to repel their charge. Nay, I demand it as a matter of justice. There can exist no reason now for withholding it. I am wholly unprotected. The Minister of this day has a House of Commons to accuse me, a House of Peers to try me. He is master of all the written evidence that can exist against me. And as to parole testimony" (fixing his eyes on Dundas), "almost all those individuals who were my confidential friends, in whom I reposed my secrets, are now his friends. Yet I court the inquiry. But if, when thus called upon, they do not grant it, I must insist that they do not henceforward argue upon the charge as if it were proved." JOHN WILKES. The Middlesex Elections.-Wilkes had a seat in Parliament for the borough of Aylesbury, but was expelled from the House in 1764, for the publication of libels in the celebrated No. 45 of the North Briton, &c. He left the country to avoid sentence of the Court of King's Bench for the same offence, and was outlawed in consequence. At the general election in 1768 he returned, and offered himself for the City of London, where he was in a minority, but immediately after was elected for Middlesex. Between the time of his election and the assembling of Parliament, he surrendered himself to the Court, and obtained a reversal of the outlawry, but was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. The House resolved by 219 to 137 that he be expelled; but at the election which ensued he was again returned, when a motion was carried by 235 to 89 that, having suffered expulsion, "he was and is incapable of being elected a member to serve in this present Parliament." Three times the electors of Middlesex persisted in his return, with the same result; and on the last occasion the House gave the seat to Colonel Luttrell, who had polled only 296 votes against Wilkes's 1143. The conduct of the House was denounced by Lord Camden (then Lord Chancellor) as a direct attack upon the first principles of the constitution-for which assertion of the popular right to choose a representative his lordship was dismissed from the Government. The Earl of Chatham spoke in a similar strain. The Common Council of the City of London presented to the King a strongly worded remonstrance against the course his Ministers had adopted, and a bold denunciation of the House of Commons, for which many of that body would have had the principal movers of the address committed to the Tower; but fear of the popular indignation prevented them from proceeding to extremity. In this memorable address (which greatly offended the King) the City declared, "The majority of the House of Commons have deprived your people of their dearest rights. They have done a deed more ruinous in its consequences than the levying of ship money by Charles the First, or the dispensing power assumed by James the Second. A deed which must vitiate all the future proceedings of this Parliament, for the acts of the legislature itself can no more be valid without a legal House of Commons, than without a legal Prince upon the throne. Representatives of the people are essential to the making of laws, and there is a time when it is morally demonstrable that men cease to be representatives. That time is now arrived. The present House of Commons do not represent the people." ("Addresses, &c., presented from the Court of Common Council to the King, 1760-1778.") Luttrell continued to hold the seat for Middlesex until the Parliament was dissolved and a new one elected in 1774, when Wilkes was triumphantly returned, and took his seat without opposition. He moved repeatedly for the revisal of the proceedings relative to his former election, and to have the orders about his expulsion erased from the Journals, and in this he succeeded in 1782. Wilkes as a Speaker.-If we are to judge (writes Brougham) of his speaking by the very few samples preserved of it, we should indeed form a very humble estimate of its merits, "Constant declamation about rights, and liberties, and tyrants, and corruption, with hardly the merit of the most ordinary common-places on these hackneyed topics, seem to fill up its measure-with neither fact, nor argument, nor point, nor anything at all happy or new in the handling of the threadbare material. But what it wanted in force it probably made up in fury; and as calling names is an easy work to do, the enraged multitude as easily are pleased with what suits their excited feelings, gratifying the craving which excitement produces for more stimulus. That he failed, and signally failed, whenever he was called upon to address an audience which rejects such matter, is very certain. In Parliament he was seldom or never heard after his own case had ceased to occupy the public attention; and nothing can be worse than his address to the Court of Common Pleas when he was discharged. The occasion, too, on which he failed was a great one, when a victory for a constitutional principle had been gained perhaps by him-certainly in his person. All the people of London were hanging on the lips of their leader; yet nothing could be worse or feebler than his speech, of which the burden was a topic as much out of place as possible in a court of justice, where the strict letter of the law had alone prevailed, and that topic was verily handled with miserable inefficiency. 'Liberty, my lords, liberty has been the object of my life! Liberty and so forth. He might about as well have sung a song, or lifted his hat and given three cheers." A Newspaper Speech.-He spoke a speech in Parliament of which no one heard a word, and said aside to a friend, who urged the fruitlessness of the attempt at making the House listen, "Speak it I must, for it has been printed in the newspapers this half hour." 66 His Patriotism.-In public (says Russell) he affected a patriotism which he was far from feeling-indeed, he rather made a boast of his insincerity. Standing on the hustings at Brentford, his opponent said to him, "I will take the sense of the meeting." And I will take the nonsense," replied Wilkes, "and we shall see who has the best of it" Some years after, when his popularity had declined, the King, receiving him at his levee, asked him after his friend Serjeant Glyn. "Sir," said Wilkes, "he is not a friend of mine; he was a Wilkeite, which I never was." 66 Ready for Anything.-Lord Brougham relates that Colonel Luttrell and Wilkes were standing on the Brentford hustings, when the latter asked his adversary privately whether he thought there were more fools or rogues among the multitude of Wilkeites spread out before them. 'I'll tell them what you say, and put an end to you," said the colonel; but perceiving the threat gave Wilkes no alarm, he added, "Surely you don't mean to say you could stand here one hour after I did so?" 'Why," the answer was, "you would not be alive one instant after." "How so?" "I should merely say it was a fabrication, and they would destroy you in the twinkling of an eye!" 66 Two Opinions.-At one time Mr. Wilkes came up to the Speaker in the chair, and told him that he had a petition to present to the House from a set of the greatest scoundrels and miscreants upon earth. When called upon, however, shortly afterwards to present it, he said, with the gravest possible face, "Sir, I hold in my hand a petition from a most intelligent, independent, and enlightened body of men."-Life of Lord Sidmouth. 66 Strong Language.-Duel Between Wilkes and Martin.— While the House of Commons was debating the complaint of the King against the North Briton, in 1763, an incident arose which is thus referred to by Horace Walpole, in his letters to Mann: One Mr. Martin, who has much the same quarrel with Mr. Wilkes as King George, and who chose to suspend his resentment, like his Majesty, till with proper dignity he could notify his wrath to Parliament, did express his indignation with rather less temper than the King had done, calling Mr. Wilkes to his face cowardly scoundrel.' Mr. Wilkes inquired of Mr. Martin by letter next morning if he, Mr. Wilkes, was meant by him, Mr. Martin, under this periphrasis. Mr. Martin replied in the affirmative, and accompanied his answer with a challenge. They immediately went into Hyde Park, and, at the second fire, Mr. Wilkes received a bullet in his body." The wound was considered dangerous, and to another person Walpole wrote: Wilkes has been shot by Martin, and instead of being burnt at an auto da fé, as the Bishop of Gloucester intended, is reverenced as a saint by the mob, and, if he dies, I suppose the people will squint themselves into convulsions at his tomb, in honour of his memory." Wilkes, it is well known, squinted horribly. 66 CHARLES TOWNSHEND. (1725-1767.) A Logician out of Place.-When Sir Philip Yorke's friend and correspondent, James Harris, took his seat in the House of Commons, Charles Townshend inquired of some member who he was; and being told in reply that he was a gentleman who had written on the subject of logic and grammar, he exclaimed, "Why does he come here, where he will hear nothing of either ?” A Champagne Speech.-Horace Walpole, writing to Sir Horace Mann, May 12th, 1767, mentions "a wonderful speech made by Charles Townshend last Friday, apropos to nothing, and yet about everythingabout ministers, past, present, and to come-himself in particular, whom I think rather past than to come. It was all wit and folly, satire and indiscretion. He was half drunk when he made it, and yet that did but serve to raise the idea of his abilities." Writing to Miss Berry on the same subject, he says, "The speech lasted an hour, with torrents of wit, ridicule, vanity, lies, and beautiful language. Nobody but he could have made that speech; and nobody but he would have made it if they could. It was at once a proof that his abilities were superior to those of all men, and his judgment below that of any man. It showed him capable of being, and unfit to be, first minister. The House was in a roar of rapture, and some clapped their hands with ecstacy, like an audience in a theatre. In this speech he beat Lord Chatham in language, Burke in metaphors, Grenville in presumption, Rigby in impudence, himself in folly, and everybody in good humour." Pitt's Offer of the Chancellorship.-On undertaking the formation of a ministry in succession to Lord Rockingham, the elder Pitt thus wrote to Charles Townshend: "Sir, you are of too great a magnitude not to be in a responsible place: I intend to propose you to the King to-morrow for Chancellor of the Exchequer, and must desire to have your answer to-night by nine o'clock." Unprecedented (says Horace Walpole) as this method was of imposing an office of such consequence in so ungracious a manner (for it was ordering Townshend to accept 27007. a year in lieu of 70007., and intimated that, accepting or refusing, he must quit the post of Paymaster), yet it was singularly well adapted to the man. It was telling him that no other man in England was so fit for that difficult employment; and it was telling him at the same time that, though his great abilities rendered him a useful servant, the lightness of his character made those talents not formidable in an enemy. Pitt had judged rightly. Townshend did not dare to fling both offices in his face; but, without being incensed or flattered, fell into the most ridiculous distress imaginable. All he felt was the menace and the loss of the Paymaster's place; and instead of concealing the affront or his own anxiety, he sat at home in his nightgown, received all that came, showed Pitt's mandate to them and commented on it, despatched messengers for his brother and the Duke of Grafton, who were out of town, and as the time lapsed ran to the window on every coach that passed to see if they were arrived. At last he determined on suing for leave to remain Paymaster, to which Pitt listened; then, with his usual fluctuation, Townshend repented of not accepting the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, so leading a situation in the House of Commons, and begged he might have it. Pitt replied the place was full, being then inclined to retain Mr. Dowdeswell. Townshend renewed his supplication with tears, but for some time Pitt was firm. At length he yielded to the Duke of Grafton's, intercession; and that very day Townshend told the King that Mr. Pitt had again pressed and persuaded him to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. Pitt diverted himself with his inconsistencies, and suffered him to be his Chancellor. LORD LOUGHBOROUGH. Youthful Boldness.-Alexander Wedderburn (afterwards Lord Loughborough and Earl of Rosslyn) practised in his earlier years at the Scottish bar, but in 1757, having been provoked into using some violent language against one of his seniors, he was called upon by the bench to apologise, on pain of deprivation. Instead of doing so, he took off his gown and said, "My lords, I neither retract nor apologise, but I will save you the trouble of deprivation; there is my gown, and I will never wear it more; virtute me involvo." He then went up to London, and, entering on practice there, eventually became Lord Chancellor. A Ministerial Watchman.-Wedderburn was, says Brougham, one of the few lawyers who have shone as much in political affairs as in Westminster Hall. When he entered the House of Commons he became, in a very short time, one of the two main supports of its ministerial leader (Lord North); the other was Thurlow; and while they remained there to defend him Lord North might well be, as Gibbon has described the "Palinurus of the state," indulging in slumbers, with his Attorney and Solicitor General on either hand remaining at their posts to watch out the long debate. Completing a Quotation.-Lord Campbell relates that George Grenville, leader of the opposition, having brought forward his famous Bill for the Trial of Controverted Elections* (March 22nd, 1770), it was opposed by Lord North and the Government; and De Grey, the AttorneyGeneral, made a long speech against its dangerous innovations, concluding thus: "In short, sir, although there no doubt have hitherto been irregularities and even abuses while the House retained to itself its constitutional power of deciding election petitions, it is better to endure the evils of which we know the extent, than, in a sudden start of disgust and humoursome passion, fly to others that we know not of." Wedderburn (then in opposition), rising immediately after, continued Hamlet's soliloquy— "And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; The Two Baths.-When Miss Pulteney was created Baroness Bath, there being a Marquis of Bath, of another family, existing, Lord Radnor made a motion in the House of Lords against the patent, contending that it was unconstitutional and illegal to create two peers with the same title, and that great inconvenience would arise from it; as in their lordships' proceedings "Bath" might often appear opposed to "Bath." Lord Loughborough thereupon said: "My lords, in this case there is a sure way of preventing the future antagonism which haunts the imagination of the noble earl, for, the heir-apparent of the marquis being a bachelor, he may marry the young and beautiful baroness, and then Bath will be merged in Bath!" See "Miscellaneous " section-" Controverted Elections." |