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THE POPULAR EDUCATOR 



Would have been looked upon as simply libellous and intolerable, 

 not to say in many cases treasonable. 



No. 45 of the North Briton, published on the 23rd of April, 

 1763, came out immediately after the king had closed, with 

 a speech from his own lips, the parliamentary session of April, 

 1763. Referring to the peace lately concluded with France 

 and Spain a peace, the terms of which, considering the im- 

 portant successes of the British arms, had created the profoundest 

 disgust in England, and for agreeing to which Lord Bute was 

 Tehemently accused, and even charged with having received 

 bribes from the nation's enemies the king said it had been 

 concluded on terms " so honourable to my crown, and so bene- 

 ficial to my people." The words fell coldly on the ears of the 

 members of Parliament, and excited great anger in the breasts 

 of most of their representatives. The Nwth Briton expressed 

 the feelings of the advanced Liberals of the day, though in 

 terms that were then at least considered scurrilous in the ex- 

 treme. The king's words were commented upon with merciless 

 severity, but they were designated as part of the " minister's " 

 speech, the writer carefully distinguishing, in accordance with 

 constitutional practice, between the king, who can do no wrong, 

 and the minister, who can. 



The article was received with satisfaction by those who dis- 

 liked the Government, and who looked upon the North Briton 

 as the champion, rough and ill-bred, perhaps, but still the 

 champion of public liberty ; but by the ministers it was regarded 

 as a wilful and impardonable insult to the king. Unwisely they 

 determined to notice it, and Lord Halifax, Secretary of State, 

 issued his warrant for the arrest of " the authors, printers, and 

 publishers" of the obnoxious article. Wilkes was arrested on 

 the 30th of April, and after examination before Lords Halifax 

 and Egremont, was sent a prisoner to the Tower. His private 

 papers were also seized. Before giving an account of the 

 proceedings taken upon his arrest, and of those further mea- 

 sures which flowed as a consequence out of them, it will be well 

 to give some account of Wilkes himself, and to show how he 

 came to be identified with popular liberty, an event which his 

 connection with the North Briton, would scarcely have brought 

 about. 



John Wilkes was born in 17.27, the son of a distiller, who left 

 him with a good business and ample means for carrying it on ; 

 but the young man disliked occupation, and, like others who do 

 so, got into mischief. He relinquished the business, squandered 

 his patrimony in riotous living, and became known as a wit of 

 the coarser kind, a fast liver, and an adventurer. For a time 

 he was steadied by his marriage, an event by which he acquired 

 a fortune ; but he grew tired of his wife, and spent her money, 

 and then went into Parliament to retrieve his position. He was 

 returned for Aylesbury in 1757, and sat as member for some 

 time; but he was not a successful man in the House of Commons, 

 where his peculiar talents were not appreciated, and his style of 

 oratory was out of place. He was more at home in taverns and 

 behind the scenes at theatres ; and, in company with Sir Francis 

 Dashwood, Lord Sandwich, and other men of pleasure, he became 

 notorious as one of the licentious inmates of Medmenham Abbey, 

 near Maidenhead, where revels of the most ungodly kind were 

 carried on, and where morality and religion were alike ostenta- 

 tiously set at nought. 



Ruined by his extravagance and by the expenses of his elec- 

 tions, for he had to fight for his seat at Aylesbury both in 1757 

 and 1761, Wilkes cast about for some employment under the 

 Government, by which he might at all events live comfortably. 

 Lord Temple, the friend and relative of Pitt, had favoured him 

 in politics, seeing many good points in him, and deeming that 

 his abilities under good guidance might be useful in the contest 

 which was inevitably coming on between the Crown and the 

 Parliament. To Lord Temple Wilkes applied, in hope of getting 

 an appointment as ambassador, or as colonial governor ; but the 

 lieutenant-colonelcy of the Bucks Militia was all that he could 

 get; and when, in 17.61, Lord Temple seceded from the Govern- 

 ment, Wilkes' chances disappeared altogether, for from Lord 

 Bute, to whose adverse influence he ascribed his disappoint- 

 ment hitherto, he could expect nothing. Wilkes then betook 

 himself to political writing against the Government, wrote a 

 pamphlet full of hostile criticism on the lately-concluded peace, 

 and in June, 1762, started the North Briton in conjunction with 

 Churchill, a spirit more wicked than himself. In this paper 

 were published from time to time most violent attacks on the 



conduct of the ministers, whose names were printed at length 

 in order to prevent the possibility of mistake, and in order to 

 make the attack more felt. 



The articles were always written from the popular side, and 

 were calculated to make political capital for the writer, espe- . 

 cially when they were upon those topics as the cider tax, and 

 the peace which the people had particularly at heart. Wilkes 

 appealed, in writing them, to the popular passions, but succeeded 

 in steering clear of expressions which could properly be construed 

 into treason. 



The North Briton was no respecter of persons, even Sir Francis 

 Dashwood, Wilkes' former boon companion, being severely 

 handled in it as soon as he became Chancellor of the Exchequer. 

 No one was secure from the bite of the literary mosquito, and 

 Wilkes, being known as the principal purveyor of its sting, was 

 subjected on several occasions to the resentment of those he 

 libelled. Lord Talbot fought a duel with him on Bagshot Heath, 

 and there were other persons who took more questionable means 

 to be revenged on him. It is more than likely that Wilkes 

 would have gone on with the North Briton, either until he had 

 been quieted by a good Government appointment, or until the 

 accession of more popular ministers had left him without em- 

 ployment as a political writer, but for the proceedings which 

 the ministers commenced against him. As soon as he was 

 arrested on account of the articles in which he had given 

 expression, albeit savagely, to the popular opinion, he was looked 

 upon as a political martyr, and his writings in the North Briton 

 were magnified into a series of sustained, patriotic efforts on 

 behalf of the popular cause. 



No time was lost in serving out a writ of Habeas Corpus. 

 Wilkes was, on the 3rd of May, brought before Lord Chief 

 Justice Pratt in the Court of Common Pleas, where arguments 

 were heard on both sides as to the propriety of the prisoner's 

 commitment, the question being, not whether the general warrant 

 under which he had been arrested was valid or not. but whether, 

 as a member of Parliament, he was not protected by the privilege 

 of that assembly. There is a privilege attaching to the dignity 

 of representative of the people which exempts the person of the 

 holder from arrest on civil process, and absolutely from arrest 

 except on a charge of treason, felony, or breach of the peace. 

 The crown lawyers contended that a libel was a breach of the 

 peace, and they cited the opinions of the judges who committed 

 the Seven Bishops, in support of their view a precedent which, 

 the circumstances considered, they were rather unfortunate in 

 using. The court took time to consider their judgment, and 

 the prisoner, highly elated by the reception he had met with on 

 his way to Westminster, and in Westminster Hall, was led back 

 to the Tower, amid the acclamations of the multitude. On the 

 fourth day afterwards the court gave judgment in favour of 

 the prisoner. " We are all of opinion," said Chief Justice Pratt 

 (afterwards Lord Camden), " that a libel is not a breach of the 

 peace ; it tends to a breach of the peace, and that is the utmost. 

 But that which only tends to a breach of the peace cannot be 

 an actual breach of it. In the case of the Seven Bishops, Judge 

 Powell, the only honest man of the four judges, dissented, and I 

 am bound to be of his opinion, and to say that case is not law. 

 . . . Let Mr. Wilkes be discharged from his imprisonment." 



Released from prison, Wilkes began to make reprisals. He 

 brought actions against the Secretary of State and his mes- 

 sengers for having taken his papers ; he threatened Lord Egre- 

 mont with a challenge, and he set up a private printing-press in 

 his house, from which he could issue squibs and pamphlets under 

 his own immediate direction. The rejoicings in London and the 

 provinces at the triumph of what was considered to be the 

 popular cause, were general and demonstrative ; Wilkes became 

 the hero of the hour, and his name was associated with the 

 sacred name of liberty, in the rallying cry of the people. 



On the 15th of November, 1763, Parliament met after the 

 recess, and to the surprise of every one, Lord Sandwich, who 

 had been an associate of Wilkes in his profligate career, and 

 whose morals were certainly no better than his companion's, 

 rose in his place in the House of Lords, and on the very first 

 day of the session, denounced as a scandalous, obscene, and 

 impious libei, a performance of Wilkes called " An Essay on 

 Woman." The poem was a burlesque on Pope's "Essay on 

 Man," and was dedicated to Lord Sandwich, having been written 

 by Wilkes several years before in the days of Medmenham 

 Abbey. It contained scurrilous references to various public men, 



