THE CHARACTER AND IMPEACHMENT OF WILKES.
One of the most sturdy opponents of Bute and his administration had been the celebrated John Wilkes, member of parliament for Aylesbury, and a lieutenant-colonel in the Buckinghamshire militia. On first entering into office, Bute, by the advice of Bubb Doddington, had established a newspaper, styled “The Briton,” the ostensible object of which was, to advocate the measures of Bute’s administration. Many writers were employed to write for this paper; and while they exalted the premier, they did not fail to vilify his opponents. To oppose this organ of the ministers, another paper was set on foot, and conducted by Wilkes, under the title of “The North Briton.” Wilkes was a man of ruined fortune and of dissolute habits; but he was active, enterprising, and daring, and possessed a considerable fund of wit and repartee. In the beginning of this reign, he had solicited a lucrative post under government, but had been disappointed. His failure was attributed by him to the influence which Bute held over the monarch, and he began to vent his spleen against the minister and his coadjutors in scandalizing and calumniating their actions and private characters. Both in conversation and in the “North Briton,” they were ever made the butts of his ready wit. He even reviled, stigmatized, and heaped curses upon Bute’s country and countrymen. According to his showing, the river Tweed was the line of demarcation between all that was honourable and noble, and all that was dishonourable and servile—south of that river, honour, virtue, and patriotism flourished; north of it, malice, meanness, and slavery prevailed. Every Scotchman was painted by him as a hungry beggar, time-server, and traitor. Wilkes was, perhaps, not singular in his antipathies at this time against the Scotch, for wiser men than him exhibited them in their writings and in their conversation, arising in a great measure from the circumstance of the introduction of large numbers of them into the offices of government. But in this, Bute acted as any other man would have done under similar circumstances, as every one possesses by nature a predilection for their own country and countrymen. This conduct, therefore, of Wilkes was as unwise as it was unjust and impolitic. Still no danger would have occurred to himself from the display of such bitter feelings, had he confined his malevolence to the subjects of Great Britain. Grown bold by impunity, however, Wilkes at length pointed his pen at the royal family, and even at the monarch himself; and, by so doing, he raised a persecution against himself, which has rendered him a prominent object in the annals of his country. On the 19th of April his majesty prorogued parliament, and in the next number of the “North Briton,” the celebrated 45th, Wilkes accused the monarch of uttering a direct falsehood in his speech on that occasion. Whether Grenville was more sensitive than his predecessor had shown himself, or whether Bute instigated him to take notice of this attack, in order to revenge himself upon Wilkes, is not clear, but it is certain that on the 26th a general warrant was issued from the secretary of state’s office, signed and sealed by Lord Halifax, for the arrest of the authors, printers, and publishers of the seditious paper, and for the seizure of their papers. No names were specified in this warrant, and within three days, no less than forty-nine persons were taken upon mere suspicion. These were innocent, but on the 29th, Kearsley, the avowed publisher, and Balfe, the printer, were taken into custody, who confessed that Wilkes was the author of the paper. Accordingly, the crown lawyers having been consulted, the messengers were directed to seize Wilkes, and bring him forthwith before the secretary of state. It was in vain that the offender asserted that they were acting upon an illegal warrant: his papers were seized, and he was carried before Lord Halifax. At the request of Wilkes, his friend, Lord Temple, applied to the court of common pleas for a writ of habeas corpus, and the motion was granted; but before it could be prepared, he was committed to the Tower in close custody, and his friends, his counsel, and his solicitor were denied access to him. The confinement of Wilkes, however, was of short duration, for on the 3rd of May, a writ of habeas corpus was directed to the constable of the Tower, by which he was brought before the court in Westminster Hall. In that court he made a virulent speech against the existing administration, broadly asserting that there was a plot among its members for destroying the liberties of the nation, and that he was selected as their victim, because they could not corrupt him with their gold. The court took time to consider the matter, and on the 6th, Lord Chief Justice Pratt proceeded to deliver the joint opinion of the judges. This opinion was, that though the commitment of Wilkes and the general warrant were not in themselves illegal, as they were justified by numerous precedents, yet he was entitled to his discharge by virtue of his privilege as a member of parliament; that privilege being only forfeited by members who were guilty either of treason, felony, or a breach of the peace. Wilkes was therefore discharged, but the attorney-general immediately instituted a prosecution against him for the libel in question, and the king deprived him of his commission as colonel in the Buckinghamshire militia, and dismissed his friend Lord Temple from the lord-lieutenancy of Buckinghamshire, and struck his name out of the roll of privy councillors. The liberation of Wilkes was followed by a long inky war. Upon regaining the use of his pen, he wrote a letter to the secretaries of state, in which he complained of the treatment he had received, and accused them of holding in their hands, goods of which his house had been robbed by their messengers. This letter, to which government replied, was printed and distributed by thousands, and considerable numbers of the opposition in parliament rallied round the author of the “North Briton,” while the populace began to hail him throughout the country, as the noblest patriot England had known since the days of Algernon Sidney and Hampden. Taking advantage of his popularity, when he found publishers averse to the hazard of publishing his works, he established a printing-press in his own house, where he struck off copies of the proceedings against him, which were sold at one guinea each; a blasphemous and obscene poem entitled, “An Essay on Woman,” with annotations; and the forty-five first numbers of the “North Briton,” with notes and emendations. His pen was seconded by hundreds of newspaper writers and pamphleteers who wrote on his behalf, and John Wilkes thereby became one of the most popular men in all England. Men, even of talents and probity, though they detested his immoralities, associated his name with the idea of liberty, and the proceedings against him were designated as the tyrannical efforts of arbitrary power.
GEORGE III. 1760-1765