Takes his seat as M.P. for Middlesex, Nov., 1774.
Nor did his success end here. The mayoralty election was still pending when parliament was dissolved (30 Sept.), and writs issued for a new one to meet on the 29th November. Wilkes was again returned for Middlesex and with him his friend, Glynn, the Recorder. The popularity of Wilkes was indeed now so great that he was believed to be capable of carrying no less than twelve seats. Prior to their election both candidates signed an undertaking to use their best endeavours to shorten the duration of parliaments, remove placemen and pensioners from the House, advocate the repeal of the Quebec Act, and generally to follow the line of policy adopted by the livery of London, and recently accepted by Bull.[373] When the City elections came on, Bull and Oliver kept their seats, although Oliver declined to enter into any engagement. Wilkes kept his promise with Sawbridge (if any were really given), and Sawbridge was returned together with Wilkes's own brother-in-law, George Hayley. The irrepressible demagogue was at last allowed to take his seat without any opposition. Had he been permitted to have done so five years before, he would probably have sunk into insignificance, but now he "forced his way triumphantly, and came vested with the insignia of the first magistracy in England, and supported by half a dozen members of his own nomination."[374] His triumph was complete in 1782, when he succeeded in getting the House to stultify itself by rescinding its proceedings touching the Middlesex elections.[375] In the dogged persistence with which he fought the House of Commons and finally came off victorious, he reminds us of no one so much as of the late Charles Bradlaugh, member for Northampton; in other respects the two characters will not bear comparison.
FOOTNOTES:
[269] See Annals of the Mayoralty of the Right Hon. Barlow Trecothick, Esq., ascribed to Wilkes, printed in Stephens's Memoirs of John Horne Tooke, i, 191, note.
[270] Annual Register, xiii, 161, 162.
[271] Id., xiii, 157.
[272] Journal 65, fos. 140 seq. The king was very angry at having to receive more of this "stuff." "The idea of a fresh address, remonstrance and petition is so extremely absurd, and considering the time I may add puerile, that it deserves contempt."—The king to Lord North, 15 Nov., 1770.—Correspondence, i, 39.
[273] Walpole, Memoirs, iv, 196, 197.