No. 45 of North Briton. burnt at Royal Exchange, 3 Dec., 1763.
As soon as Parliament met, which was not until November (1763), Wilkes complained of the breach of privilege in the seizure of himself and his papers. He got no sympathy, however, in that quarter, although he shortly afterwards succeeded in obtaining damages to the extent of £1,000 against the under-secretary of state in a court of law.[187] So far from sympathising with Wilkes the House ordered No. 45 of the North Briton to be burnt by the common hangman at the Royal Exchange as a false, scandalous, and malicious libel.[188] Saturday, the 3rd December, was the day appointed for carrying out the order, but when the sheriffs attended for the purpose and the executioner began to perform his duty a riot ensued, the magistrates were mobbed, and the paper rescued from the flames. The Lords thereupon summoned the sheriffs to give an account of their conduct. One of the sheriffs, Thomas Harley, a brother of the Earl of Oxford, being a member of the House of Commons, the permission of that House had to be asked before his attendance could be enforced. It was left to Harley to do as he liked; he might attend the Lords "if he thought fit."[189] Harley did think fit, and on the Tuesday following (6 Dec.) attended with his brother sheriff and Osmond Cooke, the city marshal. Being called upon to give an account of what had taken place the previous Saturday, Harley informed the House to the following effect, viz.: that the sheriffs had met at the Guildhall at half-past twelve o'clock, and thence proceeded to Cornhill to carry out the order of Parliament; they there met the city marshal, who expressed a fear that the order could not be carried out without military assistance; that, nevertheless, he was determined, in spite of all opposition, to carry out the order if possible; that he tried to get to the place in his chariot, but could not, and so went on foot; that on arrival at the place where the fuel was prepared he found the wood so wet that it could not take fire, "but he read the order, and gave the paper with his own hands into the hands of the executioner, who held it on the lighted torch, which he held in his hand, till it was burnt, and that he saw it burnt pursuant to the order." On his return—he went on to say—the window of his carriage was broken, and he had to take refuge in the Mansion House,[190] where he found the mayor (William Bridgen, who had recently succeeded Beckford) doing business as usual.
The mayor's conduct condemned.
That the mayor should have shown such sympathy with the mob as not to lend assistance to the sheriffs in putting down the disturbance roused the anger of the Duke of Bedford, who broke forth against Bridgen and the City. "Such behaviour," he said, "in any smaller town would have forfeited their franchises. The Common Council had long been setting themselves up against the Parliament, and last year had taken on them to advise the king to refuse his assent to a law that had passed through both Houses. He hoped their lordships would resent this insult and disrespect to their orders."[191]
Votes of thanks to the sheriffs.
Harley's statement having been corroborated by the evidence of other witnesses the Lords were content to ignore the mayor's conduct rather than enter upon a serious quarrel with the City, and both Houses concurred in passing votes of thanks to the sheriffs.[192] It was otherwise with the Common Council. They upheld the conduct of the mayor and condemned that of the sheriffs; a motion to pass a vote of thanks to the latter being lost by the casting vote of the mayor, who gave as his reason for so doing that he looked upon the motion as prejudging Wilkes's case.[193]
Lord Sandwich and Wilkes's Essay on Woman.
In the meantime Lord Sandwich, a former friend of Wilkes and his associate in the debauchery carried on by the so-called monks of Medmenham, had produced before the House of Lords a copy of an obscene parody on Pope's Essay on Man, which Wilkes had written for the delectation of his intimate friends, but never intended to publish. With much difficulty, and not without some treachery, Sandwich had managed to obtain a copy of this infamous production, and he was now base enough to produce it in evidence against his recent boon companion, and to demand his punishment. The House condemned the poem as a blasphemous libel, but the treachery and hypocrisy displayed by Sandwich, whose own vices were notorious, raised a storm of public indignation, and when the Beggar's Opera was shortly afterwards being performed at Covent Garden, and Macheath exclaimed, in the words put into his mouth by Gay, "That Jemmy Twitcher should peach me, I own surprises me," the audience were quick to apply the words to the treacherous earl, who was ever afterwards known as Jemmy Twitcher.[194]
Wilkes expelled the House, 19 Jan., 1764.