“O, sent by Heav’n in these dishonest days
In ev’ry breast to kindle Freedom’s blaze,
To snatch the cov’ring from the statesman’s heart,
And awful truths, without a fear, impart!
Tho’ ministerial thunders round thee roll,
They roll in vain, nor shock thy manly soul:
Thy country’s rights thy midnight labours claim,
And with a Sidney’s join thy honour’d name.
Superior thou to every threat shalt rise,
And from the hands of rapine wrest her prize.
Thy pen shall Vice in all her wiles reveal,
And trembling Graftons[53] shall its vengeance feel.
Nor shall the murd’rer, foe to man and God,
Tho’ sav’d by power, escape thy painful rod;
Nor shall corruption, unmolested stand,
Sap all our rights, and sink a venal land;
True to thy conscience, to thy country true,
Thou shalt detect and dash her conquests too.
Proctor shalt, blushing, all his failings own,
Sigh o’er his loss, and o’er his triumphs groan;
His hir’d assassins fill his breast with shame,
And trembling own the terror of thy name.
Proceed, great Sir, in Freedom’s glorious cause,
O! save thy country and thy country’s laws!
The wiles of Statesmen without fear disclose,
And be a foe to all thy country’s foes.
So shall thy friend,[54] who in confinement sighs,
Smile in his pains, and great in suffr’ing rise:
In health, an honest patriot own in thee,
And, dying, joy to leave his country FREE.”
As in the previous election, there was a charge of murder, which arose out of the irregularities then committed, and two Irish chairmen, Balfe and McQuirk, were tried for the death of Mr. George Clarke, “a young gentleman of the law, whom curiosity had brought to Brentford at the late election.” References to this incident are given in the satirical prints and magazines, together with the usual report of the trial of the malefactors. “The Present State of Surgery; or, Modern Practice” (Dec. 14, 1768), appeared in the Universal Magazine, vol. v. (April, 1769). This engraving shows Mr. Clarke, whose skull was fatally injured by a blow from a bludgeon, placed between two doctors, who are examining his head: one, a surgeon, is declaring, “If the fever does not kill him, contusions and fractures are nothing;” the other is of opinion, “A court plaister will remove the disorder.” One of a group of surgeons is inquiring of the senior, “Shall we apply the trepan, sir?” “A Glyster” is proposed as likely to “evacuate the broken pieces of bone.” The authors of the mischief, or some of the Irish bludgeon men, are standing by, and discussing the case: “The doctor says a broken skull’s nothing if they can but cure the fever.” His companion replies, “Thank God, we need not fear being knock’d on the head then!” A bystander is remarking, “I catch’d a fever from a bludgeon at Brentford myself”—many persons besides Clarke having complained of maltreatment during these riots. “Ay, they were deadly wise at the Election time,” is the opinion of another. A spectator ejaculates, “I wish those Irish dogs had kept the distemper to themselves—it’s worse than the Itch!” a double-barrelled allusion to the two trials for wilful murder which had arisen out of the successive Middlesex elections—the Irish chairmen who were the cause of Clarke’s death, and the Scotch soldiers who killed Allen. The contusion proved fatal; after languishing a few days the unfortunate young gentleman succumbed.
The trial of the two chairmen, Balfe and McQuirk, came on at the Old Bailey, January 14, 1769, and though the prisoners were provided with an array of learned counsellors, to the number of five, for their defence, they were pronounced “guilty,” and sentenced to transportation. An appeal was made to arrest judgment, but it was overruled, and the sentences ordered to be executed. Court influence, in the interval, procured a respite, and the men ultimately received a royal pardon, signed by Lord Rochford, secretary of state, which produced severe animadversions; see “Junius to the Duke of Grafton,” and the notes to this letter by John Wade (Edin. 1850). In the Political Register (IV.) is a copy of the document setting Balfe and McQuirk free. Meanwhile the College of Surgeons was consulted, to exonerate the guilty, to the dissatisfaction of the public.
“It is said that on a late chirurgical examination, there was the greatest privacy imaginable supported; not only several young surgeons (who, being advertised of the meeting, went there for the sake of instruction) were denied admittance, but there were two sentinels on the outside of the door to prevent any person from listening. Strange inquisitorial proceedings!”
On Monday, the master, wardens, and examiners of the Surgeons’ Company, ten in number, of whom five had appointments under administration, the president being one, and consequently holding the casting-vote (three of the committee actually held at that time appointments of “sergeant-surgeon” to the king, and another was surgeon to the Dowager Princess of Wales, his mother), met at their hall in the Old Bailey, in pursuance of a letter from the Earl of Rochford, one of His Majesty’s principal secretaries of state, desiring their opinion in relation to a doubt that had arisen whether the blow which Mr. Clarke received at the election at Brentford was the cause of his death; and the above gentlemen, after examining the surgeons, apothecary, and several others (in camera, as alleged), returned an answer the same evening to his lordship, giving it as their unanimous opinion, that the blow was not the cause of Mr. Clarke’s death. A satirical print, given in the Oxford Magazine as “A Consultation of Surgeons” (Feb. 27, 1769), exhibits the supposititious explanation of the inquiry and verdict. The surgeons are grouped round a table, on which are pens and ink. The president is pointing to the decision of the conclave, set down to order for Lord Rochford—“It does not appear that he died——” At the same time a large and well-filled bag of money, held up temptingly in the president’s right hand, appears the most conclusive evidence before the corporation. The chairman observes, “This [the money] convinces me that Clarke did not die of the wound he received at Brentford.” A Scotch surgeon is asserting, “By my Soul, his head was too thick to be broken, or he would ne’er ha’ gang’d to Brentford.” The next speaker, regarding the weighty motive in the president’s charge, avers, “Another such bag would convince me Clarke never received any blow.” A surgeon, with his gold-headed cane to his nose, is convinced, “Gold is good evidence, and carries great weight.” In reference to the surgeon Foot, who, called in at the time, deposed at the trial that Clarke died of the blow on head, but was of opinion that his life might have been saved by judicious treatment, one of the consulting body, rising from his seat, is declaring, “Devil burn me, but that same surgeon was a blockhead; how should a Foot be able to judge of the Head?” The verdict of the College of Surgeons excited popular disgust, and various reflections were cast upon the method by which it was arrived at. The following appeared in the Public Ledger (April 13, 1769):—
“It is confidently repeated, that while a certain party of gentlemen were assembled together, in order to consult about vindicating themselves against Mr. Foot’s appeal, the ghost of Mr. Clarke appeared, and behaved in a most gross and insulting manner to the whole committee, which so terrified them all, that they have been very ill ever since, and it is thought some will not recover.”
Considerable interest attaches to the struggle in question, which made Wilkes a hero for a while. It was a time of trial as regarded the inviolability of the constitution. The ministers, safe in their bought majority in the Commons, ready to vote mechanically, seemed utterly callous as to the consequences of those infractions they were making on national liberties, presumably secured on an unassailable basis. The more impartial-minded of the people began to dread the attempted revival of despotic and irresponsible government and of those evils which had been guarded against by great exertions, firmness, and no slight sacrifices in the past. The spirit of resistance was abroad, and ministers for their own purposes disguised by every means the true condition of affairs from the head of the State. As the violation of popular liberties recalled the struggles which marked the later Stuart era, so were the means taken to resist these encroachments compared to the conduct of the people and their tribunes under the same trying circumstances. Petitions and remonstrances began to make ministers tremble lest the sympathies of the throne might be turned to their proper channel, the people.
Another election for Middlesex occurred in 1769, vice Wilkes; the results were that Wilkes was returned at the head of the poll, while his opponent (with a quarter of his votes) was declared duly elected. On the subject of Colonel Luttrell’s admission to the House much was said which must have been unpalatable to the Court. The Oxford Magazine printed a list of those members who were so patriotically inclined as to resist this brazen violation of the constitution, as “the Minority who voted 1148 in preference to 296;” while those members who servilely voted for the right of the ministers to impose a defeated candidate on the Commons were described as “the Majority who preferred 296 to 1143.” A list is given of these placemen, pensioners, and courtiers, with particulars against their respective names which account for their lack of principle, all being in receipt of State patronage, or emolument of one kind or another, sufficient to prove that self-interest was their guiding principle, and that their consciences were closed by the greed of preferment. The despotic action enforced by the administration, in defiance of the principles of the constitution,—a common practice in the reign of George III.,—provoked a very pertinent disquisition upon the potentiality of the bulwark of popular rights. The great Lord Bacon, somewhere talking of the power of parliaments, says, there is nothing which a parliament cannot do; and he had reason. A parliament can revive or abrogate old laws, and make new ones; settle the succession to the Crown; impose taxes; establish forms of religion; naturalize foreigners; dissolve marriages; legitimate bastards; attaint a man of treason, etc. Lord Bolingbroke, indeed, is of a different opinion, and affirms there is something which a parliament cannot do: it cannot annul the constitution; and that if it should attempt to annul the constitution, the whole body of the people would have a right to resist it. It is natural, too, to think that Lord Bacon limited the power of parliament, great as he believed it, to those things which do not imply a physical impossibility. Modern ministers, however, have shown that a parliament is able, at least in appearance, to effect even such impossibilities. Sir Robert Walpole was wont to boast that he had “trained his fellows,” as he called his venal majority in the House of Commons, “in such a manner, and brought them to such exact discipline, that were he to desire them to vote Jesus Christ a Gildon” (i.e. the head of an infidel sect, Gildon being a deistical writer in Walpole’s day) “he was sure of their compliance.” The ministry then in office (the Grafton administration), as will appear by the list referred to above, had assumed a power no less arbitrary and equally unreasonable, by persuading their servile majority to vote in defiance of the constitution on the question of Colonel Luttrell’s qualifications to sit in the Commons—that the 296 suffrages (recorded for Luttrell) were preferable to the 1143 polled for Wilkes.
The ministerial conduct on the case of Wilkes and upon the events arising therefrom, joined with their ill-advised manœuvres on behalf of their own chosen candidates, produced a marked effect on the constituencies elsewhere, and, as Horace Walpole writes to his friend, Sir H. Mann (March 23, 1769), towns began to break off from their allegiance to the administration in power, and sent instructions to their members to oppose the measures of the Court party. “As the session approached, Lord Chatham engaged with a new warmth in promoting petitions.” In opposition alike to the “Remonstrances,” and to those who questioned the policy of turning a deaf ear to the petitions of the nation—loyal to the throne, but earnestly set upon the reform of abuses and the extinction of “grievances,”—the ministers encouraged their adherents to secure addresses approving their acts, and praying the throne to disregard petitions for rights. The public prints satirized these servile expressions, manufactured to order, while the wits and caricaturists mercilessly exposed the modus operandi of fabricating these illegitimate addresses. According to Horace Walpole, Calcraft and Sir John Mawbey “by zeal and activity obtained a petition from the county of Essex, though neither the High Sheriff, the members, nor any one gentleman of the county would attend the meeting.” It was the old story of the Essex petitions over again, as already set down in the group of “Election Ballads” under Charles II., when the same county made itself conspicuous in a similar fashion: “It was thought wise,” wrote Walpole, “to procure loyal addresses, and one was obtained from Essex, which being the great county for calves, obtained nothing but ridicule.” A pictorial version sets forth the situation (March 6, 1769) as “The Essex Procession from Chelmsford to St. James’s Market, for the good of the Common-Veal.” The engraving represents a street ending in the archway of St. James’s, towards which are progressing two carts, drawn by donkeys tandem-wise, and filled with bleating calves. The cart is driven by Rigby, the Duke of Bedford’s factotum, a supporter of the Court, much interested in the petitions presented to the king at this period: this political agent is travestied as an ass; he is crying, “Calves’ Heads à la daube! Who’ll buy my veal?” One of the victimized calves in the cart is bleating, “This is a Rig-by-Jove;” another exclaims, “How we expose ourselves!” The other charioteer is intended for C. Dingley, author of the “Saw-mill” experiment at Limehouse, and who was an influential projector of the new “City-road;” he was a creature of the Duke of Grafton, a prominent ally of the Court faction against Wilkes and the patriots, and was generally obnoxious to the more constitutionally minded of the citizens. Dingley is transformed into an ox, and he is made to declare to his special consignment of calves, “Friends and Countrymen, you shall not be misrepresented.” One of the calf contingent, mindful of slaughter, is bleating, “I hope they won’t drive us to St. George’s Fields,” the place of slaughter—otherwise, the scene of the recent wanton attacks of the Scottish soldiery on the people; while another of Dingley’s followers is expressing a wish that the famous saw-mills, which were the cause of a riot in which they were demolished, might prove the destruction of the speculator himself. In opposition to the “foolish Essex address,” it was, as described in the Gentleman’s Magazine, “resolved at a meeting of gentlemen held at Chelmsford, December 15, 1769, to support the right of election to Parliament, and to petition the king for a dissolution of Parliament.”
The Essex address was followed up, on the part of what were entitled London merchants, by a similar production, which was chiefly promoted by Charles Dingley; a version of this transaction is entitled “The Addressers.” It appears that “officious tools,” and interested, if not bribed, citizens, designated as “the Merchants of London,” attended, March 8, 1769, at the King’s Arms Tavern, Cornhill, at the invitation of Dingley and his followers. One shilling was charged at the door to keep away the crowd, ostensibly to defray the expense of the room; and one Lovell, having complied with this, found Dingley with a few others assembled. Mr. Muilmann, a German or Dutch stockbroker, professionally nicknamed “Van Scrip,” gave Lovell a copy of the address to read, and told him he could sign the original then on the table; but on Lovell’s expressing that “he did not approve of the address,” Dingley ordered him out; but, having paid his shilling, he stood on his right to remain. Then followed Reynolds (who was Wilkes’s attorney), and having paid his shilling, and refusing to sign the address, was also asked to leave, but elected to enjoy the privilege of remaining. Vaughan and others did the same. The room being then filled, when Mr. Charles Pole was invited to take the chair at the suggestion of the anti-addressers, their opponents “opposed all order,” repeating the cry of “No chair!” with the utmost fury, and threatening to “turn down stairs all who called for any chairman.” The chair itself became an object of contention between the hostile parties; one secured the seat, another the frame, and the “abhorrers of disorder” triumphed until another chair was obtained. The ticklish office of president was at last accepted by Mr. Vaughan. Attorney Reynolds was standing near the chairman, when Dingley, enraged at the success of this counter-demonstration, addressing him as a “d——d scoundrel,” struck him a violent blow in the face; on which provocation, Reynolds, being of commanding size, knocked Dingley down. “Many were the efforts made to dispossess Mr. Vaughan of the chair, strokes were aimed at him with canes and sticks, but the blows were warded off by his friends.”