At his inauguration dinner in Guildhall, there was a superabundance of good things; notwithstanding which, a great number of young fellows, after the dinner was over, being heated with liquor, got upon the hustings, and broke all the bottles and glasses within their reach. At this time the Court and Ministry were out of favour in the City; and till the year 1776, when Halifax took as the legend of his mayoralty "Justice is the ornament and protection of liberty," no member of the Government received an invitation to dine at Guildhall.
CHAPTER XXXV
THE LORD MAYORS OF LONDON (continued)
John Wilkes: his Birth and Parentage—The North Briton—Duel with Martin—His Expulsion—Personal Appearance—Anecdotes of Wilkes—A Reason for making a Speech—Wilkes and the King—The Lord Mayor at the Gordon Riots—"Soap-suds" versus "Bar"—Sir William Curtis and his Kilt—A Gambling Lord Mayor—Sir William Staines, Bricklayer and Lord Mayor—"Patty-pan" Birch—Sir Matthew Wood—Waithman—Sir Peter Laurie and the "Dregs of the People"—Recent Lord Mayors.
In 1774 that clever rascal, John Wilkes, ascended the civic throne. We shall so often meet this unscrupulous demagogue about London, that we will not dwell upon him here at much length. Wilkes was born in Clerkenwell, 1727. His father, Israel Wilkes, was a rich distiller (as his father and grandfather had been), who kept a coach and six, and whose house was a resort of persons of rank, merchants, and men of letters. Young Wilkes grew up a man of pleasure, squandered his wife's fortune in gambling and other fashionable vices, and became a notorious member of the Hell Fire Club at Medmenham Abbey. He now eagerly strove for place, asking Mr. Pitt to find him a post in the Board of Trade, or to send him as ambassador to Constantinople. Finding his efforts useless, he boldly avowed his intention of becoming notorious by assailing Government. In 1763, in his scurrilous paper, the North Britain, he violently abused the Princess Dowager and her favourite Lord Bute, who were supposed to influence the young king, and in the celebrated No. 45 he accused the ministers of putting a lie in the king's mouth. The Government illegally arresting him by an arbitrary "general warrant," he was committed to the Tower, and at once became the martyr of the people and the idol of the City. Released by Chief-Justice Pratt, he was next proceeded against for an obscene poem, the "Essay on Woman." He fought a duel with Samuel Martin, a brother M.P., who had insulted him, and was expelled the House in 1764. He then went to France in the height of his popularity, having just obtained a verdict in his favour upon the question of the warrant. On his return to England, he daringly stood for the representation of London, and was elected for Middlesex. Riots took place, a man was shot by the soldiers, and Wilkes was committed to the King's Bench prison. After a long contest with the Commons, Wilkes was expelled the House, and being re-elected for Middlesex, the election was declared void.
Eventually Wilkes became Chamberlain of the City, lectured refractory apprentices like a father, and tamed down to an ordinary man of the world, still shameless, ribald, irreligious, but, as Gibbon says, "a good companion with inexhaustible spirits, infinite wit and humour, and a great deal of knowledge." He quietly took his seat for Middlesex in 1782, and eight years afterwards the resolutions against him were erased from the Journals of the House. He died in 1797, at his house in Grosvenor Square. Wilkes' sallow face, sardonic squint, and projecting jaw, are familiar to us from Hogarth's terrible caricature. He generally wore the dress of a colonel of the militia—scarlet and buff, with a cocked hat and rosette, bag wig, and military boots, and O'Keefe describes seeing him walking in from his house at Kensington Gore, disdaining all offers of a coach. Dr. Franklin, when in England, describes the mob stopping carriages, and compelling their inmates to shout "Wilkes and liberty!" For the first fifteen miles out of London on the Winchester road, he says, and on nearly every door or window-shutter, "No. 45" was chalked. By many Tory writers Wilkes is considered latterly to have turned his coat, but he seems to us to have been perfectly consistent to the end. He was always a Whig with aristocratic tastes. When oppression ceased he ceased to protest. Most men grow more Conservative as their minds weaken, but Wilkes was always resolute for liberty.
A few anecdotes of Wilkes are necessary for seasoning to our chapter.
Horne Tooke having challenged Wilkes, who was then sheriff of London and Middlesex, received the following laconic reply: "Sir, I do not think it my business to cut the throat of every desperado that may be tired of his life; but as I am at present High Sheriff of the City of London, it may shortly happen that I shall have an opportunity of attending you in my civil capacity, in which case I will answer for it that you shall have no ground to complain of my endeavours to serve you." This is one of the bitterest retorts ever uttered. Wilkes's notoriety led to his head being painted as a public-house sign, which, however, did not invariably raise the original in estimation. An old lady, in passing a public-house distinguished as above, her companion called her attention to the sign. "Ah!" replied she, "Wilkes swings everywhere but where he ought." Wilkes's squint was proverbial; yet even this natural obliquity he turned to humorous account. When Wilkes challenged Lord Townshend, he said, "Your lordship is one of the handsomest men in the kingdom, and I am one of the ugliest. Yet, give me but half an hour's start, and I will enter the lists against you with any woman you choose to name."
Once, when the house seemed resolved not to hear him, and a friend urged him to desist—"Speak," he said, "I must, for my speech has been in print for the newspapers this half-hour." Fortunately for him, he was gifted with a coolness and effrontery which were only equalled by his intrepidity, all three of which qualities constantly served his turn in the hour of need. As an instance of his audacity, it may be stated that on one occasion he and another person put forth, from a private room in a tavern, a proclamation commencing—"We, the people of England," &c., and concluding—"By order of the meeting." Another amusing instance of his effrontery occurred on the hustings at Brentford, when he and Colonel Luttrell were standing there together as rival candidates for the representation of Middlesex in Parliament. Looking down with great apparent apathy on the sea of human beings, consisting chiefly of his own votaries and friends, which stretched beneath him—"I wonder," he whispered to his opponent, "whether among that crowd the fools or the knaves predominate?" "I will tell them what you say," replied the astonished Luttrell, "and thus put an end to you." Perceiving that Wilkes treated the threat with the most perfect indifference—"Surely," he added, "you don't mean to say you could stand here one hour after I did so?" "Why not?" replied Wilkes; "it is you who would not be alive one instant after." "How so?" inquired Luttrell. "Because," said Wilkes, "I should merely affirm that it was a fabrication, and they would destroy you in the twinkling of an eye."