» 
“amount of 100,cool. 
46 
ceed direétly to extremities, he fent fe- 
-veral polite meflagés to Mr. W. requetft- 
ing his company ; but the latter refolutely 
yetufed, and could not be prevailed upon 
to repair to his lordfhip’s houfe, until he 
was ‘threatened with perfonal violence, 
and given to underftand, that a regiment 
of guards would, if neceflary, be calied 
tn. On this, he preceeded ina chair, at- 
tended by the meffengers and their fol- 
lowers ; he, however, refufed to anfwer 
any queflions whatever, and treated lord 
Esremont, the other fecretary of fate, 
who exhibited too much of the infolence of 
office, in his demeanour, with great 
ipirit. 
On his being committed to the Tower, 
he was preffed to offer bail; but he ftre- 
uuvoufly refufed, as tt would have looked 
like an acquiefeence in the injuftice of 
the proceedings againft him, although two 
noblemen offered to become fureties to the 
each. In ccnfe- 
quence of ftri€t orders for that purpofe, 
he was kept a clofe prifoner , and earl Tem- 
pie, and the reft of his friends, denied ac- 
cefs to him, until two habcafes were 
ifued, the firft having been evaded by 
thicahery. Art length, on Tuefday, the 
3d of May, he was brought up to the bar 
of the Common Pleas, where, in an ap- 
pofite fpeech, he complained of the vio- 
lation of the laws, and afferced, that he 
had been treated worfe “ than if he had 
‘been a Scotch rebel.” 
_ The court- having taken time to delt- 
berate, he was remanded, and brought 
mp once more, on the 6th, when the Jord 
chief juftice, fir Charles Pratt, afterwards 
‘lord Camden, ordered him to be dif- 
charged. Fluthed with this victory, in 
the courfe of that very night, he wrote a 
bitter and farcaftic letter to the two fecre- 
taries of ftate, in which, after recapitu- 
lating the circumftances relative to the 
fetzure of his papers, he demanded the 
reftitution of them, under the title of 
 ftolen goods,” and a€tually applied to 
Bow-fireet, for a warrant to fearch their 
houfes, in order to recover poffeflion cf 
his property, which had been felomou/ly 
taken away. It may be eafily fuppofed, 
that a magifirate, under the immediate 
inflmence of the miniftry, refufed his 
countenance. to this proceeding ; bur re- 
eourf was foon had to a higher autho- 
rity, and ample fatistaétion received. 
While Mr. Wilkes was yet in the 
Tower, unlawfully imprifoned, and un- 
convicted, therefore, in the eye of the 
law, fappofed to be'at once mnocent and 
epoieficd, he was doomed to experience 
Original Anecdotes—~Fobn Wilkes, Efy. . {Jans 
all the rigour of royal vengeance, having 
been actually difmiffed from his fituation. 
of colonel of the Buck’s Militia, by a 
mandate *, with whieh the lord lieutenant 
reluétantly complied. But this was not 
all; an attempt to d:fgrace, was foon fol- 
lowed by another, calculated to ruin him : 
it proved, however, contrary to all hu- 
man calculation, to be the bafis on whictt 
he erected the edifice of his furure for- 
tune. 
In the courfe of next term, an inform- 
ation was filed againfi him, in the King’s 
Bench, as author of the North Briton, 
No. 45 ; and, on the meeting of parlia- 
‘meat, being voted “a falfe, feandalous, 
and feditious libel,’’ it was ordered to be 
burned by the hands of the common hang- 
man* a fentence which was carried into: 
execution,with much difficulty,in the city; 
when Mr. Sheriff Harley, who difplayed 
great zeal on the occafion, was mal-treated 
and even wounded by the populace. 
Mr. Wilkes. having, in his turn, com- 
plained to the houfe of a breach of privi- 
lege, was not cnly refufed redrefs, but 2 
refolurion paffed, “that the privilege of 
parliament does not extend to the cafe of 
writing and publifhing feditious libels, 
nor ought to be aliowed to obftruct the 
ordinary courfe of the laws, in the fteady 
and effectual profecution of fo heinous and 
dangerous an offence.” 
Some words that paffed on this occa- 
fion, in conjunétion with a paflage in the 
Nerth Briton, oecafioned a duel between 
Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Martin, member 
for Camelford, and late fecretary to the 
Treafury, which took place in Hyde Park, 
the 16th of December. The reprefenta- 
tive of Aylefbury behaved with great ga- 
lanty on this oecafion, and the wound he 
received in the groin greatly encreafed 
the number of his partifans, who were 
pleafed with his fpirit, and confidered him 
as a martyr in the public caufe. 
Soon after he found it neceffary to re= 
tire to France; but this did not in the 
leaft tend to abate the vindiétive fpirit of 

* (Copy) 
« My lord, Whitehall, May 4, 1763. 
« The king having judged it improper, that 
John Wilkes, Efq. fhould any longer continue 
to be colonel of the militia for the county of 
Buckingham, I am commanded to fignify his 
majefty’s pleafure to your lordfhip, that you do 
forthwith give the necefiary orders for difplac- 
ing Mr. Wilkes as an officer for the militia, 
for the county of Buckingham.” 
“« T am, &c. 
« EGREMONT. 
his 
- ® To the Earl Temple,”” 
