So spiritless an Administration, whose measures were not planned, but started indigested out of the daily occurrences, was not likely to give serious attention to remote situations. They endeavoured to doze over all thoughts of the Continent; and yet the enterprising activity of the Duc de Choiseul now and then interrupted their slumbers, though it could not dispel them entirely. Stung with our victories in the last war, and aware of our supineness, that ambitious man was meditating new wars, impatient to indemnify his master for some of their losses by new usurpations. The poor Corsicans were the first victims of his politics. He had for some months been preparing a mighty invasion of their island. Sixteen battalions were destined to the conquest, which was sheltered under a pretended purchase from the Genoese. De Sorbe, their agent at Paris, and born there while his father exercised the same function, had suggested the idea. Pride, impotence, and revenge had operated to induce the Genoese to sell their title to a more formidable usurper,—the liberty of others appearing a marketable commodity to a republic composed only of nobles, who are ever ready to be subordinate tyrants. The object was too considerable to be indifferent to us: Corsica, in the hands of France, might essentially affect our Mediterranean trade during a war. To suffer the conquest were a disgrace, and would imply timidity. Generosity towards a free nation, who had struggled so long and successfully for their liberty, and had sought our protection, the poor Corsicans could not venture to expect. One of the few acts of Lord Bute’s monarchic[115] and dastardly Administration had been to forbid our sending succours to the Corsican rebels, as he called them—a sentence that betrayed his heart, not his sense. What right had the little republic of Genoa to tyrannise over the freemen of Corsica? Genoa had acted throughout the late war with as much partiality to France[116] as she dared, and was rewarded by our proscribing her enemies. On the other hand, our interference now might light up another war; and though the finances of France were in at least as bad a situation as our own, we could ill have supported the burthen, and were in too distracted a situation at home to make war advisable. The Council assembled on the point. Parliament might blame them for taking a part, or for taking none—the latter half of the dilemma suited their natures best, and no resolution was then taken. Yet procrastination produced no repose; alarms thickened from every quarter: the mutinous spirit of the people broke out, whether the occasion was political or private. A butcher, murdered in a brothel at Dublin, had raised such a flame, that forty houses were pulled down by the mob, and several persons killed.
At such a crisis the Ministers would not venture dismissing the Parliament to a distant period, but on the 20th of May adjourned it only for a fortnight, intending, by short prorogations, to keep it in readiness to meet.[117]
Of all the tumults, the fiercest and most memorable was the following. A dispute having arisen between the coalworkers and the coalheavers, the latter of whom were chiefly Irish—nay, some of them Whiteboys, an Act of Parliament had passed the last year, subjecting the coalheavers to the jurisdiction of the alderman of the ward; an office had been erected, and one Green, who kept an alehouse, had been constituted their agent. Houston, a man who wanted to supplant Green, had incensed the coalheavers against him, and they threatened his destruction. Apprised of their design, he 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, 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. I should scarce have ventured this narrative, had not all the circumstances been proved in a court of justice. Yet how many reflections must the whole story create in minds not conversant in a vast capital—free, ungoverned, unpoliced, and indifferent to everything but its pleasures and factions! Who will believe that such a scene of outrage could happen in the residence of Government?—that the siege lasted nine hours, and that no Guards were sent to the relief of the besieged till five in the morning? Who will believe that while such anarchy reigned at one end of the Metropolis, it made so little impression at the Court end that it was scarce mentioned? Though in London myself, all I heard was, that a man had been attacked in his house, and had killed three of the rioters. Nor were the circumstances attended to, till the trial of Green for murder, of which he was honourably acquitted, divulged his, his maid’s, and the sailor’s heroism. Yet did not the fury of the colliers cease, though seven of them were taken and executed. Green was forced to conceal himself from their rage; but his sister, giving a supper to her friends for joy of her brother’s safety, her house was attacked by those assassins, their faces covered with black crape, who tore her into the street, and murdered her. Yet, perhaps, of all the circumstances of this tragedy, not one was so singular, from the display of so great a mind, as the indifference of the sailor, who never owned himself, never claimed honour or recompense for his generous gallantry. As brave as the Codes of fabulous Rome, his virtue was satisfied with defending a man oppressed; and he knew not that an Alexander deserved less fame than he, who seemed not to think that he deserved any.
The Bedford faction, who had got almost entire possession of the Duke of Grafton, began to perceive how little security there was in that tenure. They found that every disgust inspired him with thoughts of resigning. They saw the immediate necessity of strengthening themselves lest some sudden caprice should hurry him to resign, and leave them weak at Court, or exposed to the dislike of the next Minister, whoever it should be. Rigby in particular had not attained the paymastership which Grafton had engaged to him on the first opportunity, and was sure of being the first victim if Grenville, whom he had sacrificed, should return to power. With as little decency as he had abandoned him, Rigby now made secret offers to Grenville to support him, if the Duke of Grafton should quit—but they were rejected, both from the haughtiness of Grenville’s nature, and by the positive injunction of Lord Temple, who sent Calcraft to Lord Hertford with an account of that transaction; adding, that his Lordship had sworn to his brother, that should he ever join the Bedfords, he (Lord Temple) would persecute him to the last hour of his life. This Lord Hertford was desired to communicate to the King, with offers from Lord Temple to serve his Majesty whenever he should be wanted. This mine failing, Rigby pushed the Lords Gower and Weymouth to unite with him in insisting with the Duke of Grafton on the removal of Lord Shelburne, who, they said, betrayed them, and opposed all their measures in Council. The accusation did not want truth; nor was its purport unwelcome either to the Duke or to the King. The former hated him for enjoying Lord Chatham’s favour; and the King had not forgotten the tricks that Shelburne had played Lord Bute. To make the proposal still palatable, the Cabal offered to his Majesty the choice of the Duke of Northumberland or Lord Egmont, his own creatures, of Lord Holderness, anybody’s creature, or of Lord Sandwich, their own friend, to replace Lord Shelburne. Willing as he was to give up the last, the King had adopted a rule of turning no single man, both from pusillanimity, and from never being sorry to embarrass Ministers, whom he had not taken from inclination. Thus was Shelburne saved for some months longer. In his chief point Rigby had very soon better success.
On the 2nd of June the Parliament met, and was again adjourned for three weeks. On the 8th Wilkes’s outlawry was debated in the King’s Bench. The Judges of that Court had agreed with their chief, Lord Mansfield, to reverse it; yet the latter now maintained it in a fine oration, but in the conclusion pronounced it void from a flaw; which, he said, had not been noticed by the prisoner’s counsel. This curious error was, that the proceedings were stated at the County-court for the County of Middlesex; when lo! the form ought to have been at the County-court of Middlesex, for the County of Middlesex—a form of words, said that oracle of law, absolutely necessary. It was said that Serjeant Glynn, Wilkes’s counsel, had made the same notable discovery two months before in his pleading; and thus the Chief Justice had not even the honour of the chicanery he boasted. It was still more ridiculously, and with as little truth, that he vapoured on his own firmness. He knew, he said, in what danger he held his life, but he was past sixty, and valued not the remnant of being. He would act boldly; fiat justitia, et ruat cœlum—prodigious danger when he was doing what was an act of popularity, and which probably he would not have done but from timidity![118] The reversion of the outlawry having an appearance of being favourable to the prisoner, the mob huzzaed, though he was remanded to prison till he should receive sentence.
In the meantime a new calamity befel the Court. Cooke, the other member for Middlesex, died, and Serjeant Glynn, as the champion of Wilkes, was set up by the popular party for Middlesex. Cooke was Joint-Paymaster with the younger Thomas Townshend, a friend of the Duke of Grafton, who, to gratify Rigby with the whole employment, offered to make Townshend one of the Vice-Treasurers of Ireland. Townshend refused it with warmth, saying, he would not be turned backwards and forwards every six months; and resigning, joined the Opposition.[119] On the 10th, Rigby kissed the King’s hand as Paymaster. He was succeeded as Vice-Treasurer of Ireland by Lord Clare. Lord Hillsborough returned to the Board of Trade, with the superintendence of the Colonies, in which function his conduct will be long remembered.
The Bourbon Courts, who had not been able to persuade the Pope to dissolve the Order of the Jesuits, proceeded to extremities. The King of Naples seized Benevento; and France, possessing herself of Avignon, declared it unalienable from the Crown, and with reason.[120] It was not with the same foundation that she went on with hostilities against Corsica. Monsieur Francis, their Secretary here, said that, if we asked with the decency due to a great nation, France would tell us she did not mean to retain the possession—if we menaced, Monsieur de Choiseul would declare war. Their having no intention of keeping Corsica was false; and it was believed afterwards, that if we had spoken in a high tone, they would have desisted from the enterprise. The brave resistance of the natives, if supported by us, would soon have put the matter out of dispute. The French did not taste the project, nor could Choiseul lead the King so easily into a war as he desired.[121]
On the 18th, sentence was pronounced on Wilkes. For the North Briton, No. XLV., he was condemned to pay a fine of 500l. and to suffer imprisonment for ten months. For the Essay on Woman, 500l. more, and imprisonment for twelve months, to be computed from the expiration of the first ten. He was to find security for his good behaviour for seven years, himself being bound in 1000l., and two sureties in 500l. each. Rigorous as the sentence was, the Court had not dared to enforce it with its usual severity;[122] the pillory was for the first time omitted in a case of libel and blasphemy, and Wilkes triumphed by this manifestation of their terror. Anet, a poor honest priest, had been pilloried in this reign for writing against Moses. Some imputed his prosecution to Archbishop Secker,[123] who charged it on Lord Bute. Lord Bute denied it. Whoever was the prosecutor, Lord Mansfield had willingly executed the inquisitorial power.
The night before the publication of Wilkes’s sentence, he dispersed handbills to excite the mob to sedition; but so many late tumults had so terrified the citizens that they took little notice of him, and even were not averse to being protected by the Guards. After sentence, he published a violent advertisement against Lord Halifax, and bound himself never to accept place or pension. The paper which contained that declaration was so eagerly bought up, that by eight in the evening it was sold for half-a-crown. Lord Halifax stood in a worse predicament: it depended on a jury to give Wilkes what damages they should please against the Earl. No limits were set to them by law, nor could King or Parliament remit the fine, as it instantly became the property of the injured person. Faction might rate his injuries at a hundred thousand pounds. It was computed that the expenses attending the prosecution of Wilkes had already cost the Crown no less a sum.
The Bostonians were not more peaceable than the populace of London. A ship arriving there, and the custom-house officers, according to the direction of the late Act of Parliament, proceeding to visit it, the mob rose, drove the officers out of the town, forced them to take refuge in a frigate in the harbour, and pillaged their houses. Two regiments were ordered thither, the Cabinet-Council being unanimous in that opinion, except Lord Shelburne, who adhered to his former principle, that England had no right to tax America, unless represented. The Chancellor Camden excused his own change of opinion, which, he said, had been only speculation; now an Act of the Legislature had affirmed the right of taxation. Lord Bottetort, a very courtier, who was ruined in his fortune, was sent Governor to Virginia, where resided some of the ablest of the American patriots; yet in the two years that he lived to govern them, his soothing flattering manners had so wrought on the province, that his death was bewailed with the most general and affectionate concern.