
    that they, with about forty of their order, were engaged
    by Broughton, on the promise of a guinea a day each, for
    the like purpose of putting an end to the election when the
    signal should be given, and, according to the account of the
    deponents, all the parties mentioned appeared at Brentford.”

On the next day (December 14), the poll for the election of a knight of
the shire for the county of Middlesex was peacefully concluded in the
presence of the sheriffs and the justices of the peace of the county,
attended by the constables to suppress any further demonstrations.
At the close, the numbers stood, for Serjeant Glynn, 1542; Sir W. B.
Proctor, 1278. It was said, “that the number polled on this occasion
exceeded by forty-two the greatest number ever known to poll at any
previous election.”

The contest had been an expensive one; it was declared that Proctor
and his party had been canvassing for six months; and, as an instance
of the cost attending the election of a knight of the shire, it is
set down as worthy of remark that the ribbons for hats alone, _i.e._
“favours,” to distinguish Glynn’s friends, cost four hundred pounds;
the outlay of the Court candidate must have been excessively heavy.

    “The populace in general, and the people of Brentford in
    particular, were very desirous to chair Mr. Serjeant Glynn
    after the sheriffs had declared his election; but he very
    politely entreated them to decline it, which, after much
    solicitation, they complied with.”

In the letter of acknowledgment addressed to his supporters in the
county of Middlesex, the serjeant declares--

    “As my private advantage and honour were by no means the
    motives of your exertions in my behalf, so neither shall
    they be the objects of my actions. I consider the choice
    you have made of me for your representative as the most
    authentic declaration of your abhorrence of those arbitrary
    and oppressive measures which have too long disgraced the
    administration of these kingdoms, and which, if pursued, cannot
    fail to destroy our most excellent constitution.

    “I hope that your example will lead other counties also to
    assert their independence, and that the sacred flame of
    liberty, which always ascends, will reach at length the higher
    orders of this nation, and warm them likewise to a disdain of
    offering or accepting the wages of corruption.”

John Horne Tooke was only second to the successful candidate in the
eulogiums showered on his name and conduct at this emergency. A
portrait of “the parson of Brentford” was published, representing him
in his clerical guise, at full length, seated in his study at a table,
with his right arm resting on his “Treatise on Enclosing Commons,
addressed to Sir Jno. Gibbins,” an essay which brought him an unusually
handsome acknowledgment; in his other hand is a reference to his
late correspondence with the defeated ministerial candidate--a paper
inscribed, “Mobs made after the Court Fashion, by B. Proctor, Milliner
of Brentford.”

Parson Horne wears a singular wig, with the sides in what has been
described as a “cornuted”[52] roll,--as peculiar as that affected by
his friend Wilkes, to whom he bears a further resemblance from the
obliquity of his eyes, his right eye having been blind, and fixed in
its orbit.

The “Parson of Brentford” appears in the _Oxford Magazine_; it is
evident that Horne’s parliamentary aspirations were talked of at this
time, for opposite to the portrait is printed an “Extempore,--on the
report that a certain Clergyman has a view on a seat in the House of
Commons.”

    “And is it true, and can it be?
      Does Freedom so inflame him?
    Exalt the _Horne_ of Liberty;
      No minister shall tame him.
    Grant Heaven, we see it prove no jest,
      But find, ere next November,
    The man who makes a Patriot priest,
      Become a Righteous Member.”

A copy of verses, with a quotation, “Templum Libertatis,” due to the
pen of _Phileleutheros Oxoniensis_, confronts the copperplate portrait
of Parson Horne:--

“TO THE REV. JOHN HORNE, MINISTER OF BRENTFORD.

    “O, sent by Heav’n in these dishonest days
    In ev’ry breast to kindle Freedom’s blaze,
    To snatch the cov’ring from the statesman’s heart,
    And awful truths, without a fear, impart!
    Tho’ ministerial thunders round thee roll,
    They roll in vain, nor shock thy manly soul:
    Thy country’s rights thy midnight labours claim,
    And with a Sidney’s join thy honour’d name.
    Superior thou to every threat shalt rise,
    And from the hands of rapine wrest her prize.
    Thy pen shall Vice in all her wiles reveal,
    And trembling Graftons[53] shall its vengeance feel.
    Nor shall the murd’rer, foe to man and God,
    Tho’ sav’d by power, escape thy painful rod;
    Nor shall corruption, unmolested stand,
    Sap all our rights, and sink a venal land;
    True to thy conscience, to thy country true,
    Thou shalt detect and dash her conquests too.
    Proctor shalt, blushing, all his failings own,
    Sigh o’er his loss, and o’er his triumphs groan;
    His hir’d assassins fill his breast with shame,
    And trembling own the terror of thy name.
    Proceed, great Sir, in Freedom’s glorious cause,
    O! save thy country and thy country’s laws!
    The wiles of Statesmen without fear disclose,
    And be a foe to all thy country’s foes.
    So shall thy friend,[54] who in confinement sighs,
    Smile in his pains, and great in suffr’ing rise:
    In health, an honest patriot own in thee,
    And, dying, joy to leave his country FREE.”

As in the previous election, there was a charge of murder, which arose
out of the irregularities then committed, and two Irish chairmen, Balfe
and McQuirk, were tried for the death of Mr. George Clarke, “a young
gentleman of the law, whom curiosity had brought to Brentford at the
late election.” References to this incident are given in the satirical
prints and magazines, together with the usual report of the trial of
the malefactors. “The Present State of Surgery; or, Modern Practice”
(Dec. 14, 1768), appeared in the _Universal Magazine_, vol. v. (April,
1769). This engraving shows Mr. Clarke, whose skull was fatally
injured by a blow from a bludgeon, placed between two doctors, who are
examining his head: one, a surgeon, is declaring, “If the fever does
not kill him, contusions and fractures are nothing;” the other is of
opinion, “A court plaister will remove the disorder.” One of a group of
surgeons is inquiring of the senior, “Shall we apply the trepan, sir?”
“A Glyster” is proposed as likely to “evacuate the broken pieces of
bone.” The authors of the mischief, or some of the Irish bludgeon men,
are standing by, and discussing the case: “The doctor says a broken
skull’s nothing if they can but cure the fever.” His companion replies,
“Thank God, we need not fear being knock’d on the head then!” A
bystander is remarking, “I catch’d a fever from a bludgeon at Brentford
myself”--many persons besides Clarke having complained of maltreatment
during these riots. “Ay, they were deadly wise at the Election time,”
is the opinion of another. A spectator ejaculates, “I wish those Irish
dogs had kept the distemper to themselves--it’s worse than the Itch!” a
double-barrelled allusion to the two trials for wilful murder which had
arisen out of the successive Middlesex elections--the Irish chairmen
who were the cause of Clarke’s death, and the Scotch soldiers who
killed Allen. The contusion proved fatal; after languishing a few days
the unfortunate young gentleman succumbed.

The trial of the two chairmen, Balfe and McQuirk, came on at the Old
Bailey, January 14, 1769, and though the prisoners were provided
with an array of learned counsellors, to the number of five, for
their defence, they were pronounced “guilty,” and sentenced to
transportation. An appeal was made to arrest judgment, but it was
overruled, and the sentences ordered to be executed. Court influence,
in the interval, procured a respite, and the men ultimately received
a royal pardon, signed by Lord Rochford, secretary of state, which
produced severe animadversions; see “Junius to the Duke of Grafton,”
and the notes to this letter by John Wade (Edin. 1850). In the
_Political Register_ (IV.) is a copy of the document setting Balfe
and McQuirk free. Meanwhile the College of Surgeons was consulted, to
exonerate the guilty, to the dissatisfaction of the public.

    “It is said that on a late chirurgical examination, there was
    the greatest privacy imaginable supported; not only several
    young surgeons (who, being advertised of the meeting, went
    there for the sake of instruction) were denied admittance, but
    there were two sentinels on the outside of the door to prevent
    any person from listening. Strange inquisitorial proceedings!”

On Monday, the master, wardens, and examiners of the Surgeons’ Company,
ten in number, of whom five had appointments under administration,
the president being one, and consequently holding the casting-vote
(three of the committee actually held at that time appointments of
“sergeant-surgeon” to the king, and another was surgeon to the Dowager
Princess of Wales, his mother), met at their hall in the Old Bailey, in
pursuance of a letter from the Earl of Rochford, one of His Majesty’s
principal secretaries of state, desiring their opinion in relation to
a doubt that had arisen whether the blow which Mr. Clarke received at
the election at Brentford was the cause of his death; and the above
gentlemen, after examining the surgeons, apothecary, and several
others (_in camera_, as alleged), returned an answer the same evening
to his lordship, giving it as their unanimous opinion, that the blow
was not the cause of Mr. Clarke’s death. A satirical print, given in
the _Oxford Magazine_ as “A Consultation of Surgeons” (Feb. 27, 1769),
exhibits the supposititious explanation of the inquiry and verdict.
The surgeons are grouped round a table, on which are pens and ink. The
president is pointing to the decision of the conclave, set down to
order for Lord Rochford--“It does not appear that he died----” At the
same time a large and well-filled bag of money, held up temptingly in
the president’s right hand, appears the most conclusive evidence before
the corporation. The chairman observes, “This [the money] convinces
me that Clarke did not die of the wound he received at Brentford.”
A Scotch surgeon is asserting, “By my Soul, his head was too thick
to be broken, or he would ne’er ha’ gang’d to Brentford.” The next
speaker, regarding the weighty motive in the president’s charge, avers,
“Another such bag would convince me Clarke never received any blow.” A
surgeon, with his gold-headed cane to his nose, is convinced, “Gold is
good evidence, and carries great weight.” In reference to the surgeon
Foot, who, called in at the time, deposed at the trial that Clarke
died of the blow on head, but was of opinion that his life might have
been saved by judicious treatment, one of the consulting body, rising
from his seat, is declaring, “Devil burn me, but that same surgeon
was a blockhead; how should a Foot be able to judge of the Head?” The
verdict of the College of Surgeons excited popular disgust, and various
reflections were cast upon the method by which it was arrived at. The
following appeared in the _Public Ledger_ (April 13, 1769):--

    “It is confidently repeated, that while a certain party of
    gentlemen were assembled together, in order to consult about
    vindicating themselves against Mr. Foot’s appeal, the ghost of
    Mr. Clarke appeared, and behaved in a most gross and insulting
    manner to the whole committee, which so terrified them all,
    that they have been very ill ever since, and it is thought some
    will not recover.”

Considerable interest attaches to the struggle in question, which made
Wilkes a hero for a while. It was a time of trial as regarded the
inviolability of the constitution. The ministers, safe in their bought
majority in the Commons, ready to vote mechanically, seemed utterly
callous as to the consequences of those infractions they were making
on national liberties, presumably secured on an unassailable basis.
The more impartial-minded of the people began to dread the attempted
revival of despotic and irresponsible government and of those evils
which had been guarded against by great exertions, firmness, and no
slight sacrifices in the past. The spirit of resistance was abroad,
and ministers for their own purposes disguised by every means the true
condition of affairs from the head of the State. As the violation of
popular liberties recalled the struggles which marked the later Stuart
era, so were the means taken to resist these encroachments compared
to the conduct of the people and their tribunes under the same trying
circumstances. Petitions and remonstrances began to make ministers
tremble lest the sympathies of the throne might be turned to their
proper channel, the people.

Another election for Middlesex occurred in 1769, _vice_ Wilkes; the
results were that Wilkes was returned at the head of the poll, while
his opponent (with a quarter of his votes) was declared duly elected.
On the subject of Colonel Luttrell’s admission to the House much
was said which must have been unpalatable to the Court. The _Oxford
Magazine_ printed a list of those members who were so patriotically
inclined as to resist this brazen violation of the constitution,
as “the Minority who voted 1148 in preference to 296;” while those
members who servilely voted for the right of the ministers to impose
a defeated candidate on the Commons were described as “the Majority
who preferred 296 to 1143.” A list is given of these placemen,
pensioners, and courtiers, with particulars against their respective
names which account for their lack of principle, all being in receipt
of State patronage, or emolument of one kind or another, sufficient to
prove that self-interest was their guiding principle, and that their
consciences were closed by the greed of preferment. The despotic action
enforced by the administration, in defiance of the principles of the
constitution,--a common practice in the reign of George III.,--provoked
a very pertinent disquisition upon the potentiality of the bulwark of
popular rights. The great Lord Bacon, somewhere talking of the power
of parliaments, says, there is nothing which a parliament cannot do;
and he had reason. A parliament can revive or abrogate old laws,
and make new ones; settle the succession to the Crown; impose taxes;
establish forms of religion; naturalize foreigners; dissolve marriages;
legitimate bastards; attaint a man of treason, etc. Lord Bolingbroke,
indeed, is of a different opinion, and affirms there is something which
a parliament cannot do: it cannot annul the constitution; and that if
it should attempt to annul the constitution, the whole body of the
people would have a right to resist it. It is natural, too, to think
that Lord Bacon limited the power of parliament, great as he believed
it, to those things which do not imply a physical impossibility.
Modern ministers, however, have shown that a parliament is able, at
least in appearance, to effect even such impossibilities. Sir Robert
Walpole was wont to boast that he had “trained his fellows,” as he
called his venal majority in the House of Commons, “in such a manner,
and brought them to such exact discipline, that were he to desire them
to vote Jesus Christ a Gildon” (_i.e._ the head of an infidel sect,
Gildon being a deistical writer in Walpole’s day) “he was sure of their
compliance.” The ministry then in office (the Grafton administration),
as will appear by the list referred to above, had assumed a power no
less arbitrary and equally unreasonable, by persuading their servile
majority to vote in defiance of the constitution on the question of
Colonel Luttrell’s qualifications to sit in the Commons--that the 296
suffrages (recorded for Luttrell) were preferable to the 1143 polled
for Wilkes.

The ministerial conduct on the case of Wilkes and upon the events
arising therefrom, joined with their ill-advised manœuvres on behalf
of their own chosen candidates, produced a marked effect on the
constituencies elsewhere, and, as Horace Walpole writes to his friend,
Sir H. Mann (March 23, 1769), towns began to break off from their
allegiance to the administration in power, and sent instructions
to their members to oppose the measures of the Court party. “As
the session approached, Lord Chatham engaged with a new warmth in
promoting petitions.” In opposition alike to the “Remonstrances,”
and to those who questioned the policy of turning a deaf ear to the
petitions of the nation--loyal to the throne, but earnestly set upon
the reform of abuses and the extinction of “grievances,”--the ministers
encouraged their adherents to secure addresses approving their acts,
and praying the throne to disregard petitions for rights. The public
prints satirized these servile expressions, manufactured to order,
while the wits and caricaturists mercilessly exposed the _modus
operandi_ of fabricating these illegitimate addresses. According to
Horace Walpole, Calcraft and Sir John Mawbey “by zeal and activity
obtained a petition from the county of Essex, though neither the High
Sheriff, the members, nor any one gentleman of the county would attend
the meeting.” It was the old story of the Essex petitions over again,
as already set down in the group of “Election Ballads” under Charles
II., when the same county made itself conspicuous in a similar fashion:
“It was thought wise,” wrote Walpole, “to procure loyal addresses, and
one was obtained from Essex, which being the great county for calves,
obtained nothing but ridicule.” A pictorial version sets forth the
situation (March 6, 1769) as “The Essex Procession from Chelmsford to
St. James’s Market, for the good of the Common-Veal.” The engraving
represents a street ending in the archway of St. James’s, towards
which are progressing two carts, drawn by donkeys tandem-wise, and
filled with bleating calves. The cart is driven by Rigby, the Duke of
Bedford’s factotum, a supporter of the Court, much interested in the
petitions presented to the king at this period: this political agent
is travestied as an ass; he is crying, “Calves’ Heads à la daube!
Who’ll buy my veal?” One of the victimized calves in the cart is
bleating, “This is a Rig-by-Jove;” another exclaims, “How we expose
ourselves!” The other charioteer is intended for C. Dingley, author of
the “Saw-mill” experiment at Limehouse, and who was an influential
projector of the new “City-road;” he was a creature of the Duke of
Grafton, a prominent ally of the Court faction against Wilkes and the
patriots, and was generally obnoxious to the more constitutionally
minded of the citizens. Dingley is transformed into an ox, and he
is made to declare to his special consignment of calves, “Friends
and Countrymen, you shall not be misrepresented.” One of the calf
contingent, mindful of slaughter, is bleating, “I hope they won’t
drive us to St. George’s Fields,” the place of slaughter--otherwise,
the scene of the recent wanton attacks of the Scottish soldiery on the
people; while another of Dingley’s followers is expressing a wish that
the famous saw-mills, which were the cause of a riot in which they were
demolished, might prove the destruction of the speculator himself. In
opposition to the “foolish Essex address,” it was, as described in
the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, “resolved at a meeting of gentlemen held
at Chelmsford, December 15, 1769, to support the right of election to
Parliament, and to petition the king for a dissolution of Parliament.”

The Essex address was followed up, on the part of what were entitled
London merchants, by a similar production, which was chiefly promoted
by Charles Dingley; a version of this transaction is entitled “The
Addressers.” It appears that “officious tools,” and interested, if not
bribed, citizens, designated as “the Merchants of London,” attended,
March 8, 1769, at the King’s Arms Tavern, Cornhill, at the invitation
of Dingley and his followers. One shilling was charged at the door to
keep away the crowd, ostensibly to defray the expense of the room; and
one Lovell, having complied with this, found Dingley with a few others
assembled. Mr. Muilmann, a German or Dutch stockbroker, professionally
nicknamed “Van Scrip,” gave Lovell a copy of the address to read,
and told him he could sign the original then on the table; but on
Lovell’s expressing that “he did not approve of the address,” Dingley
ordered him out; but, having paid his shilling, he stood on his
right to remain. Then followed Reynolds (who was Wilkes’s attorney),
and having paid his shilling, and refusing to sign the address, was
also asked to leave, but elected to enjoy the privilege of remaining.
Vaughan and others did the same. The room being then filled, when Mr.
Charles Pole was invited to take the chair at the suggestion of the
anti-addressers, their opponents “opposed all order,” repeating the
cry of “No chair!” with the utmost fury, and threatening to “turn
down stairs all who called for any chairman.” The chair itself became
an object of contention between the hostile parties; one secured the
seat, another the frame, and the “abhorrers of disorder” triumphed
until another chair was obtained. The ticklish office of president
was at last accepted by Mr. Vaughan. Attorney Reynolds was standing
near the chairman, when Dingley, enraged at the success of this
counter-demonstration, addressing him as a “d----d scoundrel,” struck
him a violent blow in the face; on which provocation, Reynolds, being
of commanding size, knocked Dingley down. “Many were the efforts made
to dispossess Mr. Vaughan of the chair, strokes were aimed at him with
canes and sticks, but the blows were warded off by his friends.”

Such is the disturbance set forth in the satirical engraving of “The
Addressers” (March 8, 1769), in which is represented the _fracas_
at the King’s Arms Tavern consequent on this insidious attempt to
manufacture a bogus address. Attorney Reynolds’s wig is awry, from
the blow inflicted by Dingley; he is knocking the latter out of the
chair, and exclaiming, “I’ll make you pay for this.” Dingley is
saying, “For this £2000 more;” while, in falling, from his pocket
drops a paper, “Saw-mill, £2000.” “Van Scrip,” Muilmann, alluding to
the cash considerations held out by the ministers to their allies, is
extending his hand, and crying in dismay, “We shall lose this scrip!” A
spectator, armed with a riding-whip, is asserting, “You’ll be Jockey’d,
Mynheer.” The persons in the crowd are demanding, “A chair! a chair!”
while others shout to the contrary; the chair itself is mounted on
a table placed in the middle of the room. Mr. Apvan (Vaughan) is
occupying this perilous distinction. “Why _address_, Gentlemen?” is
his question to the meeting. A slight fencing-match is going on; the
chairman holding his own, while those who attack him cry “Order.”
A clergyman--no other than the “Brentford Parson” in person--is
suggesting the propriety of “an Address to keep the streets clean,”
the condition of the thoroughfares in London being the subject of
complaint at this time. From the report of these proceedings published
in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, it appears that a speaker asserted that
the “proper functions of such an assembly were to order the scavengers
to clean the streets, and beadles to remove vagrants from them.” The
fragments of the chair first dismantled, as described, are in the
hands of some of the company by the door. A man has gone down in his
exertions “to stand up for the Address.” The incendiary document in
question is carried off by one Mr. Phelim O’Error, who is declaring,
“I’ll take it to the Merchant Seamen’s Office,” to which it was removed
on the next stage of its career.

Another version of these proceedings appeared, March 8, 1769, as “The
Battle of Cornhill;” an engraving given in the _Town and Country
Magazine_, with a short parody in the style of a drama on the subject,
as detailed in the foregoing “Addressers.” The counter-assault upon
Dingley is similarly illustrated. Reynolds, the Attorney Freeman of
the drama, is depicted as a tall, burly man. Dingley is made to cry,
“Murder, murder. Oh, the rascal. I’ll have him imprisoned seven years
for this illegal attack. He has done me twelve hundred, if not two
thousand pounds damage.” Van Scrip is much alarmed: “Heaven! what will
become of me! I shall lose all my interest in the Treasury, if we fail
in carrying it. I shan’t have a single government contract, not so much
as a thousand pounds scrip.” An anecdote is related in the _London
Museum_ (ii. 1770, p. 32) concerning the use of lottery tickets as
bribes by the Government, where Bradshaw, secretary to the Treasury,
stigmatized by “Junius” as “the cream-coloured parasite,” is alleged
to have “met the member for Buckinghamshire (Lowndes), and offered two
hundred lottery tickets at ten pounds each, which were accepted.” Scrip
and lottery tickets were freely employed for political bribery at this
period, as Walpole mentions in his “Memoirs of the Reign of King George
the Third,” and Sir H. N. Wraxall describes in his “Historical Memoirs.”

“The Inchanted Castle; or, King’s Arms in an Uproar” (March 8, 1769)
is a further pictorial version of the same occurrence, with little
variation as to the persons or incidents represented, but containing
a reference, like the last, to the “London Tavern,” the recognized
head-quarters and meeting-place for the Society of Supporters of the
Bill of Rights, and consequently opposed to sycophantic admiration of
ministerial illegalities. Beneath the print in question is a copy of
verses, beginning--

    “I sing the bloody fight and dire alarms
    ’Twixt London Tavern and King’s Arms.
    Planning Addresses Dingley’s party sate,
    And meditating on their Country’s fate.”

Horace Walpole thus describes the transactions represented in the
foregoing:--

    “The merchants of London, to the number of six or eight
    hundred, amongst whom were Dutch, Jews, and any officious
    tools that they could assemble, having signed one of those
    servile panegyrics [addresses], set out in a long procession of
    coaches, to carry it to St. James’s.”

The _modus operandi_ by which the address was promoted is fancifully
summed up in the plate of the _Oxford Magazine_, vol. ii., p. 134, “The
Principal Merchants and Traders assembled at the Merchant Seamen’s
Office, to sign ye Address.” This print represents a further stage in
the progress of the transaction. The _Public Advertiser_, March 11,
1769, announces, “For these two Days past, numbers of the Merchants
and principal Traders of London have attended at the Merchant Seamen’s
Office, over the Royal Exchange, in order to sign an Address to his
Majesty, etc.”

It is stated in the _Oxford Magazine_, “So eager were the ministers to
procure a long list of subscribers that, it is credibly reported, some
of the addresses of the then ‘City Merchants,’ were signed by cobblers,
porters, chairmen, livery-servants, and the very meanest of the rabble;
for as the number of hands was the chief point of view, they cared
but little of what rank or condition they were.” The caricaturist has
carried out this view of the signatories. The chairman or president is
a butcher, whose tray, containing a shoulder of mutton, is laid down
at his feet; he is filled with loyal frenzy, and, with his butcher’s
knife grasped ready for action, is exclaiming, “I shall stick my knife
in _Magna Charta_, and cut up the carcase of the Bill of Rights.” A
porter, with his knot, is anathematizing Wilkes’s “swivel eyes,” and
wishing he “may sink under his load.” The petition is being signed by
a barber, with his bowl under his arm, together with an aldermanic wig
just ordered: “Ah, I’ve got an order for a new wig, only for signing
my name.” A Scotch pedlar, with pack and staff, one of Lord Bute’s
followers, declares, “Sawney mun sign too, gin it be to the De’il, for
my guid laird’s sake.” A journeyman baker, with a basketful of loaves
on his back, is coming in succession, well paid for his assistance:
“Brother Merchants, follow my example, and you’ll never want bread;”
and even a sooty chimney-sweep has expectations of ministerial
patronage, “Who knows but I may be appointed to a Chimney at Court?”
Prominent among those at the table whereon is the much-denounced
“Address,” is a Jew money-jobber, who is elated at his prospects of
a Treasury “job,” “Oh! for a large portion of scrip!” and the Dutch
stockbroker, Van Scrip, is exclaiming, “Ah! de gross Scrip for Mynheer
too,”--the subscription scrip to government loans, profitable to those
who secured preference allotments, and, as described, alleged to be
manipulated by the ministry in the nature of bribery.

The strictures provoked upon the underhand methods by which these
addresses were forced upon the public are exemplified in an “Epistle
to the _North Briton_,” which appeared in the _Oxford Magazine_, to
accompany the engraving of the “Addressing Merchants.” The epistle is
lengthy, and we have only room for the opening passages. It is possibly
written by the “Brentford Parson;” indeed, the manner as well as matter
indicates the authorship suggested. The motto is given, “There is
nothing new under the sun” (_Eccles._ i. 9)--

    “And so, sir, what you have often foretold is at last come to
    pass. We are fairly fallen back into the very dregs of the
    Stuart reigns. The party of _Abhorrers_ is once more revived;
    of those _Abhorrers_, who, in the reign of King Charles the
    Second, expressed their detestation of all the patriotic and
    public spirited, as I would say--but, as they were pleased
    to call them, the factious and insolent petitions that were
    presented to the king for assembling a parliament, and for
    securing the other rights and liberties of the People.

    “That such wretches should have existed at a time when the
    Sovereign claimed, and many of his subjects were willing to
    allow him, a divine, indefeasible, hereditary right to play the
    tyrant, and to destroy the constitution is nothing strange; but
    that any such should be found in the reign of a prince, whose
    family was advanced to the throne in direct contradiction to
    this absurd principle, would be really surprising, did we not
    know that human nature is always the same, and that though the
    seeds of slavery may be smothered for a time, yet whenever
    they meet with the vivifying influence of court sunshine, they
    immediately begin to quicken, and to spring up with vigour. And
    never, sure, did these seeds meet with a more fertile soil,
    or a more benign sky, than under the present arbitrary and
    despotic administration, when every man is sure to be rewarded
    in exact proportion to the servility of his character.

    “In this respect, indeed, the present ministers have greatly
    the advantage of all that have gone before them; for I do
    not remember a single compliment paid to the _Abhorrers_, in
    the reign of King Charles the Second, except the honour of
    knighthood conferred upon Francis Withers, Esq., who procured
    and presented the Address from the City of Westminster. But
    how much more grateful and generous have been our present
    ministers! They have made the late chief City Magistrate a
    Privy Councillor, and have given him a contract with government
    for clothing soldiers, worth £1000 per annum. They have
    pardoned the murderers MacLaughlin, Balfe, and McQuirk, and
    have even granted them pensions. This, say the ministry, is
    only supporting their friends; but, if murderers be their
    friends, I believe few people will envy them the credit of such
    a connection.

    “Some of the addresses in the reign of the Stuarts breathed a
    very free and independent spirit. That of the Quakers, upon the
    accession of King James the Second, may serve as an instance.
    It was conceived in the following terms:--

    “‘We come,’ said they, ‘to testify our sorrow for the death of
    our good friend Charles, and our joy for thy being made our
    governor. We are told thou art not of the persuasion of the
    Church of England, no more than we; wherefore we hope thou wilt
    grant us the same liberty which thou allowest thyself. Which
    doing, we wish thee all manner of happiness.’

    “There we see the Quakers, with their usual plainness and
    simplicity, very roundly tell his majesty, that he was not a
    member of the church of England; a circumstance, which was
    then thought by many, and hath since been declared by law, to
    be sufficient to disqualify him for wearing the crown of these
    Kingdoms.

    “But how much more courtly and polite is the language of our
    present Addressers. They not only pay the highest compliments
    to the King, which he certainly deserves, they even offer
    the most nauseous and fulsome flattery to his ministers and
    servants, and express their entire approbation of every part
    of their conduct. They must therefore approve of the robbery
    committed upon the Duke of Portland, of the massacre in St.
    George’s Fields, of the riot and murders at Brentford, of
    withdrawing MacLaughlin from the cognizance of the laws, and of
    pardoning Balfe and McQuirk after they had been fairly tried
    and condemned by their country.

    “But, not satisfied with declaring their approbation of the
    conduct of the ministry, they express their utter abhorrence
    and detestation of the conduct of those who have had the
    presumption to oppose them. They must, therefore, _abhor_ the
    conduct of the Freeholders of Middlesex, who chose Mr. Wilkes
    and Mr. Serjeant Glynn, their representatives in parliament,
    in spite of all the violent, outrageous, and illegal attempts
    which the ministry made to prevent them. They must _abhor_
    the conduct of the 139 independent members who voted against
    the expulsion of Mr. Wilkes from an august assembly, of
    which they form the respectable, and perhaps even the most
    wealthy, tho’ not the most numerous part. They must _abhor_
    the conduct of the Citizens of London, of the Citizens of
    Westminster, of the Freeholders of Middlesex, and of all the
    other counties and corporations, who, in their instructions to
    their representatives, have disapproved of those very measures
    which the Addressers approve. In a word, they must abhor the
    conduct, at least the sentiments, of ninety-nine parts in a
    hundred of the people of England, who, if taken separately, and
    fairly interrogated, would be found to entertain opinions very
    different from those of the Addressers.”

The “Battle of Cornhill,” otherwise the fight for the signatures to the
servile loyal address as already described, was followed by another
stage in the contest, an attempt to carry the address in state through
the city, the procession being stopped by a conflict in Fleet Street,
of which turbulent episode a caricature appeared, March 22, 1769, under
the title of the “Battle of Temple Bar.” The engraving offers a vista
of Fleet Street; the Devil Tavern, the arched entrance to the Temple,
and Nando’s Coffee-house are shown to the right; the gates of the bar
are closed, and around is a scene of confused conflict. The decapitated
heads of Fletcher and Townley, stuck on poles over Temple Bar, are
represented in conversation. The Jacobites executed for their share in
the Scottish raid of 1745 are inquiring whether the Addressers are not
“friends to the cause which we all love so dear,” and which had planted
their heads on the bar over twenty years before. A carriage, drawn by
two horses, is the centre of the struggle; the coachman is observing
“They all seem in a fair way;” the rabble are pelting the vehicle,
from which the person charged with the care of the loyal address is
making his escape. Another member of the party bound for St. James’s is
seeking shelter from the shower of missiles at the entrance to Nando’s.
Other coaches have been subjected to similar indignities; the servants
are declaring, “Our masters are finely bedaubed!” The city marshal
and his charger are under fire from the mob; grasping his baton and
holding his hat to protect his face, the marshal declares, “I find I
must go to y^e Devil!” The Devil, perched on the sign of the famous
tavern christened after his name, is crying, with a Scotch twang, “in
compliment to my Lord Bute,” “Fly to me, my Bairns!” This plate is
given in the _London Magazine_, with an account of the pelting and
flight of those who were engaged in carrying the address to the king.

[Illustration: SEQUEL TO THE BATTLE OF TEMPLE BAR--PRESENTATION OF THE
LOYAL ADDRESS AT ST. JAMES’S PALACE. 1769.

  [_Page 201._]

The concluding stage in the progress of the address and the cavalcade
of carriages which attended it, was marked by the appearance of the
satirical engraving entitled the “Sequel to the Battle of Temple Bar,”
1769, of which a reduced fac-simile is given. The spot represented
is the front of St. James’s Palace, facing St. James’s Street. The
remnants of the procession of merchants charged with the address in
support of the ministry in power are escaping down Pall Mall, the
carriages, with broken windows, being followed by galling volleys of
stones and dirt on the part of the mob, while a hearse exhibiting
inflammatory placards is accorded an enthusiastic reception. The
spectators gathered at the St. James’s Coffee House and around the
palace are encouraging the hostile demonstration; the courtiers are
surveying the tumult from the gateway and windows of St. James’s
Palace. A person mounted on the tower, and assumed to be intended
for Lord Bute, is pointing to the weathercock, exclaiming, “High
north wind,” _i.e._ a Scotch wind. The Guards are making attacks
upon individuals; a gentleman is being surrounded; the violence
of the soldiers is watched by a clergyman, evidently intended for
Parson Horne, whose eye was upon those who infringed the rights of
the subjects or unlawfully maltreated any of the people. A burlesque
funeral procession diversified the proceedings, headed by a mounted
mute, wearing a crape weeper, with mourning staff, the hearse drawn by
two wretched screws, one black and one white; the coachman is equally
odd--the person who drove was declared to have been a frolicsome
lordling, it is said young Earl Mountmorres. The body of this vehicle
displays a flaring placard--the presentment of an Irish chairman
striking with a bludgeon a person who is knocked down and defenceless;
this moving picture, inscribed “Brentford,” represents the fate of Mr.
Clarke, whose fractured skull, caused by the brutal attack of Proctor’s
hired ruffians, ended in his death. Similar placards, “St. George’s
Fields” and “Scot Victory,” are posted on the hearse to remind the
ministers that the odium of the massacre of the people at St. George’s
Fields, and the deliberate assassination of William Allen (May 10,
1768), by a grenadier of the Scottish Regiment, were not forgotten; a
coloured picture of this episode was displayed on the other side of
the hearse. A diversion is attempted at the entrance to the palace
gates, where the figure of a short nobleman is distinguishable by the
star on his coat; he is using his broken official staff like a sword.
This personage, who actually seized one of the rioters, and who is
intended for Earl Talbot, lord steward of the household, is bareheaded,
his wig having been displaced in the scuffle with the people, and,
finally, a knock on the head cooled his courage; the Guards are coming
to his support. Further details of the ending of this vexed question
of the address are given in the political intelligence of the time.
From all accounts, Mr. Boehm, in whose charge was the fateful roll,
was too occupied in securing his own safety to trouble about the fate
of the address. It appears that the scattered procession went on to
St. James’s without the presenter of the document which had entailed
so many embarrassments. According to the _Political Register_, a
messenger was despatched back to the coffee-house for the address;
where “Mr. Boehm, having missed it, remained in great suspense.” After
many inquiries and great alarm, the roll was found under the seat of
the coach, where, by a miracle, it had escaped the search of the mob;
the address was immediately forwarded to St. James’s, where it was
expectantly awaited.

The history of this incident is taken up by the _Political Register_
for 1769:--

    “The merchants and traders who retired with the address
    mentioned in the account of the proceedings at the ‘King’s
    Arms,’ having by means of repeated advertisements and private
    letters obtained a considerable number of persons to sign
    the said address at the Merchant Seamen’s Office over the
    Royal Exchange; ... Wednesday, the 22nd March, at two in the
    afternoon, being appointed, on that day at noon, a great number
    of the merchants, etc., of this city, set out from the Royal
    Exchange in their carriages, in order to present an address
    to His Majesty, attended by the City Marshal and constables;
    before they got to Cheapside, the mob showed them many marks
    of their resentment, by hissing, groaning, throwing dirt,
    etc., but when they arrived at Fleet Street, the multitude
    grew quite outrageous, broke the windows of the coaches, threw
    stones and glass bottles, and dispatched a party to shut up
    the gates at Temple Bar, on which the cavalcade was obliged to
    stop. Mr. Cook, the City Marshal, going to open the gates with
    his attendants, was very severely treated; his clothes were
    torn off his back and his head cut in two places. The populace
    then attacked the gentlemen in their carriages; Mr. Boehm (who
    carried the roll) and several of his friends being covered with
    dirt, were obliged to take refuge in Nando’s Coffee-house. Some
    of the coaches then drove up Chancery Lane, Fetter Lane, and
    Shoe Lane; but the greater part of the gentlemen, finding it
    impossible to proceed, returned home. The Addressers, however,
    did at length reach St. James’s, but the mob threw dirt at the
    gentlemen as they got out of their carriages at St. James’s
    Gate.”

The few that reached the palace were so covered with dirt as to be
unpresentable, and those of the courtiers who came within reach of the
mob were also bespattered. The document which was the main cause of
this disturbance was within an ace of never reaching its destination.

    “When Mr. Boehm was obliged to get out of his coach at Nando’s
    Coffee-house to avoid the mob, in his hurry he left the address
    under the cushion on one of the seats, and immediately ordered
    the coachman to go home; some of the mob opened the coach door,
    and began to search for the address, but the coachman declaring
    ‘it was sent before’ (though he knew not where it was), they
    were the less diligent in their search, and missed laying hold
    of it, by not feeling six inches farther on the seat.”

On the road thither, by the Strand, the additions already mentioned
were made to the cavalcade, to the consternation of those who formed
part of it:--

    “When some of the coaches got to Exeter Exchange, a hearse
    came out of Exeter Street, and preceded them, drawn by a black
    and white horse, the driver of which had on a rough coat,
    resembling a skin, with a large cap, one side black, the other
    white, whose whole figure was very grotesque. On one side
    of the hearse was painted on canvas a representation of the
    rioters killing Mr. Clarke at the Brentford election; and on
    the other side was a representation of the soldiers firing on
    young Allen in the cow-house.”

The _Town and Country Magazine_ (1769) divulges that the driver of the
decorated hearse was “a man of fortune;” moreover, another account
avers--

    “I have always understood that the late Lord Mountmorres,
    then a very young man, was the person, who on that occasion,
    personated the executioner [of Charles I. ?], holding an axe
    in his hands, and his face covered with crape.” (See Wraxall’s
    “Historical Memoirs;” also the “Letters of the First Earl of
    Malmesbury,” etc.)

The hearse attended the cavalcade, making a short stop at Carlton
House, where the Princess of Wales lived, also at the residence of
the “Cumberland Butcher,” and at Lord Weymouth’s, in Pall Mall (as
the author of the St. George’s Fields massacre); thence the hearse,
with its “humiliating insignia, was driven into the court-yard of St.
James’s, followed by the mob, after which it went off to Albemarle
Street.” A copy of the address is given in the _Political Register_
(iv. 1769).

The address and its supporters were in a sad plight when the levee-room
was reached, after the foregoing vicissitudes. The Duke of Chandos
wrote Mr. Grenville--

    “Out of one hundred and thirty merchants who went up with the
    address, only twelve could get to the King, and they were
    covered in dirt, as indeed was almost the whole Court.”

The riotous crowd continued to create a disturbance at the palace
gates, “accompanied with threats of a most dangerous kind” (as declared
in the royal proclamation); while the Earl of Malmesbury wrote, “Many
of the mob cried, ‘Wilkes and no King,’ which is shocking to think of.”
At last, the proclamation against tumultuous assemblies was read, and--

    “Several persons taken into custody by the soldiers; and two
    were taken by Lord Talbot, who was the only minister who had
    sufficient resolution to come down among the mob; his lordship
    had secured another, who was rescued, and his lordship received
    a violent blow on the head, by being thrown against a coach,
    and then thought it prudent to take shelter among the soldiers.”

A grand council at St. James’s was held on the afternoon of these
events, and in the evening a _Gazette Extraordinary_ was published,
with a proclamation by the king--who had in person witnessed the
disturbances attending the sham address,--“for suppressing riots,”
etc., beginning--

    “Whereas it has been represented to us that divers dissolute
    and disorderly persons have most riotously and unlawfully
    assembled themselves together, to the disturbance of the
    public peace, and have, in a most daring and audacious manner,
    assaulted several merchants and others, coming to our palace
    at St. James’s, and have committed many acts of violence and
    outrage before the gates of our palace,” etc.

The proclamation further charges the lord mayor, and justices of the
peace for the cities of London and Westminster, borough of Southwark,
and counties of Middlesex and Surrey, to prevent and suppress all
riots, tumults, and unlawful assemblies, etc.

Another engraving on the same topic--as described by Mr. Edward
Hawkins, from whose collection, bequeathed to the British Museum, many
of these early illustrations are selected--was entitled:--

“THE GOTHAM ADDRESSERS; OR, A PEEP AT THE HEARSE.”

    “Sing the Addressers who lately set out
    To flatter the great and honesty rout,
    Where Frenchmen, and Swiss, and Hollanders shy
    United their forces with Charley Dingley,” etc.

The procession and hearse (the driver is exclaiming “Wilkes and
Liberty”) are again shown at St. James’s Palace. The chief promoter,
Charles Dingley, is made the principal butt of this satire, and,
as the address began with him, it is appropriately so terminated.
The hearse with the placards is succeeded by a coach bearing on the
roof a windmill, an allusion to Dingley’s too famous saw-mills at
Limehouse, which were dismantled by the sawyers out of work and other
rioters. The coachman of this equipage is endeavouring to pacify the
mob: “Wilkes and Liberty, Gentlemen; I had no hand in the d----d
Address.” The chief offender, seen inside the coach, is also appealing
to the incensed crowd: “For God’s sake, Gentlemen, spare me; I wish
the Address had been in Hell before I meddled with it.” His bemired
footman is declaring, “My livery’s like my master, d----d Dirty.” The
next coach has on it a zany with cap and bells, seated “on the Massacre
of Aboyna;” this figure of folly is exclaiming, “I give Mr. Dingle
the lead;” the rider, one of the loan-contractors and bidders for
ministerial favour, cries, “Ayez pitié de moi!” “Dingle’s Downfall, a
new Song,” is chanted by a female ballad-singer. Dead cats and mud are
thrown at the procession, which is followed by the groans and hisses of
the spectators.

The foregoing events are further elucidated in “A Dialogue between the
Two Heads on Temple Bar.” The narrator professes to have overheard the
following conversation upon politics between the decapitated heads of
the 1745 rebels stuck over Temple Bar:--

    “But soon more surpris’d, and I’ll tell you the cause, sir,
    The heads on Temple Bar were in a deep discourse, sir.
      ‘Why, Fletcher,[55] your head and mine has been fixed hither
    These full twenty years, expos’d to all weather
    For being concerned in a Scottish rebellion:
    Not like Bute, the nation to rob of three million.’
      ‘Ay, Townsend, but Bute play’d the jockey so fair, sir,
    Got the money for riding the old Georgian mare, sir,
    But his tricks at St. James’s Wilkes soon did disclose, sir,
    Tho’ squint-ey’d, saw how Bute led the King by the nose, sir.’
      ‘Why, Fletcher, that’s worse than open rebellion!
    And here’s room on the Bar if they would but behead him;
    In St. George’s Fields there’s room for a gibbet,
    But justice of late, they don’t choose to exhibit.
    If justice took place, ’twould cause Jack some trouble,
    Lord Mansfield himself, might, by chance, mount the scaffold.
    No more alt’ring records; but this joke might be said,
    As blind with the scales, he appears without head.

    And half a score more, tuck’d up in a halter;
    But don’t forget to hang Luttrell and Proctor,
    For ’tis such rogues as these that corrupted the nation,
    And caus’d these disturbances, strife, and vexation.
    Then the King would be freed from all of roguish party,
    And let those fill their places who are loyal and hearty.’”

CHAPTER VIII.

PETITIONS AND REMONSTRANCES TO THE THRONE, 1769-70.

Petitions and remonstrances began to make ministers tremble lest
finally the sympathies of the throne might be turned into the proper
channel, and the king be led to espouse the cause of the people, who,
to do them justice, remained loyal under both the critical emergencies
described as occurring under Charles II. and George III., and which had
more than a casual resemblance.

The remonstrances of the citizens were persistently laid before the
king, although every obstacle was interposed in the way of their
presentation by petty indignities imposed upon those bold enough to
approach the presence with objects thus distasteful to the royal ideas
of sovereign right--

    “Make prayers not so like petitions
    As overtures and propositions.”

  (_Hudibras._)

On July 5, 1769, the Livery of London presented a petition to the king;
the lord mayor, Samuel Turner, Sir Robert Ladbrooke,[56] Alderman
Beckford, and other friends of popular liberty being charged with this
statement of grievances, of which the following extracts must suffice:--

    “We should be wanting in our duty to your Majesty, as well as
    to ourselves and our posterity, should we forbear to represent
    to the throne the desperate attempts that have been, and are
    too successfully, made to destroy that constitution to the
    spirit of which we owe the relation which subsists between your
    Majesty and the subjects of these realms, and to subvert those
    sacred laws which our ancestors have sealed with their blood.

    “Your ministers, from corrupt principles and in violation of
    every duty, have, by various enumerated means, invaded our
    invaluable and inalienable right of trial by jury.

    “They have, with impunity, issued general warrants, and
    violently seized persons and private papers.

    “They have rendered the laws non-effective to our security, by
    invading the Habeas Corpus.

    “They have caused punishments and even perpetual imprisonment
    to be inflicted, without trial, conviction, or sentence.

    “They have brought into disrepute the civil magistracy, by the
    appointment of persons who are, in many respects, unqualified
    for that important trust, and have thereby purposely furnished
    a pretence for calling in the aid of the military power.

    “They avow, and endeavour to establish, a maxim absolutely
    inconsistent with our constitution, that ‘an occasion for
    effectually employing a military force always presents itself,
    when the civil power is trifled with or insulted;’ and by a
    fatal and false application of this maxim, they have wantonly
    and wickedly sacrificed the lives of many of your Majesty’s
    innocent subjects, and have prostituted your Majesty’s sacred
    name and authority, to justify, applaud, and recommend their
    own illegal and bloody actions.

    “They have screened more than one murderer from punishment, and
    in its place have unnaturally substituted reward.

    “And after having insulted and defeated the law on different
    occasions, and by different contrivances, both at home and
    abroad, they have at length completed their design, by
    violently wresting from the people the _last sacred right
    we had left_, the right of election, by the unprecedented
    seating of a candidate notoriously set up and chosen only by
    themselves. They have thereby taken from your subjects all
    hopes of parliamentary redress, and have left us no resource,
    under God, but in your Majesty.

    “All this they have been able to effect by corruption; by
    a scandalous misapplication and embezzlement of the public
    treasure, and a shameful prostitution of public honours and
    employments; procuring deficiencies of the civil lists to be
    made good without examinations; and, instead of punishing,
    conferring honours on a paymaster, the public defaulter of
    unaccounted millions.

    “From an unfeigned sense of the duty we owe to your Majesty,
    and to our country, we have ventured thus humbly to lay before
    the throne these great and important truths, which it has been
    the business of your Ministers to conceal. We most earnestly
    beseech your Majesty to grant us redress. It is for the purpose
    of redress alone, and for such occasions as the present,
    that those great and extensive powers are entrusted to the
    Crown by the wisdom of that Constitution which your Majesty’s
    illustrious family was chosen to defend, and which we trust in
    God it will for ever continue to support.”

Of each paragraph given in the foregoing the meaning was conclusive,
the instance known to all. There is in this petition no statement
exaggerated, no sentiment overcoloured, considering that one paragraph
alone describes no less than the suicidal measures which dismembered
the empire, and cost the mother country the allegiance of “the
colonies,” _i.e._ the continent of America, in these plain words:--

    “They [the Grafton administration] have established numberless
    unconstitutional regulations and taxations in our colonies.
    They have caused a revenue to be raised in some of them by
    prerogative.”

However meritorious the cause, it was an offence to a king whose mind,
never remarkable for lucidity, was then under “the influence of the
worst of counsellors,” as stated in the first prayer of the petition.
The document--when the petitioners were, after much discouragement,
delay, and many subterfuges, and, “although no time could be fixed for
its acceptance,” permitted to approach the presence at a levee--was
at last presented; but the king made no reply, but, handing the
petition to the lord-in-waiting, turned his back on the presenters,
who represented the integrity and commercial greatness of the city of
London and were its elected guardians, and addressed Baron Dieden, the
Danish ambassador, who was standing in his vicinity, on an indifferent
topic.

After the late fulsome reception of “bogus addressers” nothing could
be more contemptible than the studied impertinence with which the
Corporation of London was treated, and the affront of leaving the civil
magistrate to

    “skulk about the passages of the Court that he may have a
    glimpse of His Majesty as he passes along in state, in order
    to deliver into his hands a remonstrance affecting the most
    essential interests of above twelve millions of people, who by
    the sweat of their brow support the pomp and parade of royalty
    and swell the fastidious pride and coxcombical vanity of empty
    courtiers.”

It was boldly hazarded at this emergency, from the premeditated affront
to the representatives alike of the city and the people, that the
rulers, blinded to their own destruction, then concluded--

    “themselves sufficiently prepared for the final extirpation of
    liberty in this island, and that by deliberate insults they
    were urging the people to commit some outrage, which might
    give them a pretence for putting their scheme of tyranny into
    immediate execution.”

If the city, by its dignified and law-abiding demeanour, disappointed
these expectations, it was argued that the Court party would not
wait for an excuse to wreak their vengeance under some thin disguise
of retributive justice, but would proceed to order out the “Scotch
Regiment, as in the affair of St. George’s Fields, without waiting for
the least appearance of necessity.”

A correspondent of the _Oxford Magazine_, writing under the signature
“Philopolis,” referring to the threatened massacres in St. George’s
Fields, and, on the grounds that the late firing did comparatively
little damage to the rioters concerned, declared:--

    “I have heard it indeed alleged by courtiers in excuse, that
    all the military execution of that day was solely aimed at
    Mr. Wilkes, who they hoped would be despatched by some lucky
    shot, as Herod expected our Saviour would be murdered among
    the innocents he murdered at Bethlehem. As a proof of this
    extenuation of the crime, they show flatted balls, which were
    discharged by heroes planted in proper places for the purpose,
    and which have left marks in the walls about the windows of
    Mr. Wilkes’s apartments in the King’s Bench.” “If this has any
    foundation in truth,” writes “Philopolis,” “I would advise
    the city to be cautious, and never allow above a dozen of its
    inhabitants to be seen together at one time, for fear the Riot
    Act should arrive unexpectedly, with two or three brigades of
    musqueteers, headed by a trading justice, who may think nothing
    of the citizens’ lives, provided he has any hopes of murdering
    Beckford and the two sheriffs through their sides.”

The petition presented by the lord mayor with such difficulty, and
after many insolent subterfuges and repulses, failed to bring the king
to a reasonable sense of his situation or of the dangers to which the
throne was exposed by the reckless and unconstitutional conduct of the
administration. Subsequently, on the presentation of a “remonstrance,”
the king returned a written reply to the original petition, visiting
with severe censure the persevering claim of invaded birthrights, urged
by “the afflicted citizens,” and treating their just grievances with
reprimand instead of redress; the pleas set forth in the petitions
being considered by His Majesty “as disrespectful to himself, injurious
to his parliament, and irreconcileable to the principles of the
constitution”--a piece of bold duplicity more worthy of the Stuart
dynasty.

The vexed question of Middlesex election, the imprisonment of Wilkes,
the unconstitutional admission of Luttrell into the House, and
particularly the supineness of the King to the petitions and just
remonstrances of his people, are embodied in a metrical form, as--

“A NEW SONG; BEING A POETICAL PETITION TO THE KING.

    “Good Sir, I crave pity, bad is my condition:
    You’ve sworn to relieve me, as I understand;
    To tell you the whole, pray read this Petition;
    My name you know is Old England:
    Tho’ you’ve receiv’d many, and not answer’d any,
    I hope Old England’s will not be forgot,
    For if you deny me, the land will despise ye--
    ’Twas King Charles the First by the axe went to pot.
    My right arm is wounded, and Middlesex county
    I always esteem’d the bloom of my plumb.
    And murd’rers have got a pardon and bounty,
    From this precious arm they have torn a thumb;
    For Wilkes is took from me, such wrongs have they done me,
    They’ve alter’d records unto their disgrace;
    ’Tis thus that they’ve done, and a bastard son,
    While my darling’s in prison, now sits in his place.
    My head is wounded, if such a thing can be,
    My troubles are such that I can take no rest;
    Two sons are ta’en from me, Great Camden and Granby,
    And to the world they have left me distrest:
    For Granby’s a soldier, none better or bolder,
    And Camden’s a lawyer in justice well known,
    In law had such power, took Wilkes from the Tower,
    These, these are the children I ne’er will disown.
    So read my Petition, good Sir; ’tis not tattle,
    But matter of consequence, you’ll understand;
    And answer me not, Sir, about horned cattle,
    Pray what’s a few beasts, to the peace of the land?
    The land has been injur’d, our rights they’ve infringed,
    And loud for redress it behoves us to call,
    For should we let trespass, like an indolent ass,
    With Middlesex then all our rights they must fall.
    Our land it is ruled by rogues, roughs, and bullies,
    In the nation’s confusion they go hand in hand,
    Sharps, gamblers, profuse and extravagant cullies,
    A very odd set for to govern the land:
    Here’s Bute, we hear, dying, his mistress for him crying,
    Her son he has learnt the same fiddle to play;
    For he touches the string, in disgrace to the king,
    But his mother has taught him--why what?--shall we say?”

In the March of the year following, after awaiting a response for
nearly twelve months, the Livery of the city resolved to draw up a
further and more stringent remonstrance; and a meeting was held under
the Right Hon. William Beckford, elected lord mayor for the second
time, in the interval. In his address “to the Supreme Court of the
whole City,” the real dangers which menaced the State were by Beckford
traced to their true source, “the comprehensive violation of the _right
of election_”--

    “to preserve which right, the Crown had been justly taken from
    James the Second, and been placed by the people of England on
    the head of William the Third, and conferred on His Majesty’s
    family. That the corruption of the people’s representatives was
    the cause and foundation of all our grievances. That we have
    now only the name of a parliament, without the substance.”

He observed how improper it was for _placemen_ and _pensioners_ to sit
in the House of Commons; “for if a man was not fit to be a Juryman,
or a Judge in a cause where he was interested, how much less to be a
Senator and justify his peculation.” “_He complained of the unequal
and inadequate representation of the people, by means of the little,
rotten, paltry boroughs._” In the remonstrance drawn up on this
occasion, the wrongs of the people were again eloquently urged, and
it was especially pointed out that the House of Commons, by the venal
majority--

    “had deprived the people of their dearest rights. They have
    done a deed more ruinous in its consequence than the levying
    of ship-money by Charles the First, or the dispensing power
    assumed by James the Second. A deed which must vitiate all the
    future proceedings of this parliament; for the acts of the
    legislature itself can no more be valid without a legal House
    of Commons than without a legal prince upon the throne.

    “Representatives of the people are essential to the making of
    laws, and there is a time when it is morally demonstrable that
    men cease to be representatives. That time is now arrived. The
    present House of Commons do not represent the people. We owe to
    your Majesty an obedience under the restriction of the laws,
    for the calling and duration of Parliaments; and your Majesty
    owes to us, that our representation, free from the force of
    arms or corruption, should be preserved to us in them.

    “The forms of the Constitution, like those of Religion, were
    not established for form’s sake, but for the substance. And
    we call God and man to witness that we do not owe our Liberty
    to those nice and subtle distinctions, which _places_, and
    _pensions_, and _lucrative employments_ have invented; so
    neither will we be cheated of it by them, but as it was gained
    by the stern virtue of our ancestors, by the virtue of their
    descendants it shall be preserved.

    “Since, therefore, the misdeeds of your Majesty’s ministers
    in violating the freedom of Election, and depraving the
    noble constitution of Parliaments are notorious, as well as
    subversive of the fundamental Laws and Liberties of this
    Realm; and since your Majesty, both in honour and justice,
    is obliged inviolably to preserve them according to the Oath
    made to God and your subjects at your Coronation; we, your
    remonstrants, assure ourselves that your Majesty will restore
    the constitutional Government and quiet of your people, by
    DISSOLVING this Parliament, and removing those evil
    ministers FOR EVER from your councils.”

This manly and righteous remonstrance was presented after many
pettifogging slights and indignities, vexations, and subterfuges on
the part of the Court and Crown; and there were made various attempts
to bring into discredit the authenticity of this document as the
expression of the Court of Aldermen. The Corporation of the city, in
sixty carriages, proceeded with the various officers to the palace
of St. James’s, and were received by the king on his throne. The
remonstrance was read; and, in reply, His Majesty read an answer, drawn
up in advance, condemning both the former petition and the present
remonstrance in unmistakable terms, and ending with an assurance
that “he had ever made the law of the land the rule of his conduct,
esteeming it his chief glory to rule over a free people;” and then,
descending into more palpable falsehoods, asserting, in the face of
facts, with a power of dissimulation worthy of Charles II:--

    “with this view I have always been careful, as well to
    execute faithfully the trust reposed in me, as to avoid even
    the appearance of invading any of those powers which the
    Constitution has placed in other hands.”

The king was evidently the puppet of more vicious minds, being blessed
with but a feeble reasoning faculty of his own. After reading his
equivocative answer, and as the lord mayor and the city representatives
were withdrawing, the vacuity of his intellect made itself
manifest--for it is asserted in contemporaneous accounts, “His Majesty
instantly turned round to his courtiers, and _burst out laughing_.
NERO FIDDLED WHILE ROME WAS BURNING.”

The reception accorded to these petitions being far from such as their
gravity demanded, fresh agitations commenced in the metropolis and in
the provinces, and, on March 30th, Horne Tooke delivered a remarkable
address to the freeholders of the county of Middlesex, in which he
graphically described both the murders he had seen committed and
the conduct of the justices of the peace, who said the ministerial
instructions were for the soldiers to fire, and referred to the
partiality shown on the trials and the defences made at the expense
of Government when it was endeavoured to bring the guilty to justice.
At this meeting, “An Address, Remonstrance, and Petition of the
Freeholders of Middlesex” was drawn up for presentation, in which it
was urged on the king--

    “that a secret and malignant influence had thwarted and
    defeated almost every measure which had been attempted for the
    benefit of his subjects, and had given rise to measures totally
    subversive of the Liberties and Constitution of these once
    flourishing and happy kingdoms.”

    “It is not for any light or common grievances that we presume
    thus repeatedly to interrupt your Majesty’s quiet with our
    complaints. It is not the illegal oppression of an individual;
    it is not the partial invasion of our property; it is not
    the violation of any single law of which we complain, but it
    is a violation which at one stroke deprives us of the only
    constitutional security of our Fortunes, Liberties, and Lives.

    “Your Majesty’s servants have attacked our Liberties in the
    most vital part; they have torn away the heart-strings of the
    Constitution, and have made those men our destruction, whom the
    laws have appointed as the immediate guardians of our Rights
    and Liberties.

    “The House of Commons, by their determination at the last
    election for this county, have assumed a power to overrule
    at pleasure the fundamental _Right of Election_, which the
    Constitution has placed in other hands, those of their
    Constituents, and from whence alone their whole authority
    is derived; a power by which the law of the land is at once
    overturned and resolved into the will and pleasure of a
    majority of one House of Parliament. And if this pretended
    power is exercised to the full extent of the principles, that
    House can no longer be a Representative of the people, but a
    separate body, altogether independent of them, self-existing,
    and self-elected.

    “These proceedings have totally destroyed the confidence
    of your Majesty’s subjects in one essential branch of the
    legislative power, and if that branch is chosen in a manner
    not agreeable to the laws and constitution of the kingdom, the
    authority of Parliament itself must suffer extremely, if not
    totally perish.”

The remonstrance from which the above paragraphs are extracted was,
together with a petition from the county of Kent, presented to His
Majesty at St. James’s; both being received and handed to the lord of
the bedchamber in waiting; _but no answer was returned_.

The electors of the city of Westminster also drew up a similar
“Address, Remonstrance, and Petition”--

    “their former application to the throne having been
    ineffectual, and new and exorbitant grievances being beyond
    patient endurance. By the same secret and unhappy influence
    to which all our grievances have been originally owing, the
    redress of those grievances has been now prevented; and the
    grievances themselves have been repeatedly confirmed; with
    this additional circumstance of aggravation, that while the
    invaders of our rights remain the directors of your Majesty’s
    councils, the defenders of those rights have been dismissed
    from your Majesty’s service--your Majesty having been advised
    by your ministers to remove from his employment, for his vote
    in Parliament, the highest officer of the Law (Lord Camden),
    because his principles suited ill with theirs, and his pure
    distribution of justice with their corrupt administration of
    the House of Commons.

    “We beg leave, therefore, again to represent to your Majesty
    that the House of Commons have struck at the most valuable
    liberties and franchises of all the electors of Great Britain;
    and by assuming to themselves a right of choosing, instead
    of receiving a member when chosen, and by transferring to
    the representative what belonged to the constituent, they
    have taken off from the dignity, and, we fear, impaired the
    authority of Parliament itself.

    “We presume again, therefore, humbly to implore from your
    Majesty the only remedies which are in any way proportioned to
    the nature of the evil; that you would be graciously pleased
    to dismiss _for ever_ from your councils those ministers who
    are ill-suited by their dispositions to preserve the principles
    of a free, or by their capacities to direct the councils of
    a great and mighty kingdom; And that by speedily dissolving
    the present Parliament, your Majesty will show by your own
    example, and by their dissolution, the rights of your people
    are to be inviolable, and that you will never necessitate so
    many injured, and, by such treatment, exasperated subjects, to
    continue the care of their interests to those from whom they
    must withdraw their confidence; to repose their invaluable
    privileges in the hand of those who have sacrificed them; and
    their trust in those who have betrayed it.

    “We find ourselves compelled to urge, with the greatest
    importunity, this our humble but earnest application, as
    every day seems to produce the confirmation of some old, or
    to threaten the introduction of some new injury. We have the
    strongest reason to apprehend that the usurpation begun by the
    House of Commons upon the right of electing, may be extended
    to the right of petitioning, and that under the pretence of
    restraining the abuse of this right, it is meant to bring into
    disrepute, and to intimidate us from the exercise of the right
    itself.”

The representatives elected by the people had done their utmost, as
respected the venal majority, to betray their trust and those who
had sent them to the Commons. Resistance was countenanced, and, by
counter-addresses to the throne, the king was prejudiced against
listening to the wishes of the people. This remonstrance elicited his
Majesty’s reply “_that he would lay it before his Parliament_;” a
curious conclusion, inasmuch as his afflicted subjects specially prayed
therein that the king would be their safeguard against the majority
in that body, who had betrayed the nation, and to the deliberation of
that corrupted assembly the complaint--which affected the duration of
the House--was to be submitted for redress! The remonstrance, which
resembled an impeachment of the administration, was, in fact, handed
to the ministers under accusation, to be by them resisted, prosecuted,
or rendered ineffective at their discretion. The indignant judgments
enunciated by “Junius” against these unprincipled politicians, foes to
the kingdom, have been abundantly confirmed by the verdict of posterity.

The reception otherwise accorded to the Westminster remonstrance was
altogether undignified. When the deputation, headed by Sir Robert
Bernard, who had been returned member for that city by the unanimous
suffrage of the constituency, arrived at the palace gate, an extra
guard of soldiers was immediately turned out, not, however, as a
compliment, for--

    “although there was not the least appearance of anything
    disorderly, yet the soldiers behaved in a most insolent
    manner, and struck many persons with their bayonets, and that
    without provocation. The Gentlemen having alighted from their
    carriages, amidst the acclamations of the people, walked
    through the lane of soldiers, and went upstairs to the Levee
    Room door, where they were met by one of the Grooms of the
    Bedchamber, who asked Sir Robert Bernard if he had anything
    to present to his Majesty? To which Sir Robert replied,
    ‘Yes, the Address, Remonstrance, and Petition of the City
    of Westminster.’ Upon which the Groom of the Bedchamber
    said, ‘He would go and acquaint the Lord-in-Waiting.’ He
    went immediately, but not returning soon, Sir Robert Bernard
    proposed to go into the Levee Room, which he did. On opening
    the door, the same Groom of the Bedchamber said he could
    not find the Lord-in-Waiting; but should soon. However, the
    Gentlemen went on, and after some time the Lord-in-Waiting
    came to them, and said, if they had anything to deliver to
    his Majesty, he would receive it in the next room, whither
    they accordingly went; and after some time, his Majesty coming
    into the room, Sir Robert presented the Remonstrance open. His
    Majesty delivered it to the Lord-in-Waiting, who delivered it
    to another, who handed it to the Groom of the Bedchamber, and
    he carried it off.”

The recreant majority of the Commons, still at the bidding of degraded
ministers, continued to address the king with counter-petitions
intended to bring into disrepute the remonstrances of the people--those
very constituents who had chosen them as the defenders of their
liberties.

Finally, another effort was made by the city, and a general assembly
was held for that purpose, when the chief magistrate, the Court of
Aldermen, and Common Council resolved to renew their petition, and
further to consider the king’s “answer.”

    “A motion was then made, that the thanks of this Court be given
    to Lord Chatham for his late conduct in Parliament, and for
    his zeal shown for the most sacred Rights of Election and of
    petitioning, and for the promise of his endeavours to support
    an independent and more equal representation.”

On a motion denouncing the most unbecoming treatment which the city
of London had of late experienced from his Majesty’s ministers, it
was suggested to draw up the strongest remonstrance possible on the
violated right of election. Upon which, Alderman Wilkes, remarking upon
the peculiar delicacy of his situation, said--

    “that he would not mention a syllable about the person
    excluded; but if the House of Commons could seat any gentlemen
    among them who was not chosen by the people, the constitution
    was torn up by the roots, and the people had lost their share
    in the legislative power; that the disabling any person from
    sitting in Parliament, who was not disqualified by law, was an
    injury to every County, City, and Borough, and a dissolution of
    the form of government established by law in this Kingdom.”

The recorder cavilled at certain spirited expressions in the drawing-up
of the remonstrance, particularly respecting the king’s answer, which
he declared could not be considered an act of the ministers, but must
be held to be the king’s personally. The committee was shocked at the
recorder’s bringing home to the king one of the most unconstitutional
acts of his ministry, and without one dissentient voice determined
to overrule the objection of the recorder, whereon this functionary
protested against the remonstrance in strong terms as a LIBEL.
Alderman Wilkes then rose and mentioned his unwillingness to speak
again, but he was forced to it by the recorder’s declaration that the
remonstrance was a libel; that he too claimed to know something of
the nature of a libel; that he did not speak from theory only, but
had bought much experience on that subject; that the remonstrance was
founded throughout on known and glaring facts, every word bearing the
stamp of truth; that the particular act complained of in the violated
right of election was a malicious and wilful act of the majority in the
House of Commons, for the minister had declared, that “if any person
had only four votes for Middlesex, he should be the sitting member for
the county!” The lord mayor, Beckford, confirmed Wilkes’s assertion,
concluding, “I was then present in the House of Commons.”

The remonstrance was accordingly presented; in it astonishment was
expressed at the censure lately passed by the throne upon the faithful
and afflicted citizens, laying their complaints and injuries at the
feet of their Sovereign, as the father of his people, able and willing
to redress their grievances.

The concluding paragraph was very much to the purpose, and displayed no
diminution of firmness:--

    “Your Majesty cannot disapprove that we here assert the
    clearest principles of the constitution against the insidious
    attempts of evil counsellors to perplex, confound, and shake
    them. We are determined to abide by those rights and liberties,
    which our forefathers bravely vindicated, at the ever-memorable
    Revolution, and which their sons will ever resolutely defend.
    We therefore now renew, at the foot of the throne, our claim
    to the indispensable right of the subject--a full, free, and
    unmutilated Parliament, legally chosen in all its members;
    a right which this House of Parliament have manifestly
    violated, depriving, at their will and pleasure, the county of
    Middlesex of one of its legal representatives, and arbitrarily
    nominating, as a Knight of the Shire, a person not elected
    by a majority of the freeholders. As the only constitutional
    means of reparation now left for the injured electors of Great
    Britain, we implore, with most urgent supplications, the
    dissolution of the present parliament, the removal of evil
    ministers, and the total extinction of that fatal influence
    which has caused such national discontent.

    “In the meantime, Sire, we offer our constant prayers to
    Heaven, that your Majesty may reign, as Kings only can reign,
    in and by the hearts of a loyal, dutiful, and free people.”

To this remonstrance the king’s answer was:--

    “I should have been wanting to the public as well as to myself,
    if I had not expressed my dissatisfaction at the late Address.
    My sentiments on that subject continue the same; and I should
    ill deserve to be considered as the father of my people, if I
    could suffer myself to be prevailed upon to make such an use
    of my prerogative as I cannot but think inconsistent with the
    interest and dangerous to the constitution of the kingdom.”

After His Majesty had been pleased to make the foregoing answer, the
lord mayor requested leave to reply, which, being granted, Beckford
made the dignified and noble response which is a matter of history:--

    (“If worth allures thee, think how Beckford shone
      Who dar’d to utter Truths before the throne.”)

    “Most Gracious Sovereign--Will your Majesty be pleased so
    far to condescend as to permit the Mayor of your loyal City
    of London to declare in your Royal presence, on behalf of
    his fellow-citizens, how much the bare apprehension of your
    Majesty’s displeasure would at all times affect their minds.
    The declaration of that displeasure has already filled them
    with inexpressible anxiety, and with the deepest affliction.

    “Permit me, Sire, to assure your Majesty that your Majesty has
    not in all your dominions any subjects more faithful, more
    dutiful, or more affectionate to your Majesty’s person and
    family, or more ready to sacrifice their lives and fortunes in
    the maintenance of the true honour and dignity of your Crown.

    “We do, therefore, with the greatest humility and submission,
    most earnestly supplicate your Majesty, that you will not
    dismiss us from your presence without expressing a more
    favourable opinion of your faithful citizens, and without some
    comfort, without some prospect at least of redress.

    “Permit me, Sire, further to observe, that whoever has already
    dared, or shall hereafter endeavour by false insinuations
    and suggestions, to alienate your Majesty’s affections from
    your loyal subjects in general and from the city of London in
    particular, and to withdraw your confidence in and regard for
    your people, is an enemy to your Majesty’s person and family,
    a violator of the public peace, and a betrayer of our happy
    Constitution, as it was established at the glorious revolution
    of 1688.”

At the conclusion of these expressions of enlightenment for the royal
mind, the lord mayor waited more than a minute for a reply of “some
more favourable opinion,” but none was given.

“On this occasion,” says the satirist, “Nero did _not_ fiddle while
Rome was burning.” The humility and serious firmness with which the
dignified Beckford--who enjoyed the friendship of the great Earl of
Chatham, and with whom he had many points in common--uttered these
words, “filled the whole Court with admiration and confusion;” for
they found very different countenances amongst the citizens than they
expected from Lord Pomfret’s description, who declared in the House of
Lords--

    “that, however swaggering and impudent the behaviour of the low
    citizens might be on their own dunghill, when they came into
    the royal presence, their heads hung down like bulrushes, and
    they blinked with their eyes like owls in the sunshine of the
    sun.”

On the 19th of May, the king prorogued that parliament which, by
approving addresses from both Houses, had fortified the royal censure
returned to the popular remonstrances. “The prevalence of animosities
and of dissensions among their fellow-subjects” was specially alluded
to in his Majesty’s speech, while the conduct of both branches of his
legislature received in return such flattering encomiums as their
servile pliability had earned by despicable means:--

    “The _temper_ with which you have conducted all your
    proceedings has given me great satisfaction, and I promise
    myself the happiest effects from the firmness, as well as the
    moderation, which you have manifested in the very _critical_
    circumstances which have attended your late deliberations.”

However undignified the reception accorded at the time to these
petitions addressed to the throne from its truest supporters, the
good cause eventually triumphed, in defiance of the chicanery of
counter-expressions of servility, fabricated at the instance of
those whose prospects depended on the continuance in power of false
politicians, despising alike the voice and interests of the people, and
resting their reliance on the venality of their adherents, and the base
instinct of self-aggrandisement at the expense of the state existent in
minds equally mercenary with their own.

    “Eventually the citizens succeeded, in spite of the united
    efforts of the Court, the Ministers, and the Parliament; and
    their cause has since been solemnly and universally recognized
    as that of the Constitution and of liberty. It is impossible to
    appreciate too highly the national importance of the conduct
    they pursued.”

It was well said by “Junius,” the integrity of whose sentiments bears
more than a casual resemblance to the utterances of that patriotic
statesman, Lord Chatham, with whose fame the authorship of Junius’s
“Letters” may one day be identified:--

    “The noble spirit of the metropolis is the life-blood of
    the state, collected at the heart; from that point it
    circulates with health and vigour through every artery of the
    Constitution.”

The great Chatham and his friend, William Beckford, stand out
conspicuous from their fellow-men in association with that corrupt
time when statescraft was for the most part a question of ability for
debasing the largest number on the easiest terms contrivable; they
lived at a time when liberty ran especial risks, and, as champions of
popular rights, proved worthy of those emergencies with which they
were confronted. In days when the chief magistrate of the city may
degenerate to a subservient courtier, the history of Beckford’s firm
attitude may be regarded as no longer the worthiest part of the civic
traditions. That his fellow-citizens appreciated his exertions is shown
by the thanks he received for his able and dignified speech to the
king; his reply was ordered to be inserted in the city records, and
afterwards, at his death, was inscribed on the monument erected in the
Guildhall to his memory.

The blow struck at a corrupt administration by the Westminster and
other remonstrances seems to have damped the ardour of the ministers;