[374] Walpole, Journal, i, 427.
[375] Journal House of Commons, xxxviii, 977.
[CHAPTER XXXIX.]
Wilkes and the Court of Aldermen.
Wilkes had not long occupied the mayoralty chair before he came into serious collision with the Court of Aldermen. In November (1774) an election of an alderman for the Ward of Bridge Within took place, and John Hart, one of the sheriffs, was returned at the head of the poll, defeating his opponent, William Neate, by four votes. A scrutiny was demanded, and, in spite of an objection raised by Hart on technical grounds, was allowed to proceed. Whilst the scrutiny was proceeding Hart appeared before the Court of Aldermen and claimed to be admitted to his seat. Neate was also in attendance, but the Court declined to hear him. Wilkes thereupon adjourned the Court until after the result of the scrutiny was known. On the 24th November the votes were cast up in the presence of Wilkes and his predecessor in office (under whom the original wardmote for the election had been held), when there appeared 95 votes for Neate, as against 84 for Hart. The result of the poll was thus reversed. Nevertheless, when the Court of Aldermen met the next day they insisted upon Wilkes putting the question for Hart to be called in and sworn, whilst they persistently refused to hear Neate or his attorney, Reynolds—Wilkes's own friend and election agent. This he positively refused to do, and the matter was allowed to stand over, both parties having in the meantime applied to the King's Bench for writs of mandamus.[376]
Comments of the Public Advertiser, 28 Nov., 1774.
The proceedings of the aldermen were published in the Public Advertiser of the 28th November, and were severely commented upon, whilst the action of Wilkes was highly approved of. "The spirit of injustice and violence which influenced the proceedings of the Court of Aldermen on Tuesday"—it was reported—"predominated stronger on Friday by the arrival of Mr. Harley. One of the candidates for the vacant aldermanship of Bridge Within, William Neate, Esq., was refused to be heard, and likewise his agent, Mr. John Reynolds. Mr. Houston, the attorney who officiated at the wardmote, was not suffered to make his report of the election. Mr. Alderman Kirkman acquainted the Court that he had been served with a mandamus from the Court of King's Bench to swear in Mr. Neate, but no attention was paid to him. Mr. Townshend and Mr. Oliver insisted on the swearing in of Mr. Hart immediately, and Mr. Harley's natural violence and rage were brought in aid to the intemperate and unjust spirit of the other two aldermen. The lord mayor, however, had too much firmness to yield to an act of palpable partiality and injustice, and prevented the disgrace, which otherwise that Court would have received, by repeatedly refusing to put the question."[377] The whole passage reads very much as if inspired by Wilkes himself; but whether this were so or not, Wilkes entered his protest against a resolution of the Court that the paragraph was injurious to the honour of the Court and "not founded in truth," because he apprehended that it was "founded in truth."
Refusal by Wilkes to put a question reflecting upon himself, 29 Nov., 1774.
Before the aldermen again met (29 Nov.) the city solicitor, acting (apparently) upon instructions from Wilkes, had defended Hart's mandamus, and at the next Court that officer was severely questioned on the matter, and was told that the Court would not allow him his costs. A motion was at the same time made to the effect that the lord mayor having refused to put a question which the Court of Aldermen was competent to decide, had violated the right of election in the freemen of the city, as represented in that Court. It was, of course, the business of Wilkes to put this question, but unlike Trevor, the Speaker, who stultified himself before the House of Commons in 1695, Wilkes positively declined, telling his brother aldermen that he thanked God he was "not quite idiot enough" for that.[378] A week later (6 Dec.) the Court passed a resolution to the effect that Neate had not been duly elected, and Wilkes again protested. The Court thereupon proposed to swear in Hart, but Wilkes again refused to put the question for the reason that the parties had not been heard.[379] Matters were thus brought to a deadlock. At length—on the 17th January, 1775—the Court put itself in order by hearing Neate, and immediately afterwards passed a resolution for calling in and swearing Hart. Wilkes no longer raised any objection, and Hart was sworn.[380] Hart did not long enjoy his victory, for by a judgment of the King's Bench, pronounced in Easter term, 1776, he was excluded from intermeddling with the aldermanry, and on the 18th June Thomas Wooldridge (not Neate) was admitted in his place.[381] As between Wilkes and the Court of Aldermen the honours certainly lay with the former, and he did not hesitate to tell the Court that he intended to pursue the same line of conduct throughout his year of office in spite of all the Court might think or do;—"I declared that I never would put a question to decide the merits of a cause before this Court until both the parties had been heard. The Court at last consented that Mr. Neate should be heard, and only after he had been heard did I put the question.... The same line of truth and impartiality I will steadily pursue thro' the whole course of my mayoralty, regardless of any resolutions of this Court which are repugnant to the great principles of justice or the fair rights of the chief magistrate."[382]
The new Parliament and the American colonies, 1775.