“OXFORD.
“From London into Oxford Town,
See all the world is hurrying down,
Dashwood and Wenman for a crown.
Doodle, Doodle, Do.
“The Duke of Newcastle in his Fly
Cannot get up to his grace; for why?
The Funeral! Ah! men will die.
“Sir Edward in the chaise you see;
‘Get out, Sir Edward!’ ‘O, no!’ says he;
‘What,’ cries my Lord, ‘must I single be?’
“‘My jades begin to kick,’ says his Grace;
‘Sir, you had better leave the place,
And never look them in the face.’”
The elections in Oxfordshire were marked by a more animated conflict than elsewhere; the Jacobite faction was still strong there, although the comparatively recent fate of those who had declared for the Pretender served to keep these sympathies within discreet limits. The contest was strongly marked by incidents which have survived in the four famous election pictures painted by William Hogarth, the unequalled originals of which, still in fine condition, are now somewhat lost to the public in Sir John Soane’s Museum,[44] but of which the engravings are most familiar. Hogarth sold the series to his friend David Garrick for the modest price of 200 guineas; at the sale of Mrs. Garrick’s effects, in 1823, they were secured by Sir John Soane for the corresponding moderate sum of £1732 10s. The “Election Entertainment” was exhibited at Spring Gardens in 1761. These characteristic satires seem to apply to electioneering episodes in general, not only of the eighteenth century, but until within the present; a recapitulation of the principal allusions, however, will show that these pictures are composed of studies for the most part drawn from life, and founded on the actualities of the 1754 contest in Oxfordshire. The “Election Entertainment,” the first of these plates, is so well known that it was felt unnecessary to reproduce any of its incidents. This scene might he taken as a generalistic view of the electioneering hospitality and “open house,” one of the first steps towards conciliating support, but that the three “party-cries” distinctive of this particular struggle are all pictorially perpetuated. The scene embodies gluttony, turbulence, and false patriotism, but bribery and violent intimidation prevail above all. The mayor, who occupies the seat of honour, has succumbed to a surfeit of oysters, and a phlebotomist of the barber tribe is endeavouring to blood his arm and cool his head at one time. A ministerial-looking personage is treated with coarse familiarity, while a youthful aspirant for popular favour is submitting to tipsified indignities at the hands of his temporary associates. Nichols, who mentions certain assurances he received from Hogarth as to the fact that, with one exception, none of the figures were intended for portraits, affects to recognize the handsome candidate.[45] This modish gentleman has been treating the fair sex to gloves, buff or orange favours, and other gear, from the pack of a pedlar of the Hebrew persuasion, who is also dealing in notes of hand; he holds one for £20 from the candidate, signed “R. Pention” (Pension being the word). While the Court party is regaling the Buffs, or Old Interest, at the leading tavern, their opponents, the Blues, are making an out-of-door demonstration; so that a view of the humours of both sides is simultaneously afforded. The New Interest procession is composed of “bludgeon-men,” bearing an effigy of the Duke of Newcastle, with the colours of the Old Interest, and a placard round his neck, “No Jews,” in allusion to the unpopular Act introduced by the Pelhams (1752) to permit the naturalization of foreign Jews. Another cry, inscribed on a blue standard, is “Liberty and Prosperity,” while a huge blue flag bears the inscription, “Increase and multiply in spite of old ——,”[46] in reference to the recent Act for the regulation of marriages, which had encountered much opposition and given offence to the multitude. An animated exchange of missiles between the political antagonists is proceeding through the window; those within are standing a siege from showers of bricks, to which they are replying with a volley of fluids and furniture showered on the heads of the passing patriots; while a rival detachment of Old Interest hirelings, displaying their orange cockades, being armed with oak cudgels, and headed by a partisan with a drawn sword, is sallying forth to make a diversion on the besiegers. A champion Orange bludgeon-man, seated on the floor in the foreground, has evidently returned from a raid on the foe, in which he has had his head broken, but he has succeeded in carrying off one of the obnoxious blue standards. A butcher, with a “Pro Patria” favour twisted round his head, is pouring gin upon the bruiser’s cracked cranium, which he has first plastered with a “Your vote and interest” card; the doughty champion is reviving his spirits with the same stimulant; his foot is trampling upon the spoils of victory, the broken staff and the flag inscribed, “Give us our eleven days,”—another whimsical popular party cry, explained by the alteration in the style, introduced in the session 1751, to correct the calendar according to the Georgian computation, then adopted by most European nations. To equalize the number of days, so that the new year should in future begin on the 1st of January, eleven intermediate days were for that occasion passed over between the 2nd and 14th of September, 1752, so that the day succeeding the 2nd of that month would be reckoned as the 14th—an alteration which provoked discontent, and, in spite of its obvious convenience, was denounced as a Popish innovation.
“In seventeen hundred and fifty-three,
The style was changed to P—p—ry [Popery],
But that it is lik’d, we don’t all agree;
Which nobody can deny.
“When the country folk first heard of this act,
That old father Style was condemned to be rack’d,
And robb’d of his time, which appears to be fact,
Which nobody can deny;
“It puzzl’d their brains, their senses perplex’d,
And all the old ladies were very much vex’d,
Not dreaming that Levites would alter our text;
Which nobody can deny.”
(The Jew’s Triumph.)
The business of the meeting, regarding the gluttony and drunkenness among the diversions, is centred in bribery. The Buff parliamentary agent has a seat next the unconscious municipal in the chair; before him is a ledger ruled with columns for “sure votes” and “doubtful.” The occupations of this important factotum are deranged by a flying brick from the opposition, which has struck home on his temple, bringing him down headlong, with destruction to objects around. Amid much horse-play and practical joking—to the strains of an extraordinary orchestra—promises of payment, bank-notes, and broad-pieces are being put into circulation. A lean Methodist tailor, with Blue sympathies, and who is suffering from qualms of conscience, is placed between two fires, the personal violence of his wife, with a half-shod offspring appealing for new shoes, while a clerkly agent is pressing on his acceptance a handful of silver coins to remove his pious scruples. Although bribery was so generally admitted, and stalked barefaced throughout the country, it was even then contrary to statute. With his usual irony, the painter has shown the “Act against Bribery and Corruption” turned into pipe-lights, and thrown aside in the tray of “long clays,” together with a packet of tobacco, for the use of smokers. This latter bears the name of “Kirton’s best,” and has its peculiar significance: Nichols records that Kirton “was a tobacconist by St. Dunstan’s Church, Fleet Street, who ruined his health and constitution, as well as impaired his circumstances, by being busy in the Oxfordshire election of 1754.” The pictures on the walls, according to Hogarth’s practice, greatly assist the story: there is a view, presumably of Oxford from the river—the city is represented in flames; an undertaker’s escutcheon—the field sable bears three gold pieces, with a chevron, the motto “Speak and Have,” surmounted by an open mouth by way of crest proper. A portrait of William, Prince of Orange, as the Protestant prince of the Revolution, has been slashed across by rabid and indignant Jacobites, in allusion to the faction then supposed to have had much influence in Oxford; branches of laurel are entwined round a buff flag, marked “Liberty and Loyalty,” the standard of the party.
Further allusions to the respective Houses of Stuart and Hanover may be detected in the plate, “Canvassing for Votes,” in the signs of the “Royal Oak,” versus “The Crown.” All the taverns are pressed into the service of the candidates as a matter of course, the enterprising competitors striving to secure the preponderance of publicans, their interest, friends, and followers. “Tim Partitool, Esq.,” possibly a hit at Bubb Dodington, whose person, as sketched by Hogarth, may be identified in at least one picture of this series, is located at the “Royal Oak.” This enterprising gentleman, as depicted on his canvass, is nicknamed “Punch,” also indicative of Bubb’s unmistakable figure. A porter has brought two packages, evidently polling cards, inscribed, “Sir, your vote and interest;” one of these parcels is directed “at Punch’s, at the ‘Royal Oak’ Yard,” and to the candidate in question the bearer is presenting a note with the superscription, “Tim Partitool, Esq.” Above this gentleman’s head, and partly concealing the painted signboard of Charles II. in the oak, with the three crowns of the United Kingdom among the branches, is a pictorial poster in two compartments. In the upper one are shown the Treasury and Horse Guards, both burlesqued; while from the tall story of the former flows a stream of gold, which is being packed into sacks for conveyance by waggon into the country—there to be distributed for the purposes of bribery—to strengthen the party already in power, known as the Old Interest (their own). The way this is to come about is shown in the lower compartment of the painted cloth: “Punch, candidate for Guzzledown,” the farceur, with his protuberant rotundity of back and corporation, has a wheel-barrow before him, filled with bags of money, marked £7000 and £9000, and in all amounting to a considerable sum; he is casting about the broad-pieces in a shower from a ladle, and they are caught in the hats of expectant electors.
“See from the Treasury flows the gold,
To show that those who’re bought are sold!
Come, Perjury, meet it on the road—
’Tis all your own—a waggon-load.
Ye party fools, ye courtier tribe,
Who gain no vote without a bribe,
Lavishly kind, yet insincere,
Behold in Punch yourselves appear.
And you, ye fools, who poll for pay,
Ye little great men of a day,
For whom your favourite will not care,
Observe how much bewitch’d you are.”
The candidate is treating all around, within the inn, as seen in the bar-parlour, his followers are feeding gluttonously; in the balcony above are two fair nymphs, whose favour he is conciliating by purchasing trinkets from a Jew pedlar. A farmer voter of some influence, probably a squire of the Tony Lumpkin order, who has ridden into Guzzledown, is making the most of his opportunities: the landlords of the rival inns are ostensibly pressing him to accept invitations to dinner at the respective head-quarters; the host of the Royal Oak is pouring a shower of silver into the receptive palm held out by the wary elector, while the other hand receives the broad golden retainer of “The Crown.” The landlady has a lapful of money, while one of George’s grenadiers (like those seen in “The March to Finchley”) is slyly watching the reckoning of the plunder, probably with an eye to spoliation on his own account. The Crown, which is also the Excise Office, is the scene of an animated contest, rival bludgeon-men are in fierce conflict at the doorway, furniture and stones are being thrown about, and a man from the window is discharging a gun into the thick of the fray below—an allusion to a murderous episode which really occurred. The sign of the Crown, suspended to a huge beam, is in process of removal; a man above, on the wrong side of the support, is sawing it through, while confederates below are dragging it down by force: this is also figurative—the man above, who is assisting to demolish the Crown, will come down simultaneously, while those beneath it will be crushed by its fall. At a third house is the sign of the Porto Bello, at the side door of which is seen a barber demonstrating with pieces of tobacco-pipe the manner in which Porto Bello was itself taken with six ships only; his companion, a cobbler, has given up work, having received sufficient money from the elections to afford to forego toil for the present.
THE ELECTION AT OXFORD.—CANVASSING FOR VOTES. BY W. HOGARTH. 1754.
THE OXFORDSHIRE ELECTION—THE POLLING BOOTH. BY W. HOGARTH. 1754.
[Page 145.
The view of the Polling Booth is full of intention. Within, seated at the back, on a raised platform, are the sheriffs or bailiffs with whom the election rests, and their attendant, the beadle; in the front are the poll clerks, with their register-books, and the lawyers to see the testaments duly offered for attesting the oath; in the left corner, a veteran (the Militia Bill peeps out of his pocket), who has lost both arms and one leg, is touching the testament with the iron hook which does duty for his missing hand; the clerk is trying to stifle his laughter, while the opposition lawyer is energetically protesting against this proceeding as informal. Hogarth has literally brought “the blind and the halt” to the hustings; in fact, as was too frequently witnessed on these occasions, he has introduced the extremes to which recourse was had,—a pitiable idiot, in a hopeless stage of imbecility, is brought up to the poll in a chair; this poor creature’s mind is too far gone to distinguish between his right and left hands; the clerk is vainly endeavouring to get the proper attestation, while the keeper, or mad doctor, Dr. Shebbeare,[47] whose legs are adorned with fetters as a felon, is prompting his charge; a political letter of the doctor’s is shown in his pocket. Another victim, evidently on the verge of dissolution, is smuggled up to the booth in an unconscious state, wrapped in a blanket and carried by two repulsive ruffians; one of them is puffing a blast of tobacco smoke full in the face of the dying man, to whose night-cap is pinned a “True Blue” favour.
“Swift, reverend wag, Iërne’s pride,
Who lov’d the comic rein to guide,
Has told us, ‘Jailors, when they please,
Let out their flock to rob for fees.’
From this sage hint, in needful cases,
The wights, who govern other places,
Let out their crew for private ends—
Ergo, to serve themselves and friends.
Behold, here gloriously inclin’d
The Sick, the Lame, the Halt, and Blind!
From Workhouse, Jail, and Hospital,
Submissive come, true Patriots all!
And ’scaped from wars and foreign clutches,
An Invalid’s behind on crutches.”
Drinking is still proceeding, and “dying speeches” are hawked about, with the usual heading of a rude woodcut of the gallows, in allusion most probably to a local occurrence which produced considerable agitation amongst the public at large—the passions of the multitude having been set into a flame, in the absence of political excitement, by the trial and execution at Oxford, in 1753, of a young woman, Mary Blandy, for poisoning her father under rather romantic circumstances; she persisted in asserting her innocence, even on the scaffold; a number of pamphlets were published upon her case, which became the subject of warm dispute.
All these “Election” plates are rich in suggestive allusions, the meaning of many of which are now lost. Hogarth in his third plate has indulged in simple allegory. Britannia’s state coach is in difficulties, to which, by the aid of the check-string fastened to her coachman’s arm, she is vainly endeavouring to draw the attention of her driver, who has laid down his reins, being otherwise engaged; the two servants on the box are absorbed in a game of cards, while one is cheating,—an allusion to the extravagant gambling propensities which, to so large and notorious an extent, disfigured society in general, and particularly (at this time) those charged with the interests of the kingdom.
THE OXFORDSHIRE ELECTION.—CHAIRING THE MEMBERS. BY W. HOGARTH. 1754.
The fourth plate, “Chairing the Members,” exhibits the last and apparently most trying episode as regards the successful candidate; the hero of the hour—the newly returned member, elected in the True Blue, or New Interest—occupies a position which may have its honours, but obviously has its perils. In place of the actually returned members, Hogarth seems to have selected the figure of the intriguing manager of the Leicester House party, Bubb Dodington (afterwards Lord Melcombe), for the hero of the chairing scene. He is elevated only to find himself surrounded with embarrassments: the dangers of his chairing are lost sight of momentarily, for his pale face is horror-stricken by being confronted with a fair lady of fashion; she is equally affected by the rencontre, for she is swooning away—it is presumed with apprehension—in the arms of her maids. Over Bubb’s head flies a goose—a happy conception, understood to be introduced as a parody of the “Triumph of Alexander,” by Le Brun, where that grandiose artist has suggestively made an eagle hover over the head of his hero. In the Blue procession following the chairmen are all the elements of an election triumph—rough music of marrow-bones and cleavers, True Blue flags,[48] plenty of bludgeon-men, while a “block head,” wearing the buff favour of their opponents, is carried to ridicule the opposition. Another humorous episode is shown in a vixenish dame sporting a buff cockade; she has boldly broken through the ranks of the Blues, and is driving from their midst her husband, a tailor, detected in his duplicity by the virago, who is soundly cuffing her crestfallen “inferior moiety,” lately deserted to the enemy. A barrel of beer has been placed in the street for public use; a pewter measure stands beside it; the mob seems to have used the opportunity, as a would-be drinker is discovering that the cask is already emptied. In the distance, a second chaired member is skilfully indicated, of whom the shadow only is seen, projected on a wall, while he is carried along to the evident risk of limb and life, as his gesticulations imply. Among other accessories may be noted a tar-barrel, in preparation for a bonfire later on. The sun-dial bears the date 1755 (when the picture was completed), and marks three o’clock, the quality dinner-hour. The bigwigs of the Court party are assembled at an adjacent mansion, at which a plentiful banquet is about to be served: a French chef, his long clubbed tail bound with an orange favour, a female cook, noblemen’s servants, and other retainers, all wearing the colours of the Old Interest, are carrying the silver-covered dishes in procession. The ministerial adherents are assembled on the first floor; a large handsome window—all the panes of which have been broken by the stones of the patriots, affords a good view of the guests; from the side window they are catching the prospect of the Blue demonstration, surveying with malicious delight the perilous situation of the alarmed chaired member, whose triumph seems, for the time being, the reverse of enviable.
It is said the figure of the chief personage is intended for that of the Duke of Newcastle; the Duke of Marlborough was also actively engaged on the Tory side: while the back of another, wearing a broad ribbon, is possibly meant for Lord Winchilsea. Among the artist’s fugitive sketches, as published at his widow’s, Leicester Fields, in 1781, are the two caricatures—engraved by Bartolozzi, from the Earl of Exeter’s collection of Hogarth’s originals—representing Bubb Dodington (very like “Punch”), and the back view of Lord Winchilsea; both these studies might have been made for the plate of “Chairing the Members.” These figures are also included in a caricature entitled “The Recruiting Sergeant” 1757 (the design of which was ascribed to the Hon. George Townshend), while that of Lord Winchilsea, who was at the head of the admiralty, is reproduced with scarcely any alteration, excepting the position of the paddle shown over his shoulder, in the “Triumph of Neptune.”
GEORGE BUBB DODINGTON (LORD MELCOMBE-REGIS) AND THE EARL OF WINCHILSEA. BY HOGARTH. 1753.
Other multifarious incidents are given in the fourth plate of the “Election.” A soldier with the Buff colours is washing the wound received on behalf of his employers; his sword is snapped across the blade. A pig-driver, flourishing a formidable flail, is doing battle with a bear-leader, who is armed with a bludgeon. The backward swing of the flail is imperilling the security of the new member’s seat, while wounding the chair-bearers. Bruin is helping himself from the offal pail of a passing ass—the patient animal stopping to munch a thistle by the wayside; the driver is belabouring the bear over the head, to the alarm of a monkey equipped à la militaire and riding on the brute’s shoulder. In the monkey’s fright, a musket at his side is discharged in the face of a little chimney-sweep, who, raised aloft on the wall, is stooping forward to ornament a sculptured skull or effigy of death, placed above the church gate, with a pair of huge round spectacles, in imitation of those worn by Lord Winchilsea. This burning of powder, like the other episodes, has its significance; for, according to the account of Nichols, who claims to have discussed the hidden meanings of these pictures with Hogarth himself, it was “during the contested Oxfordshire Election in 1754 an outrageous mob in the ‘Old Interest’ had surrounded a post-chaise, and were about to throw it into the river (occupant and all), when Captain T——, withinside, shot a chimney-sweeper who was most active in the assault. The captain was tried and acquitted.” Among the items in these election bills it will be observed that more or less mortality has generally to be reckoned, “death by misadventure” having been sufficiently prominent in most contests of the kind during the turbulent times of the past. Private property was held in small respect while rioting was rife; for instance, Hogarth has, in the scene of the chairing, shown a mansion partially demolished, intending to imply that the house had been wrecked by the riotous mob in the course of their eccentric diversions: it will be noted that the wilful destruction of houses and furniture was another recognized feature of election times.
The diary of George Bubb Dodington, Baron of Melcombe-Regis, does not, it is true, contain any enlightenment upon the subject of the Oxfordshire election as depicted by Hogarth, yet the writer is circumstantial in his account of the elections of April, 1754. The records, however, deal with other contests in which the diarist was active, and notably one which brought Dodington much perplexity of mind and loss of cash. The accounts are nearly all set down as recitals of long interviews with the Duke of Newcastle, who was then trying to strengthen his hands by giving away places to those whose allegiance was doubtful; while Dodington, upon whose influence and assistance he could reckon, reaped nothing but mortification, being in fact an intriguer who was for once played upon for ends other than his own by a more astute and less scrupulous diplomatist than himself. The heads of the alliance are set down as under discussion. Bubb was to furnish his interest towards the electing the new parliament (the dissolution was then an affair of hours), claiming to return six members on his own account. “I did it,” he writes, “in the county of Dorset, as far as they pleased to push it. I engaged also specifically to choose two members for Weymouth, which he desired might be the son of the Duke of Devonshire and Mr. Ellis of the admiralty.” The candidates nominated by the Duke of Newcastle, Lord J. Cavendish and Mr. Ellis, were successfully returned by Dodington’s influence in the sequel. Further, there was opposition in Bridgwater, where Bubb was expected to return two members. Lord Egmont was putting up for that place against the Court, and it was the royal pleasure that Dodington should sacrifice himself to keep the Tory candidate out, as signified through Pelham; to which Bubb replied, “that I desired him, when next these matters came to be discussed, to lay me at the King’s feet, and tell him that, as I found it would be agreeable to his Majesty, I would spare neither pains nor expense to exclude him; and thus it became my engagement to do it if I can.” “Lord Egmont’s successful return,” he writes, “need not affect my election, though it might destroy the Whig interest in Bridgwater for ever.” Poor Bubb, oblivious of the royal antipathies to the friends of the Prince of Wales, was hoping to secure his old post of treasurer of the navy, but the leadership of the House of Commons had fallen upon the Pelhams, and, as the party must be strengthened there, it was hinted that the Duke of Newcastle would have to buy supporters by giving away to waverers the offices which rightly were due to his friends; to which Dodington replied without sophistication, “that he considered himself as useful there as his neighbours, and, considering his age, rank, the offices he had held,” and, “adding to that, choosing six members for them at my own expense, without the expense of one shilling from their side, I thought the world in general, and even the gentlemen themselves, could not expect that their pretensions should give me the exclusion.” The duke remarked that “the ease and cheapness of the election of Weymouth had surprised him, that they had nothing like it;” and Bubb considered again “that there were few who could give his Majesty six members for nothing.” Newcastle then took the stout future Baron Melcombe in his arms and kissed him twice (!) “with strong assurance of affection and service;” moreover, notes of all Bubb had said were written out for the king’s pleasure. A week later, Dodington sets down, “Dined at Lord Barrington’s, and found that, notwithstanding the fine conversation of last Thursday, all the employments are given away.”
Nevertheless, he valorously went to work to try and return two members for Bridgwater, though rather against his inclinations; unfortunately, although the doings of each day are set down, the details of the election have been abbreviated by the editor of the diary, Henry Wyndham.
“1754. April 8th. Arrived at Eastbury.
“11. Dr. Sharpe and I set out from Eastbury at four o’clock in the morning for Bridgwater, where, as I expected, I found things very disagreeably framed.
“12. Lord Egmont came, with trumpets, noise, etc.
“13. He and we walked the town: we found nothing unexpected as far as we went.
“14, 15, 16. Spent in the infamous and disagreeable compliance with the low habits of venal wretches.
“17. Came on the election, which I lost by the injustice of the Returning Officer. The numbers were—for Lord Egmont 119, for Mr. Balch 114, for me 105. Of my good votes 15 were rejected: 8 bad votes for Lord Egmont were received.
“18. Left Bridgwater for ever. Arrived at Eastbury in the evening.”
Altogether Dodington places his expenses at £2500, later on at £3400, and finally, when the king had thrown him over, at nearly £4000 spent in this affair. According to an accepted political axiom, what a man buys he may sell; Pelham admitted to Dodington that he possessed “a good deal of marketable ware (parliamentary interest), and that if I would empower him to offer it all to the king, without conditions, he would he answerable to bring the affair to a good account.” In this instance the vendor sold himself for “just nothing at all,” as is shown in the diary. The king disliked Bubb as the adviser of his son, whom he hated.
“April 26. I went to the Duke of Newcastle’s. Received with much seeming affection: thanks for Weymouth, where I had succeeded; sorrow for Bridgwater, where I had not.
“I began by telling him that I had done all that was in the power of money and labour, and showed him two bills for money remitted thither, before I went down, one of £1000, one of £500, besides all the money then in my steward’s hands, so that the election would cost me about £2500. In the next place, if this election stood, the borough was for ever in Tory hands; that all this was occasioned by want of proper support from the Court, and from the behaviour of the servants of the Crown.”
The truth was that the Court had really defeated Dodington. Lord Poulett, a lord of the bedchamber, “had acted openly against him with all his might;” and this action on the part of the higher powers had carried the Government employees, so that “five out of the Custom-house officers gave single votes for Lord Egmont.”
“The next head was—that, in spite of all, I had a fair majority of legal votes, for that the Mayor had admitted eight bad votes for Lord Egmont, and refused fifteen good ones for me; so that it was entirely in their own hands to retrieve the borough, and get rid of a troublesome opponent, if they pleased; that if the king required this piece of service, it was to be done, and the borough put into Whig hands, and under his influence, without any stretch of power.”
The intricacies of electioneering are supplanted by those of statecraft from this point; Bubb’s diary rehearses—spread over four months—the reasons for and against petitioning for a just return; but it peeps out, and therein lies the rub—that Dodington has inflamed the Tories by his assistance in Dorset. Now, just at this time, the Duke of Newcastle sought to make friends with the opposition; and it occurred to this slippery tactician that, as Dodington had had the sole onus of trying to keep out the Tories and failed, if he allowed Lord Egmont to retain his seat for Bridgwater, it would purchase his allegiance without the cost and inconvenience of putting some post or piece of state preferment at his disposal. Thus did Dodington sacrifice both his money and pains without conciliating the favour of the king, with whom the ambitious courtier was the reverse of popular.
One important feature of electioneering, missing in the later days, was the edifying practice of “Burning a Prime Minister,” making effigies of unpopular candidates and obnoxious ministers for burnt-offerings.
A caricature appeared in 1756 representing a street, in the precincts of Westminster it is presumed, filled with a crowd of enthusiastic patriots on their way to make a bonfire of the offending minister in effigy. The figure wears a cocked hat, and has a wig and mask, evidently copied from those of the living prototype, mounted on a stick; the coat and gloves are stuffed; the legs are sticks, bound up into a rude resemblance to stockings and shoes. The effigy is strapped on horseback. At the rear is a gibbet, on which the dummy premier is to be finally suspended. One of the mob bears a supply of faggots. Beneath this pictorial satire, which is executed something in the style of Sayer, the caricaturist of a later date, appear the verses:—
“Were you in effigy to burn
Each treacherous statesman in his turn,
What better would Britannia be,
Whilst the proud knaves themselves are free?
Knaves have brought disgrace upon her!
Have bought her votes and sold her Honour!”
BURNING A PRIME MINISTER IN EFFIGY. 1756. (FROM DR. NEWTON’S COLLECTION.)
The following manifesto explains the object of this publication, an appeal “Against Corruption,” and directed to securing the purity of elections against Ministerial bribery. The subject of the squib was evidently suggested by the Guy Fawkes processions of November. It appeared at the time when the Newcastle and Fox administration was near its fall and after those expensive elections in which the duke had spent enormous sums in bribery.
“Who can call to remembrance without abhorrence the behaviour of a Whiggish Ministry, who, neglecting everything else but the business of Bribery and Corruption, reduced the credit of the Nation and themselves to so low an ebb, that at length they were obliged to import Hessian and Hanoverian Troops to support an immense unconstitutional standing army, in defending them and their measures at home; whilst our perfidious enemies ravaged and distressed our wretched Colonies in every other part of the globe. Now it would be well for England if the several Tory or motley administrations since that time could demonstrate that they have spent less time and treasure in the same destructive employment. As a tree is known by its fruit, so is a bad minister by his attempting to influence Electors, or even to gain a Majority of the Elected by any other means than the justice of his measures; otherwise the use of a national Council is superseded; and when a King is thus deprived of the disinterested deliberations of his people in Parliament, the authors of the undue influence are certainly guilty of Treason in the strictest sense of the word.”
CHAPTER VI.
JOHN WILKES AS A POPULAR REPRESENTATIVE.
In the whole history of electioneering no figure is more conspicuous than that of John Wilkes, the quondam patriot, who was by the attacks of others brought into a prominence which neither his abilities nor character justified.
Hogarth commenced hostilities against Wilkes, Churchill (The North Briton), and Beardmore (The Monitor) by attacking their publications incidentally in that unfortunate attempt at political satire of his, christened “The Times,” Plate I. (1762). It will be remembered that the figure of the artist’s patron, Lord Bute, is there glorified as a Scotch husbandman engaged in extinguishing a general conflagration; while a frenzied man, intended to personify the Duke of Newcastle, is driving a wheel-barrow filled with Monitors and North Britons against the legs of the zealous Scot, who, unmoved, continues his exertions to subdue the threatened ruin of the State. Pitt and Lord Temple are further assailed—not too cleverly—in this view of the “Times.” On this provocation, Wilkes and Churchill naturally took up the cudgels in their own defence, and certainly gave Hogarth cause for irritation. He prepared the second plate of “The Times,” with a further pictorial castigation of his now-declared adversaries, but was induced to reconsider the policy of publishing the plate, and thus giving greater offence; consequently it was not until thirty years later, when the quarrel was almost forgotten, and the opponents had long been at rest,[49] that the world was favoured with a view of this equally laboured satire, when it was published by the Boydells at their Shakespeare Gallery, with the collected works of W. Hogarth (May 29, 1790). George III., Bute, Temple, Lord Mansfield, and others, are introduced in this version, but the portion which is pointed at Wilkes, in continuation of this “rough bout of clever men clumsily throwing dirt at each other,” as it has been described, is the figurement of Miss Fanny, of “Cock-lane ghost” notoriety, pilloried and held up to infamy side by side with Wilkes, whose offence is indicated as “Defamation.” On his breast is pinned a copy of the North Briton, the No. 17 which was specially devoted to a base attack upon Hogarth. This incendiary publication is already threatened with flames from the penitential candle held by “Miss Fanny,” his shrouded companion in disgrace. Indignities are showered upon Wilkes in allusion to his involved circumstances; his empty pockets are turned inside out, a school-boy is watering his legs, a woman is trundling a mop over his head, and he is generally regarded with derisive contempt by the crowd.
The crowning effort of Hogarth’s revenge for the abuse showered upon him by both Wilkes and Churchill was the famous etching in which the popular favourite is pilloried to all time as the type and very personification of everything false and sinister, and yet most lifelike as to resemblance; for Wilkes was himself so cynically candid as to admit in after-life that he was “growing more like his portrait every day.” The famous likeness represents Wilkes seated in a chair at a low table, on which is an inkstand and the North Briton, Nos. 17 and 45; he is holding the staff, topped with an inverted vessel to simulate the cap of liberty. Attitude and features are alike expressive, and, as Mr. Stephens has described it, “he leers and squints as if in mockery of his own pretences to patriotism.” When brought up from the Tower, to which Lord Bute’s party had ventured to commit him for the attack in the North Briton, No. 45, Wilkes was tried at Westminster, before Chief Justice Pratt—subsequently eulogized as “the champion of Freedom and Justice,” and better known to fame as Lord Camden,—who caused the prisoner to be discharged, to the frantic delight of the populace. It was on this occasion that Hogarth secured his opportunity of sketching the idol of the people and the thorn of the Court. In a note prefixed to “An Epistle to William Hogarth,” by Churchill, it is averred that when Mr. Wilkes was the second time brought from the Tower to Westminster Hall, Hogarth skulked behind a screen in the corner of the gallery of the Common Pleas; and while Lord Chief Justice Pratt was enforcing the great principles of the Constitution, the painter was employed in caricaturing the prisoner. So popular was this print, issued at one shilling, that Nichols mentions “nearly four thousand copies were worked off in a few weeks.” “The Epistle” referred to was provoked by the etching of John Wilkes, “Drawn from the Life.” Hogarth is said to have felt severely the retort which the vigorous and “bruising” Churchill thought proper to make.
JOHN WILKES, A PATRIOT. AFTER HOGARTH.
“Lurking, most ruffian-like, behind a screen,
So plac’d all things to see, himself unseen,
Virtue, with due contempt, saw Hogarth stand,
The murd’rous pencil in his palsied hand;” etc.
To this pasquinade, which revelled audaciously in the realms of libel, and was otherwise a false and indefensible attack on the artist’s private life, Hogarth characteristically replied with his graver; but not to lose time, while his mind was heated by the attack, he utilized a plate on which was already engraved his own portrait and his dog, after the painting now in the National Gallery, and burnishing out those parts which were in his way, he engraved—
“The Bruiser, C. Churchill (once the Revd.!), in the character of a Russian Hercules, regaling himself after having kill’d the monster Caricatura that so sorely gall’d his virtuous friend, the Heaven-born Wilkes.
“‘But he had a Club this Dragon to drub,
Or he had ne’er don’t I warrant ye.’”(Dragon of Wantley.)
A BEAR-LEADER. HOGARTH, CHURCHHILL, AND WILKES.
This plate was issued at 1s. 6d., and seems to have gone through various alterations and additions from first to last. On the palette which first displayed the mystifying “line of beauty,” was substituted two designs of a figurative nature—the one having reference to Pitt, his resignation and annual pension, and his city supporters, represented by the emblematic civic guardians, Gog and Magog; the other a group further applying to the castigation of the designer’s foes. Hogarth is armed with a triple whip, with which he is lustily chastising a big dancing bear, Churchill, held bound and muzzled, as not only the artist but the ministry and the Scotch faction would have rejoiced to have effected; the Bruiser to the clerical ruffles and bands has incongruously added the modish laced hat of a man about town; the other end of the rope, by which Hogarth has secured the bear through the muzzle, is fastened round an ape, intended to personify Wilkes. This animal is wearing a wig exactly similar to that shown on Wilkes’s head in the too-famous etching; the North Briton is in his left hand; the spear, topped with the inevitable cap of liberty, is turned into a hobby-horse, to infer, according to Mr. F. G. Stephen’s account, “that Wilkes used Liberty to get his own ends, which not more than a child progresses on its ‘cock-horse’ did he really obtain.” The face of the fiddling personage, who is making the music for this pretty caper, is a featureless blank; he wears a ribbon of knighthood, and it is understood that Earl Temple is the person intended.
Other uncomplimentary allusions to Wilkes and his proceedings appear in the Public Advertiser, where is a woodcut of an execution, I.W., and M.P., with a “Toast”—“May loyalists walk easily in their Boots The notoriety of John Wilkes was much assisted by the ill-advised and clumsy conduct of the ministry, which elected to make a martyr of the man whose career proves him to have been but a sham patriot, and, who, if unnoticed, was totally without weight or consequence. On April 30, 1763, Wilkes found himself, in spite of the Habeas Corpus granted by the Common Pleas, conducted to the Tower on a warrant, signed by the Earls of Egremont and Halifax as Privy Councillors and Secretaries of State, authorizing the Constable of the Tower, the Right Hon. John Lord Berkeley of Stratton,— “to receive into your custody the body of John Wilkes, Esq., herewith sent you, for being the author and publisher of a most infamous and seditious libel, entitled the North Briton, No. XLV., tending to inflame the minds and alienate the affections of the people from His Majesty, and to excite them to traitorous insurrections against the Government.”
The small engraving which exhibits Wilkes in the Tower, forms one portion of a series, entitled “The Places” (being a sequel to “The Posts”), a political pasquinade, dedicated to Bamber Gasoign, Esq., a Trading Lord for the time being.
A SAFE PLACE. WILKES IN THE TOWER, 1763.
“Satire’s a harmless, quiet thing—
’Tis application makes the sting.”
No. 3 is styled a Safe Place; the title is “Moderation, Moderation, this was Wonderful Moderation, an old song.” The prisoner is simultaneously attacked by curs, and by one of the historical lions of the Tower, which cannot do much harm, being chained to the secure post Magna Charta. Wilkes is threatening his assailants with a whip; he has on a spear the cap of liberty—this emblem is inscribed “Habeas Corpus.” A yeoman of the guard is in charge of the hero of the XLV. North Briton.
“There’s a scene for an Englishman! Patriots ill-us’d,
Magna Charta despised, and poor Freedom abus’d;
Once the love of our country brought profit and pow’r,
But it now, tho’ with glory, sends Wilkes to the Tow’r.”
In the version of “Daniel cast into the Den of Lions; or, True Blue will never stain” (April 29, 1763), Wilkes is shown the centre of a highly elaborate allegorical combination, which deals with the incidents of his arrest, associated with the North Briton, and his obnoxious writings. One of the scenes exhibits the king’s messengers violently breaking into Wilkes’s house, Great George Street, Westminster, and ransacking his receptacles for papers. On the other side, the messengers are shown conducting Wilkes to the Tower, the title “Den of Lions” not being wide of the mark, since it, at that time, was the abiding place of the royal menagerie. Wilkes is made to declare: “Corruption I detest, and Persecution I despise,”—sentiments befitting the patriotic martyr, as he was then believed to be, a “goodly repute” with which he was only too desirous of parting in exchange for such bribes as were weighty enough for his acceptance. In the symbolic view of this new “Daniel,” the goddess Fame hovers over her whilom favourite, with a wreath to crown his brow; she is publishing, through her trumpet, “Magnus est Veritas;” the door of the den which confines the lions is a prominent feature. Below appears the Lieutenant of the Tower; he has a written “counsel’s opinion” in his hand, and is replying to a demand for admittance made by Wilkes’s brother, “Consider, sir, my Lord Temple was not suffered to see him.” When Wilkes was committed to the Tower, both his brother and Earl Temple applied to be admitted to see him, and were refused.
The “general warrant” on which Wilkes was arrested was proved illegal, and on a writ of Habeas Corpus, he was set at liberty on the ground of his privilege as a member of Parliament. After his release from the Tower, Wilkes was involved in a duel, and severely wounded; he then fled to Paris, January, 1764, and was, in his absence, expelled from parliament and outlawed for contempt of court. On the issue of writs for the general election, after the dissolution of parliament, March 12, 1768, Wilkes, who had made several vain attempts to get the sentence reversed, suddenly presented himself as a candidate to represent the city of London, in the interval addressing to the king a submissive letter imploring pardon and the reversal of the sentence of outlawry which had been passed upon him. This petition the king rejected with decision. Although Alderman Sir William Baker was the only citizen of note or influence who supported him, Wilkes persisted in his candidature, the lower people embracing his cause with ardour; but he polled the minimum of votes, and was signally defeated, the successful members being the Hon. Thomas Harley, lord mayor, with 3,729 votes; Sir R. Ladbroke, 3,678; William Beckford, 3,402; Barlow Trecothwick, 2,957. The unsuccessful candidates were Sir Richard Glyn, 2,823; John Patterson, 1,769; and Wilkes, at the bottom of the poll, who contrived to secure 1,247 votes.
On Wilkes’s return from the Guildhall at the close of the poll, March 23, 1768, where, as seen, he obtained the lowest number of votes, the people displayed their fervour for spurious patriotism by removing the horses from his carriage, and drawing it themselves; other extravagancies of a like nature showed the spirit of the multitude, by whom Wilkes was regarded as the tribune of the people, a situation very much to his taste. Considering his mob-popularity assured, he now proposed to conciliate his opponents; the first step was to make a pretence of submission. On the 22nd of March, he wrote to the solicitor of the treasury: “I take the liberty of acquainting you, that in the beginning of the ensuing term I shall present myself to the court of King’s Bench. I pledge my honour as a gentleman, that on the very first day I will there make my personal appearance.” The letter sent by Wilkes to the king was certainly a plausible composition, but the fervid assurances there given being in direct antagonism with the conduct of the writer at that very time, it may be held that George III. was justified in treating the applicant with indignant contempt.
“Sire,
“I beg thus to throw myself at your Majesty’s feet, and supplicate the mercy and clemency which shine with such lustre among your princely virtues. Some former ministers, whom your Majesty, in condescension to the wishes of your people, thought proper to remove, employed every wicked and deceitful act to oppress your subject, and to avenge their own personal cause on him, whom they imagined to be the principal author of bringing to public view their ignorance, insufficiency, and treachery to your Majesty and the nation.
“I have been the innocent and unhappy victim of revenge. I was forced by their injustice and violence into exile, which I have never ceased to consider, for many years, as the most cruel oppression; because I could not longer be under the benign influence of your Majesty in this land of liberty.
“With a heart full of zeal for the service of your Majesty and my country, I implore, Sire, your clemency. My only hopes of pardon are founded in the great goodness and benevolence of your Majesty; and every day of freedom you may be graciously pleased to permit me the enjoyment of, in my dear native land, shall give proofs of my zeal and attachment to your service.”
This letter was judiciously ignored, but meanwhile fresh publicity was awaiting Wilkes—on the 27th, he was carried by a writ of capias ut legatum to the King’s Bench.
The return of Wilkes from Paris, his failure for the city, and election for Middlesex are figuratively shadowed forth in “The Flight of 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:—