A disgruntled Englishman mutters "This Rascally 

 Seotehman is going to pick the Nation's Pockets with 

 his infamous Excise Scheme." 



A week after his newspaper appeared, Wilkes was 

 arrested and thrown into the Tower of London. In 

 November 1764 he was outlawed, and he fled to the 

 Continent where he remained for four years. Then, 

 still an outlaw, he returned to England and cam- 

 paigned for the Parliamentary seat of Middlesex, 

 winning by a large majority. He then surrendered as 

 an outlaw, but received a sentence of only one year 

 in prison. After being expelled from Parliament on 

 February 4, 1769, he was quickly re-elected by his 

 constituents on February 16, and just as quickly was 

 expelled again. On April 13 he stood again and 

 soundly defeated his opponent. Col. H. L. Luttrell, 

 but regardless of Wilkes' massive majority, the Com- 

 mons insisted on .seating Luttrell. It was at this time 

 that the "Wilkes and Liberty" cries were loudest. 



During the following decade Wilkes became an 

 outspoken champion of the colonial cause. After he 

 returned to Parliament in 1774 he gave no fewer 

 than ten speeches urging the cessation of hostilities 

 between Britain and her American colonies. It is 

 not clear exactly when Wilkes became associated 

 with the discontented colonials, but there is no doubt 

 that his stormy Parliamentary career was being fol- 

 lowed with interest in America at least by the time 

 of his repeated expulsions from Parliament in 1768/9. 

 Wilkes was a forthright if crude radical who became 

 the champion of peoples" rights, and as such he had 

 much to commend him among the more hot-headed 

 colonials. The following extract from a letter 

 written to a Londoner in July 1770 by Roger Atkin- 

 son of "Mansfield," near Petersburg, expresses the 

 feelings of a typical colonial radical of that time: 



... ye Britons are a corrupted — I am sorry to say it — a 

 very corrupted People. I hope you will mend as you grow 

 older — I trust you will — I think you are in a very fair way 

 to be mended now. Follow Mr. Wilkes, he will show you. 

 Pray send me the Newspapers & Magazines & Political 

 Registers regularly. Everything that relates to my old 

 friend J.Wilkes, Esq're. — for I never desire to read anything 

 else except an Almanack, a Prayer Book & a Bible. 2'' 



Although John Page's letters do not mention 

 Wilkes by name, a letter to John Norton written at 



Roscwell in August 1768 mentions with horror the 

 news of the rioting (in fa\'or of Wilkes) in London: 



I hope long before this yoiu- terrible Riots are over. In 

 what an unhappy situation was Great Britain! LTnsteadi- 

 ncss in her Councils, Confusion, Riots & Tumults, little 

 short of Rebellion in her very Metropolis; Discontent in 

 all her colonies, each, & every one justly complaining of 

 the Arbitrary Proceedings of Parliament; and many of them 

 provoked at the Severe Restrictions on their Trade, are 

 ready to give a Stab almost vital to llie Trade of G-t B-n.-" 



Enthusiasm for Wilkes in Williamsburg is indicated 

 in an engraving of 1775 in which a gathering of 

 citizens on a Williamsburg street is busily signing 

 a petition, using a makeshift table formed by hogs- 

 heads similar to those depicted on the Rosewell 

 buckle. One of the hogsheads bears the in.scription 

 "TOBACCO A PRESENT For JOHN WILKES 

 E.sq. LORD MAYOR OF LONDON." " 



The foregoing digression is relevant in regard to 

 establishing a relationship between the "No Excise" 

 slogan and the Pages so that the date span for the 

 Rosewell pit might be narrowed. If it covdd be shown 

 that the buckle bearing the slogan was made or came 

 to Mrginia not in 1763 but when \Vilkes was at the 

 height of his flamboyant career after his return from 

 Europe in 1768, then it could be deduced that the 

 relevant repairs to Rosewell took place after that 

 date, as also did the deposition of the contents of the 

 pit. Although there is every reason to believe that 

 the pit was dug in the autumn of 1771, became silted 

 during the winter, and was filled with trash while 

 repairs were in progress at the mansion in the spring 

 of 1772, the evidence of the buckle is not sufficiently 

 clear to pro\'ide an incontrovertible terminus post 

 quem of 1768. Consequently, the date brackets must 

 embrace the years between the late winter of 1763 

 (Treaty of Paris and Cycler Act) and the spring of 

 1772. 



2''> Roger Atkinson to Robert Bunn, July 30, 1770, Virginia 

 Magazine of Hi slorv nnd Biography, 1908, vol. 15, no. 4, p. 349. 



2>'John Page, Jr., to John Norton, .August 26, 1768, Korlon 

 Paptrs, op. cit. (footnote 6), p. 64. 



'' Rutherford Goodwin, A BrieJ and True Report Concerning 

 ]Vtlliamsburg in Virginia, Williamsburg, 1940, p. 65. Some 

 measure of the popularity of Wilkes in America can be seen 

 in Paul Revere's famous "Wilkes and Liberty" punch bowl of 

 1768 and in an advertisement for swords with hilts decorated 

 "either with the heads of General Washington, General Lee, 

 Lord Chatham, John Wilkes, Esq.; with shells pierced and 

 ornamented with mottoes; for Pitt's head. Magna Charta and 

 Freedom; for Wilke's head, Wilkes and Liberty . . ." (.A/Vai 

 Tork Gazelle and Weekly Mercury, April 1, 1776, as reprinted in 

 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 1929, vol. 37, no. 

 1, p. 60). 



168 



BULLETIN 225: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



