Townshend elected mayor, 24 Oct., 1772.
The election of a mayor to succeed Nash was keenly contested. Bankes, Hallifax and Shakespeare were the senior aldermen below the chair, but these were set aside by the livery in favour of Wilkes and Townshend. A poll was demanded, and the business of taking the poll lasted until the 8th October. The king was in a great state of excitement, and was kept posted up by Lord North with each day's proceedings. "I trust by your account of this day's poll," he wrote to the minister (3 Oct.),[334] "that there can be no doubt that it will end favourably; the mob being less quiet this day is a proof that to [sic] riot, not numbers, the patriots alone can draw advantage." Again on the 5th October, when the voice of the city was evidently in favour of Wilkes, he writes: "The unpromising appearance of this day's poll does not in the least surprise me, knowing that Wilkes is not bound by any tyes, therefore would poll non-freemen rather than lose the election." He fancied that if Wilkes failed to get returned as one of the two to be submitted to the Court of Aldermen for selection he would not be allowed to stand again,[335] but here the king was in error. His hopes were damped by Wilkes being returned at the head of the poll, followed closely by Townshend, their respective votes being 2,301 and 2,278.[336] Although Townshend and Wilkes were at the time personal enemies, yet many of Wilkes's friends were induced to give Townshend their second votes, in order to prevent a "court candidate" being successful. This at least is Horace Walpole's account, who declares that Townshend "disdained to canvass or even to attend the election," and that without the assistance of Wilkes's supporters he would have had "scarce any votes." On the other hand we must remember that, intense as was the personal animosity at this time between Townshend and Wilkes, both of them had one and the same political object in view, viz., the overthrow of the government, and Townshend must have added considerably to his popularity in the city by his recent refusal to pay his land tax on the plea that the Parliament which had ordained it was no true Parliament owing to the exclusion of Wilkes and intrusion of Luttrell.[337] The king's only remaining hope was that the result of the poll might be upset by a scrutiny demanded on behalf of Hallifax and Shakespeare. "I hope the scrutiny will be conducted with great exactness," he again writes to Lord North (6 Oct.), at the same time expressing a doubt as to whether such a thing was to be expected from Oliver and Watkin Lewes, who had succeeded Wilkes and Bull in the shrievalty. If these did their duty he felt sure it would go hard with Wilkes, whose "little regard to true votes" would soon be exposed, and "do him great injury, even among his admirers."[338]
Again the king was doomed to disappointment. The scrutiny, according to the Minutes of the Proceedings of the Common Hall preserved at the Guildhall, continued until the 24th day of the month, when the votes for each candidate were declared to be exactly the same as before, and Wilkes and Townshend being returned to the Court of Aldermen for their selection of one, that body chose Townshend to be mayor for the ensuing year. According to Walpole[339] the scrutiny was not proceeded with, and Wilkes was certain of being elected (Townshend being expected to withdraw in his favour) had not alderman and sheriff Oliver, his former friend, brought about his defeat by hastily collecting a Court of Aldermen before the Wilkite aldermen could take their seats, and getting Townshend named lord mayor. Such a proceeding on the part of Oliver is scarcely probable, if, indeed possible, and receives no corroboration from the City's record of what took place.[340]
Riot at the Guildhall on lord mayor's day, 9 Nov., 1772.
On lord mayor's day the partisans of Wilkes, smarting at their defeat, raised a riot at night outside the Guildhall, where a ball was being held. The assistance of the Artillery Company had to be called in, and they remained on duty all night. The new lord mayor, who was somewhat hot-headed, "proposed to sally out with drawn swords and fall on the mob," but was restrained. He, however, caused some of the rioters to be seized and committed to Newgate, and declared that he would bring home the riot to Wilkes. The whole city was now, and had been for some time, so split up into factions that even a vote of thanks to the Artillery Company for striving to keep order was with difficulty passed.[341] "A headstrong, self-willed spirit has sunk the City into nothing," wrote Chatham at the beginning of the year.[342] The government could afford to look upon Wilkes's disappointment and the unpopularity of Townshend with complacency, the real damage was to the nation, which, to use the words of Walpole, "saw those who would have gone farthest to stem the encroachments of the crown divided and warring each other."[343]
Resolution of Court of Aldermen re short parliaments, 16 Feb., 1773.
Following in the steps of Sawbridge, his brother alderman and colleague during his shrievalty, Townshend introduced a motion before the Court of Aldermen on the 16th February (1773) to the effect "that a frequent appeal to the constituent part of the people by short parliaments is their undoubted right and the only means by which they can enjoy or maintain their right of a real representation."[344] Wilkes was the only alderman who raised any objection to the motion. He would willingly have given his vote against it, if only to spite Townshend, but he dared not do so. The motion was therefore carried unanimously.[345]
Another remonstrance of the livery, 11 March, 1773.
Three weeks later (11 March) a special Common Hall was summoned for the purpose of drawing up another remonstrance to the king, and of pledging the livery and the city members to use their utmost endeavours to obtain shorter parliaments. This new remonstrance—a "flagrant piece of impertinence," as the king styled it in a letter to Lord North (13 March)[346]—was said to have been the work of Wilkes, who drafted it in such terms that his enemy the lord mayor "would be undone at St. James's if he presented it, and stoned by the people if he did not."[347] It was resolved that the remonstrance should be presented by the mayor, the city members, the aldermen, the sheriffs and ten of the livery in their gowns, attended by the Recorder and city officers.[348] Wilkes showed considerable shrewdness in declining to attend, excusing himself on the ground that he knew himself to be personally disliked by the king. He would, he said, willingly have attended had he been sheriff, but now that he was only an alderman there was no reason for him to thrust himself where he was not wanted. "I am not used to go into any gentleman's house who does not wish to see me."[349] Even the livery seemed to shrink from having a hand in presenting so disreputable an address, for only eight of them attended at St. James's.