290 WILKES RETURNED FOR MIDDLESEX-RIOTS. [1768. encouragement, these Reports, in their printed form, do not extend beyond March 27, 1771.* At the opening of Parliament the ministry comprised lord Camden, Lord Chancellor; the duke of Grafton, First Lord of the Treasury; lord Shelburne, Secretary of State; lord North, Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord Chatham still held the Privy Seal, but continued unable to discharge any official duties. It was the duke of Grafton's ministry. The new Parliament commenced in a tempest of popular violence, such as had been unwitnessed in England for many years. John Wilkes, an outlaw, suddenly returned from France, at the time when the writs had been issued for a general election, and he declared himself a candidate for the city of London. He was lowest on the poll, there being four aldermen in nomination, who had the suffrages of most decent citizens. Wilkes then proposed himself as a candidate for the county of Middlesex. The ministry were unwilling to proceed against him on his outlawry; and the Whigs, generally, could not well forget that he had been their tool. The demagogue was returned as member for Middlesex; and his triumph was celebrated by illuminations and riots. On the 20th of April, being the first day of term, Wilkes, according to a promise he had given, surrendered to his outlawry, and was committed to custody. A violent mob rescued their favourite from the officers of the court; but he had the prudence to get away from them, and surrender himself at the King's Bench prison. Riots daily took place in the neighbourhood of Wilkes's place of confinement. On the 10th of May, a vast concourse of people assembled in St. George's Fields, to convey the member for Middlesex to his seat in the House, which it was thought he would then take in virtue of his privilege. The riot act was read when the mob assailed the prison-gates; and the military being called in, five or six persons lost their lives, and many were wounded. The magistrate who gave the order to fire was tried and acquitted. On the 11th of May a royal proclamation was issued "for suppressing riots, tumults, and other unlawful assemblies." There were other causes of tumult than the political agitations connected with Wilkes. Seamen from vessels in the Thames were parading the streets, demanding increase of wages; and having interfered with the unloading of colliers, the coalheavers took part against the sailors, and were fighting with them in the public thoroughfares. The coalheavers had their own especial grievance, having by Act of Parliament been subjected to the jurisdiction of the alderman of the ward. An alehouse-keeper of the name of Green had given offence to the coalheavers, who were chiefly Irish; and they vowed his destruction. Walpole relates their proceedings, as "the fiercest and most memorable of all the tumults." His narrative shows the lawlessness of the metropolis ninety years ago. Green, Walpole says, "every night removed his wife and children out of his house. One evening he received notice that the coalheavers were coming to attack him. He had nobody with him but a maid-servant and a sailor, who by accident was drinking in the house. Green asked the sailor if he would assist him. Yes,' answered the generous tar, 'I will defend any man in distress. At eight the rioters appeared, and fired on the house, lodging in one room above two hundred bullets; and when their ammunition was spent * Published in Parts, in 1843, and forming two volumes, the second of which is incomplete. 1768.] SENTENCE UPON WILKES. 291 they bought pewter pots, cut them to pieces, and fired them as ball. At length with an axe they broke out the bottom of the door; but that breach the sailor defended singly; while Green and his maid kept up a constant fire, and killed eighteen of the besiegers. Their powder and ball being at last wasted, Green said he must make his escape; 'for you,' said he to the friendly sailor, they will not hurt you.' Green, retiring from the back room of his house, got into a carpenter's yard, and was concealed in a sawpit, over which the mob passed in their pursuit of him, being told he was gone forwards." During nine hours, whilst this tumult was going on, no police or military interfered. Green was tried for murder and was acquitted. Seven of the coalheavers were executed; but the revenge of their associates did not cease, for they murdered Green's sister. The brave sailor never owned himself; never claimed honour or recompense for his generous gallantry." The only real business in the first short Session of the new Parliament was to continue the Act prohibiting the exportation of corn and flour. The Houses adjourned after sitting only ten days, and the Parliament was afterwards prorogued. Colonel Luttrell on the 10th of May had moved "that the proper officer of the Crown do inform the House, why the laws were not immediately put in force against John Wilkes, Esq., an outlaw;" but the Speaker held that the motion could not be entertained. The parliament did not re-assemble till the 8th of November; but the case of John Wilkes had been kept alive in the public mind by the legal proceedings against him. Lord Mansfield, in June, delivered judgment in the Court of King's Bench, that the outlawry of Mr. Wilkes was null and void, through a defect in the pleadings; but the original judgment against him for libels was sufficient, and he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, and to two fines of 5001. There were illuminations in the Strand on the 27th of October, in honour of Wilkes's birth-day. On the 2nd of January, 1769, he was elected alderman of the ward of Farringdon Without; and subsequently, some informality having been found in the proceedings, he was re-elected. He was to be raised to the highest pinnacle of popularity by the contest in which the government, acting through the House of Commons, now became engaged with the prisoner in the King's Bench who had been elected member for Middlesex. On the 14th of November, a petition to the Commons was presented from Mr. Wilkes "for redress of his grievances." The proceedings upon this petition occupied much time; and the House of Commons appeared eager to raise another issue, upon a complaint in the House of Peers of Lord Weymouth, the Secretary of State, that Wilkes had published a libel against himself. The Commons, after a conference with the Lords, took this matter in hand; summoned Wilkes to their bar in custody; and received his defiance in the assertion that he was the author of the paper complained of, and that he gloried in it. The House decided that this was an insolent, scandalous, and seditious libel. On the 3rd of February, lord Barrington moved that John Wilkes, having confessed himself the author of what the House had deemed to be a libel, and being also under sentence for other seditious, obscene, and impious libels, be expelled. The motion was carried by a majority of eighty-two; and a new writ was moved for "Memoirs of George III.," vol. iii. p. 219, 292 HIS EXPULSIONS FROM PARLIAMENT, AND RE-ELECTIONS. [1769. Middlesex. The sentence of expulsion was resisted by the minority upon constitutional grounds; and upon the same principle Wilkes was re-elected unanimously. The election was declared null and void by a majority in the Commons of a hundred and forty-six. Again the freeholders of Middlesex resolved to set at nought the decision of Parliament. The rights of electors were considered to be violated. Large sums were subscribed to carry on this dangerous battle between the people and their representatives. The whole kingdom was in agitation. Wilkes was a third time elected; and it was voted, that having been expelled the House he was incapacitated for election. The government now provided a candidate who would not shrink from opposing the popular favourite. Colonel Luttrell vacated his seat, and stood for the metropolitan county. On the 13th of April, without any tumult, Wilkes was a fourth time returned by a very large majority. The House of Commons now decided by a majority of fifty-four, that Luttrell should have been returned, and not Wilkes, and that Luttrell should take his seat. The king, in April, 1768, had urged upon lord North the necessity for the expulsion of Wilkes; and on this last decision of the House he congratulated the Chancellor of the Exchequer upon "the very honourable issue of the debate." His majesty added, "the House has, with becoming dignity, supported their own privileges, without which they cannot subsist, and it is now my duty to see the laws obeyed." King, Lords, and Commons, were now committed to what was deemed a warfare against the people, and a violation of constitutional rights. Sober statesmen were alarmed. Granby and Conway staid away from Parliament on the motion for the expulsion of Wilkes. "Having declared against violent measures they would not concur in it; and disapproving Wilkes's attacks on the government, they would not defend him."* Dunning took the same course. When lord Barrington moved the expulsion, George Grenville, during whose administration Wilkes had been first arrested for the libel in the "North Briton," delivered a speech which may even now be read with admiration for its grave wisdom. He denied, in the strongest terms, the legality and the prudence of the proposed measure.† Burke brought all the force of his eloquence to contend against the manifest disposition of the House. One sentence would not be readily forgotten: "The late hour of the night-the candles-all put me in mind of the representation of the last act of a tragi-comedy, performed by his majesty's servants, by desire of several persons of distinction, for the benefit of Mr. Wilkes, and at the expense of the constitution." The conclusion of his speech pointed to the impending danger: "I dread the consequences of this violent struggle between the two tides of power and popularity." The House went on debating, with more or less energy, on every occasion when the re-election of Wilkes was the subject of controversy. On the 15th of April, upon the motion for declaring colonel Luttrell member for Middlesex, instead of Mr. Wilkes, the discussion was conducted with a heat that manifested how the passions even of temperate men had become committed to this unhappy Walpole "George III.," vol. iii. p. 317. Reported in full in the "Cavendish Debates " vol. i. pp. 159 to 176. 1769.] DEBATE ON THE PRIVILEGES OF THE COMMONS. 293 contest. Alderman Beckford having been interrupted by Mr. Onslow in saying that "he apprehended a Resolution of the House of Commons was not the law of the land," George Grenville rose to the point of order, and with great animation exclaimed, "Sir, the man who will contend that a Resolution of the House of Commons is the law of the land, is a most violent enemy of his country, be he who or what he will." His emotion was so great that on the conclusion of his short speech," Mr. Grenville spat blood."* On the same evening, Charles Fox, who had not then attained his majority, made his first speech, in favour of the government. The debut of the “man of the people "of after times was not promising. He said that "the contest was between the House of Commons and the lowest scum of the people." Burke replied, in terms which probably sank deep into the mind of the young man, who was then renowned only for his extravagance: "Sir, if party distinction is to be raised up in this country between the gentlemen and those who have this evening been called beggarly-if such a party should ever arise-woe betide the gentlemen! If, dabbling in intrigues, they make themselves contemptible and useless, they will never be respected: the active, the industrious, those who labour, will get before them." On the 8th of May, there was a debate on the petition against the return of colonel Luttrell, when the question that he was duly elected was affirmed by a majority of sixty-nine. On that occasion, Mr. Henry Cavendish said, "I lay it down as a principle that no Order of the House of Commons can make a minority a majority; that no Resolution of the House of Commons can ever make Mr. Luttrell the legal representative of the county of Middlesex: for I do, from my soul, abhor, detest, and abjure, as unconstitutional and illegal, that damnable doctrine and position, that a Resolution of the House of Commons can make, alter, suspend, abrogate, or annihilate the law of the land." The next day, seventy members dined together at the Thatched House Tavern, when one of the toasts was "Mr. Cavendish's creed." Another toast was, "The first edition of Dr. Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England." The allusion was to the debate of the previous night. Blackstone, then Solicitor-General to the queen, had declared that the legal incapacity of Wilkes to sit in that House was established by the Common. Law; and Grenville said, "I greatly prefer the opinion given by the learned gentleman in his work on the Laws of England, to what fell from him this evening;" and then quoted a passage from the Commentaries as to the qualifications of persons to be elected.|| Whilst this contest was going on in Parliament, the attention of the town, and very soon of the whole nation, was turned to an anonymous writer in the "Public Advertiser," who, under the signature of "Junius," commenced a series of attacks upon persons of high station, that formed, by their fearlessness as well as their ability, a striking contrast to the ordinary communications to newspapers. There had been many previous letters in the same paper, printed and conducted by Mr. Henry Sampson Woodfall, which, from their personalities, had made some noise. Many of these, signed * "Cavendish Debates," vol. i. p. 371. + Ibid., p. 428. 294 THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. [1769. Poplicola, Anti-Sejanus, jun., Correggio, Mnemon, Lucius, Atticus, have been ascribed to the same writer; but it has been maintained very convincingly, in successive articles in the "Athenæum," that, although included in the edition of Junius of 1812, the theory of their coming from one and the same pen, is not to be accepted without large qualification. Nevertheless, careful inquirers, amongst whom is lord Mahon, think they would not have appeared in Woodfall's edition without some good authority. These letters abound with very choice figures of speech, which have a remarkable resemblance to the undoubted writings of Junius. Lord Chatham, in the spring of 1767, is "a man purely and perfectly bad,"-" a grand vizier,"-one who had accepted" a share of power under a pernicious court minion." In the autumn, Chatham is "a lunatic brandishing a crutch." Camden is a judge, with the laws of England under his feet, and "before his distorted vision a dagger which marshals him the way to the murder of the constitution." Beastliness and brutality characterize these productions, in many instances. Profaneness is common enough. So far these letters agree with those of Junius. They agree also in the few political principles which we find amidst their scurrility. Those who contended against the justice and policy of taxing the North American colonies, were "a particular set of men base and treacherous enough to have enlisted under the banners of a lunatic, to whom they sacrificed their honour, their conscience, and their country,-the wretched ministers who served at the altar, whilst the high priest himself, with more than frantic fury, offered up his bleeding country a victim to America." On the 5th of April, 1768, the return of Wilkes to England offered a favourable occasion for a new attack to be opened against the ministry of the duke of Grafton, under the signature of C., which Junius adopted in his private correspondence with his printer. Wilkes was now the object of his most rancorous abuse-"a most infamous character in private life." The ministry were responsible for this outlaw being at large. "We are still strong enough to defend our lives and properties against Mr. Wilkes and his banditti." Within a year there was no man more zealous than Junius in an endeavour to stimulate this banditti into those acts of violence which are the natural consequence of writings which rouse the passions by unmeasured personalities. He made no attempts to sustain the people in a temperate assertion of their rights; or to bring the powers of argument to deter those who were invading those rights. His mode of proceeding has its admirers, as we learn from his last idolator: "Junius had a busier mission than that of writing panegyrics on principles, or didactic essays on axiomatic politics. . . . Principle, in those days, if not practised, being at least understood, Junius was, in my judgment, right in applying his vast powers rather to the chastisement of wrong-doers, than to theoretical disquisitions on wrongs done."* ... It is more than forty years ago since the author of this History was induced diligently to read the "Letters of Junius." The elaborate edition by Woodfall was then recently published; but to a youth it was more important that, as a "British Classic," Junius could be carried about as a pocket volume. Little more than forty years had passed since the victims of Junius were guiding the destinies of the nation. The "great personage" whom he had "William Burke the Author of Junius." By J. C. Symons. 1859. |