"Well now, what I should ca' a snubby nose, like your own, sir, only not quite so cocked up like."
"Humph! His eyes?"
"He'd gotten a bit o' a cast in 'em, sir, like your honour's squint."
"Go down, woman. That will do."
Presently affairs took a turn. Dunning worked his way into notice by adopting violent radical or democratical views, and became the friend of the notorious Wilkes, who also had a squint, and he acted as junior counsel in the famous prosecution of the publishers of No. 45 of the North Briton, which contained strictures on the speech from the throne, at the close of the session of 1763. It was in this case that Dunning firmly established his reputation as a close and subtle reasoner, and he could ever calculate on being employed by his party. From this date no member of the bar obtained a larger number of briefs. I have already told, in my Old Country Life, a story illustrative of the way in which he managed the defence of a man on trial for murder. In 1766 he won the recordership of Bristol, he was appointed Solicitor-General in 1767, and in the general election of 1768 he was elected member for Caine.
"Among the new accessions to the House of Commons at this juncture," writes Lord Mahon, "by far the most eminent in ability was John Dunning.... He was a man both of quick parts and strong passions; in his politics a zealous Whig. As an orator, none ever laboured under greater disadvantages of voice and manner; but these disadvantages were most successfully retrieved by his wondrous powers of reasoning, his keen invective, and his ready wit. At the trial of the Duchess of Kingston for bigamy, when he appeared as counsel against her Grace, Hannah More, who was present, thus describes him: 'His manner is insufferably bad, coughing and spitting at every word, but his sense and expression pointed to the last degree. He made her Grace shed bitter tears.'" The mode in which he used his hands was absurd as it was peculiar. He drew them whilst speaking up close together to the height of his breast, where he rested his wrists, and kept up a continual paddling with his outspread palms, moving them with a rapidity corresponding to the motion of his tongue. It was said that he looked on such occasions like a flat fish hung up in a fishmonger's shop, the body rigid, but the fins in front vibrating up and down unceasingly.
In 1769 Dunning bought the manors of Spitchwick and Widecombe. "Manors in Devonshire!" exclaimed Jack Lee. "A pity, Dunning, you should have them there, and should bring no manners with you to Westminster."
In 1770 he resigned his position as Solicitor-General, and resumed his old position outside the bar, but with a professional income estimated at the then unprecedented sum of £10,000 per annum.
He was now on the Opposition benches in the House. In the hot debates on the American War, Dunning steadfastly advocated a policy of conciliation. An instance of Dunning's sharpness of repartee was afforded when Chatham moved an address to the Crown in favour of this policy. The motion was upheld by Lords Shelburne, Camden, and Rockingham, and they were supported by the vote of the Duke of Cumberland. His Royal Highness was one day complimenting Dr. Price on a pamphlet he had written in favour of the Americans. "I sat up reading it last night," said he, "till it had almost blinded me." "On the rest of the nation, your Royal Highness," said Dunning, who stood by, "the pamphlet has had the opposite effect. It has opened their eyes."
John Dunning was nearly fifty years old when he married. His choice was Elizabeth Baring, daughter of John Baring, of Larkbeare, one of the many woollen merchants then flourishing in Exeter, and sister of the founders of the great house of Baring Brothers. He was married to her in 1780.