RELEASE OF WILKES.
On the 12th of April, the term of Wilkes’s imprisonment having expired, he was set at liberty. He was no sooner freed from confinement than he recommenced his system of agitation. Everywhere he harangued on his sufferings, and declared that he was ready to die in the cause of liberty. He was considered a martyr by the populace, and in both houses he had his friends. On the 1st of May, the Earl of Chatham, after arranging his plan of attack with Temple, Rockingham, Shelburn, and others, stood up in the house of lords and presented a bill for reversing the adjudications of the house of commons, whereby John Wilkes, Esq. had been adjudged incapable of being elected a member to serve in this present parliament, and the freeholders of the county of Middlesex, had been deprived of one of their legal representatives. In descanting on this, Chatham declared that a violent outrage had been committed against everything dear and sacred to Englishmen. He then made some observations on the new state arithmetic by which Colonel Luttrel’s 296 votes had been held to be a greater number than Wilkes’s 1143! This, he said, was flying in the face of all law and freedom: a robbery of the liberty of freeholders; and making the birthrights of Englishmen a mere farce. He then represented Colonel Luttrell as sitting in the lap of John Wilkes, and the majority of the house as being turned into a state engine. He added, in conclusion, “I am afraid this measure originated too near the throne. I am sorry for it; but I hope his majesty will soon open his eyes, and see it in all its deformity.” Lord Mansfield opposed the Earl of Chatham. He contended that the house had no right to interfere with the decisions of the commons; that those decisions were legal; that in consequence of previous votes and sentences, Wilkes was nobody in the eye of the law; and that, though the freeholders gave their votes, it was for the house of commons to judge as to the point of qualification. Lord Camden replied, that Lord Mansfield was delivering unconstitutional doctrines, and that Wilkes had been expelled in consequence of a secret influence which had said, “Mr. Wilkes shall not sit.” He also asserted that the judgment of the commons on the Middlesex election was a worse wound in the constitution than any of those inflicted in the reign of Charles I., when the nation had no parliament; and he expressed a hope that if this bill should be rejected, the good sense and spirit of the people would persevere session after session, till the judgment of parliament should be revoked. The bill was rejected, and thirty-eight peers signed a protest.
When this bill was lost, the Earl of Chatham demanded that the house should be summoned on the 4th, as he had a motion to make of great importance relative to the king. On the day appointed, his lordship moved, “That the advice inducing his majesty to give the answer to the late address, remonstrance, and petition of the lord mayor, aldermen, and livery of London, was of a most dangerous tendency, inasmuch as thereby the exercise of the rights of the subject to petition the king for redress of grievances, to complain of violations of the freedom of election, to pray dissolution of parliament, and to point out malpractices in administration, to urge the removal of evil ministers, etc., had been indiscriminately checked with reprimand; and the afflicted citizens of London had heard from the throne itself, that the contents of their humble addresses could not but be considered by his majesty as disrespectful, injurious, etc.” The noble lord said that an answer so harsh as this exceeded all precedent in the history of this country; that the very essence of the constitution not only permitted, but required petitioning; and that the Stuarts themselves never dared to prevent the practice. He then eulogized the lord mayor and the liverymen of London, and in conclusion, pronounced Colonel Luttrell as a mere nominee thrust in by the enemies of the law and constitution. The motion was negatived by a large majority.
GEORGE II. 1769-1771