"Gentlemen,
"In support of the liberties of this country against the arbitrary rule of Ministers, I was before committed to the Tower, and am now sentenced to this prison. Steadiness with, I hope, strength of mind, do not however leave me; for the same consolation follows me here, the consciousness of innocence, of having done my duty, and exerted all my poor abilities, not unsuccessfully, for this nation. I can submit even to far greater sufferings with cheerfulness, because that I see that my countrymen reap the happy fruits of my labours and cruel persecutions, by the repeated decisions of our sovereign Courts of Justice in favour of liberty. I therefore bear up with fortitude, and even glory that I am called to suffer in this cause, because I continue to find the noblest reward—the applause of my native country, of this great, free, and spirited people.
"I chiefly regret, gentlemen, that this confinement deprives me of the honour of thanking you in person according to my promise, and at present takes from me in a great degree the power of being useful to you. The will, however, to do every service to my constituents remains in its full force; and when my sufferings
have a period, the first day I regain my liberty shall restore a life of zeal in the cause and interests of the county of Middlesex.
"In this prison, in any other, in every place, my ruling passion will be the love of England and our free Constitution. To those objects I will make every sacrifice. Under all the oppressions which ministerial rage and revenge can invent, my steady purpose is to concert with you, and other true friends of this country, the most probable means of rooting out the remains of arbitrary power and Star-chamber inquisition, and of improving as well as securing the generous plans of freedom, which were the boast of our ancestors, and I trust will remain the noblest inheritance of our posterity, the only genuine characteristic of Englishmen. I have, &c. &c.
John Wilkes.
"King's-bench Prison, May 5, 1768."
Some circumstances had induced the populace to suppose it was the intention of Government to remove Mr. Wilkes from the King's-bench to the House of Commons on Tuesday, May 10. Many idle and curious persons probably assembled near the gates to kill an hour by gazing at a man who had excited their attention, and many others doubtlessly attended for riotous and unjustifiable purposes, which Mr. Wilkes or any real patriot must have disapproved, though in the usual
blindness of zeal those purposes are generally disregarded as unworthy notice in the cause of liberty, when violent men choose to espouse her interest. A detestable incendiary, a successful villain, to whom I attribute the innocent deaths of those that fell on this fatal day, pasted certain doggrel lines on the prison walls which were read with avidity by the mob, and contributed to inflame their minds; they demanded the appearance of the prisoner with shouts, and at length several Magistrates and the military arrived, the paper was taken down, the riot commenced, the soldiers fired, and a young man named Allen fell under such circumstances as occasioned the following trial.
"Summary of the Trial of Donald Maclane, on Tuesday last, at Guildford Assizes, for the Murder of William Allen, jun. on the 10th of May last in St. George's Fields.