“The Operation,” a frontispiece to the Political Register for June, 1768, shows Lord Bute stabbing Britannia with a dagger, while the ministers already mentioned in association with the death of Allen are catching the blood which flows from her wounds:—

“The Blood of Vitals from her wounds he drew,
And fed the Hounds that help’d him to pursue.”

(Dryden.)

The Oxford Magazine for 1769 gives an engraving of the monument finally erected over the grave of Mr. Allen, junior. It represents an altar tomb enclosed by iron rails: on one side is introduced the reprobated Scotch thistle, with the legend, “Murder screen’d and rewarded;” on the other side is shown a Scotch soldier of the third regiment of Foot Guards, evidently intended for the murderous MacLaughlin, approaching and pointing to the inscription on the tomb, exclaiming, “I have obtain’d a pension of a shilling a day, only for putting an end to thy days!”

CHAPTER VII.
MIDDLESEX ELECTIONS, 1768-9.

Within a month of his return died George Cooke, the Tory colleague of Wilkes in the representation of Middlesex, who had sat from 1750; he was prothonotary of the Court of Common Pleas, one of the joint paymasters of the forces, and colonel of the Middlesex Militia. Consequent on his decease a seat for the county was to be contested in December, 1768, and the public were indulged with another exciting struggle at the Brentford hustings. The candidates were John Glynn, the friend and advocate of Wilkes, and Sir William Beauchamp Proctor, the candidate defeated in the previous election. The superheated state of popular feeling had not had time to cool down; moreover, Wilkes, the chosen of the electors, was a prisoner. Both parties on this occasion seem to have resorted to terrorism; mutual recriminations as to the hiring of ruffians and bludgeon-men were made during the inquiries into the disturbances which ensued. A view of the situation, “Scene at the Brentford Hustings,” 1768, exhibits the violent and brutal behaviour of mercenaries in the pay of Proctor’s faction—chiefly reckless bullies, according to the engraving of the Brentford election. Females are beaten causelessly; a fruit-stall is wrecked, and a respectably attired person is taking advantage of the confusion to help himself from the stock, whilst the proprietress is wantonly beaten with a heavy cudgel; the legion of bludgeons is enlisted in the cause of “Liberty and Proctor;” a hero whose head is shaven, and who is evidently a professional pugilist of the Figg and Broughton type, is made to exclaim, “For a guinea a day; damn Glynn and all his friends.” Other beaters—chairmen, linkmen, and the like—are driving all before them, and carrying the hustings by assault, demanding, “Bring down the poll-book—Proctor shall be the man.” The scattered remnants of a rival mob are retiring; one of these is exclaiming, “D—— ye, you dogs—we’ll match you all presently.”

THE HUSTINGS AT BRENTFORD, MIDDLESEX ELECTION, 1768. SERJEANT GLYNN AND SIR W. BEAUCHAMP PROCTOR.

[Page 178.

The Oxford Magazine (vol. i.) has printed the correspondence which ensued upon the disgraceful violence and the attack on the hustings, in which several persons were injured and at least one fatally. The candidate ultimately returned, John Glynn, began by addressing a “Letter to the Freeholders of Middlesex,” pledging himself that the blood of his constituents so wantonly shed should be vindicated, and the charge brought home both to the hired and the hirers—“the more exalted their stations and the more privileged their persons, the louder is the call for justice.” The serjeant continues, “The freedom of a county election is the last sacred privilege we have left; and it does not become any honest Englishman to wish to survive it. There is virtue still left in the country; we are come to a crisis, and the consequence of this struggle shall determine whether we shall be Slaves or Free.”