CHAPTER VI.
JOHN WILKES AS A POPULAR REPRESENTATIVE.
In the whole history of electioneering no figure is more conspicuous than that of John Wilkes, the quondam patriot, who was by the attacks of others brought into a prominence which neither his abilities nor character justified.
Hogarth commenced hostilities against Wilkes, Churchill (_The North Briton_), and Beardmore (_The Monitor_) by attacking their publications incidentally in that unfortunate attempt at political satire of his, christened “The Times,” Plate I. (1762). It will be remembered that the figure of the artist’s patron, Lord Bute, is there glorified as a Scotch husbandman engaged in extinguishing a general conflagration; while a frenzied man, intended to personify the Duke of Newcastle, is driving a wheel-barrow filled with _Monitors_ and _North Britons_ against the legs of the zealous Scot, who, unmoved, continues his exertions to subdue the threatened ruin of the State. Pitt and Lord Temple are further assailed--not too cleverly--in this view of the “Times.” On this provocation, Wilkes and Churchill naturally took up the cudgels in their own defence, and certainly gave Hogarth cause for irritation. He prepared the second plate of “The Times,” with a further pictorial castigation of his now-declared adversaries, but was induced to reconsider the policy of publishing the plate, and thus giving greater offence; consequently it was not until thirty years later, when the quarrel was almost forgotten, and the opponents had long been at rest,[49] that the world was favoured with a view of this equally laboured satire, when it was published by the Boydells at their Shakespeare Gallery, with the collected works of W. Hogarth (May 29, 1790). George III., Bute, Temple, Lord Mansfield, and others, are introduced in this version, but the portion which is pointed at Wilkes, in continuation of this “rough bout of clever men clumsily throwing dirt at each other,” as it has been described, is the figurement of Miss Fanny, of “Cock-lane ghost” notoriety, pilloried and held up to infamy side by side with Wilkes, whose offence is indicated as “Defamation.” On his breast is pinned a copy of the _North Briton_, the No. 17 which was specially devoted to a base attack upon Hogarth. This incendiary publication is already threatened with flames from the penitential candle held by “Miss Fanny,” his shrouded companion in disgrace. Indignities are showered upon Wilkes in allusion to his involved circumstances; his empty pockets are turned inside out, a school-boy is watering his legs, a woman is trundling a mop over his head, and he is generally regarded with derisive contempt by the crowd.
The crowning effort of Hogarth’s revenge for the abuse showered upon him by both Wilkes and Churchill was the famous etching in which the popular favourite is pilloried to all time as the type and very personification of everything false and sinister, and yet most lifelike as to resemblance; for Wilkes was himself so cynically candid as to admit in after-life that he was “growing more like his portrait every day.” The famous likeness represents Wilkes seated in a chair at a low table, on which is an inkstand and the _North Briton_, Nos. 17 and 45; he is holding the staff, topped with an inverted vessel to simulate the cap of liberty. Attitude and features are alike expressive, and, as Mr. Stephens has described it, “he leers and squints as if in mockery of his own pretences to patriotism.” When brought up from the Tower, to which Lord Bute’s party had ventured to commit him for the attack in the _North Briton_, No. 45, Wilkes was tried at Westminster, before Chief Justice Pratt--subsequently eulogized as “the champion of Freedom and Justice,” and better known to fame as Lord Camden,--who caused the prisoner to be discharged, to the frantic delight of the populace. It was on this occasion that Hogarth secured his opportunity of sketching the idol of the people and the thorn of the Court. In a note prefixed to “An Epistle to William Hogarth,” by Churchill, it is averred that when Mr. Wilkes was the second time brought from the Tower to Westminster Hall, Hogarth skulked behind a screen in the corner of the gallery of the Common Pleas; and while Lord Chief Justice Pratt was enforcing the great principles of the Constitution, the painter was employed in caricaturing the prisoner. So popular was this print, issued at one shilling, that Nichols mentions “nearly four thousand copies were worked off in a few weeks.” “The Epistle” referred to was provoked by the etching of John Wilkes, “Drawn from the Life.” Hogarth is said to have felt severely the retort which the vigorous and “bruising” Churchill thought proper to make.
“Lurking, most ruffian-like, behind a screen, So plac’d all things to see, himself unseen, Virtue, with due contempt, saw Hogarth stand, The murd’rous pencil in his palsied hand;” etc.
To this pasquinade, which revelled audaciously in the realms of libel, and was otherwise a false and indefensible attack on the artist’s private life, Hogarth characteristically replied with his graver; but not to lose time, while his mind was heated by the attack, he utilized a plate on which was already engraved his own portrait and his dog, after the painting now in the National Gallery, and burnishing out those parts which were in his way, he engraved--
“The Bruiser, C. Churchill (once the Revd.!), in the character of a Russian Hercules, regaling himself after having kill’d the monster Caricatura that so sorely gall’d his virtuous friend, the Heaven-born WILKES.
“‘But he had a Club this Dragon to drub, Or he had ne’er don’t I warrant ye.’”
(_Dragon of Wantley._)
This plate was issued at 1_s._ _6d._, and seems to have gone through various alterations and additions from first to last. On the palette which first displayed the mystifying “line of beauty,” was substituted two designs of a figurative nature--the one having reference to Pitt, his resignation and annual pension, and his city supporters, represented by the emblematic civic guardians, Gog and Magog; the other a group further applying to the castigation of the designer’s foes. Hogarth is armed with a triple whip, with which he is lustily chastising a big dancing bear, Churchill, held bound and muzzled, as not only the artist but the ministry and the Scotch faction would have rejoiced to have effected; the Bruiser to the clerical ruffles and bands has incongruously added the modish laced hat of a man about town; the other end of the rope, by which Hogarth has secured the bear through the muzzle, is fastened round an ape, intended to personify Wilkes. This animal is wearing a wig exactly similar to that shown on Wilkes’s head in the too-famous etching; the _North Briton_ is in his left hand; the spear, topped with the inevitable cap of liberty, is turned into a hobby-horse, to infer, according to Mr. F. G. Stephen’s account, “that Wilkes used Liberty to get his own ends, which not more than a child progresses on its ‘cock-horse’ did he really obtain.” The face of the fiddling personage, who is making the music for this pretty caper, is a featureless blank; he wears a ribbon of knighthood, and it is understood that Earl Temple is the person intended.
Other uncomplimentary allusions to Wilkes and his proceedings appear in the _Public Advertiser_, where is a woodcut of an execution, I.W., and M.P., with a “Toast”--“May loyalists walk easily in their Boots [a reference to Lord Bute], and malcontents die like Wilks in their shells.”
The notoriety of John Wilkes was much assisted by the ill-advised and clumsy conduct of the ministry, which elected to make a martyr of the man whose career proves him to have been but a sham patriot, and, who, if unnoticed, was totally without weight or consequence. On April 30, 1763, Wilkes found himself, in spite of the Habeas Corpus granted by the Common Pleas, conducted to the Tower on a warrant, signed by the Earls of Egremont and Halifax as Privy Councillors and Secretaries of State, authorizing the Constable of the Tower, the Right Hon. John Lord Berkeley of Stratton,--
“to receive into your custody the body of John Wilkes, Esq., herewith sent you, for being the author and publisher of a most infamous and seditious libel, entitled the _North Briton_, No. XLV., tending to inflame the minds and alienate the affections of the people from His Majesty, and to excite them to traitorous insurrections against the Government.”
The small engraving which exhibits Wilkes in the Tower, forms one portion of a series, entitled “The Places” (being a sequel to “The Posts”), a political pasquinade, dedicated to Bamber Gasoign, Esq., a Trading Lord for the time being.
“Satire’s a harmless, quiet thing-- ’Tis application makes the sting.”
No. 3 is styled a Safe Place; the title is “Moderation, Moderation, this was Wonderful Moderation, an old song.” The prisoner is simultaneously attacked by curs, and by one of the historical lions of the Tower, which cannot do much harm, being chained to the secure post Magna Charta. Wilkes is threatening his assailants with a whip; he has on a spear the cap of liberty--this emblem is inscribed “Habeas Corpus.” A yeoman of the guard is in charge of the hero of the XLV. _North Briton_.
“There’s a scene for an Englishman! Patriots ill-us’d, Magna Charta despised, and poor Freedom abus’d; Once the love of our country brought profit and pow’r, But it now, tho’ with glory, sends WILKES to the Tow’r.”
In the version of “Daniel cast into the Den of Lions; or, _True Blue_ will never stain” (April 29, 1763), Wilkes is shown the centre of a highly elaborate allegorical combination, which deals with the incidents of his arrest, associated with the _North Briton_, and his obnoxious writings. One of the scenes exhibits the king’s messengers violently breaking into Wilkes’s house, Great George Street, Westminster, and ransacking his receptacles for papers. On the other side, the messengers are shown conducting Wilkes to the Tower, the title “Den of Lions” not being wide of the mark, since it, at that time, was the abiding place of the royal menagerie. Wilkes is made to declare: “Corruption I detest, and Persecution I despise,”--sentiments befitting the patriotic martyr, as he was then believed to be, a “goodly repute” with which he was only too desirous of parting in exchange for such bribes as were weighty enough for his acceptance. In the symbolic view of this new “Daniel,” the goddess Fame hovers over her whilom favourite, with a wreath to crown his brow; she is publishing, through her trumpet, “Magnus est Veritas;” the door of the den which confines the lions is a prominent feature. Below appears the Lieutenant of the Tower; he has a written “counsel’s opinion” in his hand, and is replying to a demand for admittance made by Wilkes’s brother, “Consider, sir, my Lord Temple was not suffered to see him.” When Wilkes was committed to the Tower, both his brother and Earl Temple applied to be admitted to see him, and were refused.
The “general warrant” on which Wilkes was arrested was proved illegal, and on a writ of _Habeas Corpus_, he was set at liberty on the ground of his privilege as a member of Parliament. After his release from the Tower, Wilkes was involved in a duel, and severely wounded; he then fled to Paris, January, 1764, and was, in his absence, expelled from parliament and outlawed for contempt of court. On the issue of writs for the general election, after the dissolution of parliament, March 12, 1768, Wilkes, who had made several vain attempts to get the sentence reversed, suddenly presented himself as a candidate to represent the city of London, in the interval addressing to the king a submissive letter imploring pardon and the reversal of the sentence of outlawry which had been passed upon him. This petition the king rejected with decision. Although Alderman Sir William Baker was the only citizen of note or influence who supported him, Wilkes persisted in his candidature, the lower people embracing his cause with ardour; but he polled the minimum of votes, and was signally defeated, the successful members being the Hon. Thomas Harley, lord mayor, with 3,729 votes; Sir R. Ladbroke, 3,678; William Beckford, 3,402; Barlow Trecothwick, 2,957. The unsuccessful candidates were Sir Richard Glyn, 2,823; John Patterson, 1,769; and Wilkes, at the bottom of the poll, who contrived to secure 1,247 votes.
On Wilkes’s return from the Guildhall at the close of the poll, March 23, 1768, where, as seen, he obtained the lowest number of votes, the people displayed their fervour for spurious patriotism by removing the horses from his carriage, and drawing it themselves; other extravagancies of a like nature showed the spirit of the multitude, by whom Wilkes was regarded as the tribune of the people, a situation very much to his taste. Considering his mob-popularity assured, he now proposed to conciliate his opponents; the first step was to make a pretence of submission. On the 22nd of March, he wrote to the solicitor of the treasury: “I take the liberty of acquainting you, that in the beginning of the ensuing term I shall present myself to the court of King’s Bench. I pledge my honour as a gentleman, that on the very first day I will there make my personal appearance.” The letter sent by Wilkes to the king was certainly a plausible composition, but the fervid assurances there given being in direct antagonism with the conduct of the writer at that very time, it may be held that George III. was justified in treating the applicant with indignant contempt.
“SIRE,
“I beg thus to throw myself at your Majesty’s feet, and supplicate the mercy and clemency which shine with such lustre among your princely virtues. Some former ministers, whom your Majesty, in condescension to the wishes of your people, thought proper to remove, employed every wicked and deceitful act to oppress your subject, and to avenge their own personal cause on him, whom they imagined to be the principal author of bringing to public view their ignorance, insufficiency, and treachery to your Majesty and the nation.
“I have been the innocent and unhappy victim of revenge. I was forced by their injustice and violence into exile, which I have never ceased to consider, for many years, as the most cruel oppression; because I could not longer be under the benign influence of your Majesty in this land of liberty.
“With a heart full of zeal for the service of your Majesty and my country, I implore, Sire, your clemency. My only hopes of pardon are founded in the great goodness and benevolence of your Majesty; and every day of freedom you may be graciously pleased to permit me the enjoyment of, in my dear native land, shall give proofs of my zeal and attachment to your service.”
This letter was judiciously ignored, but meanwhile fresh publicity was awaiting Wilkes--on the 27th, he was carried by a writ of _capias ut legatum_ to the King’s Bench.
The return of Wilkes from Paris, his failure for the city, and election for Middlesex are figuratively shadowed forth in “The Flight of Liberty,” a broadside consisting of two engraved designs, “The Return of Liberty,” and “Liberty Revived,” with verses in praise of Wilkes and reflecting adversely upon his antagonists. In the upper compartment is shown the Court, or administrative faction, destroying the Temple of Liberty (an allusion to Earl Temple), raised above the statue of Wilkes, with the cap of liberty, as usual, elevated on the staff of maintenance. Lord Bute trampling on Magna Charta, is foremost of the destroyers who are wrecking the whole edifice, the very foundations of which are being razed; the “Laird of Boot” is exclaiming, “Well said, guid friends, down with the mighty _Temple_,” in allusion to the protection and patronage that nobleman had already extended to Wilkes; the Duke of Bedford, Lord North, and other ministers are aiding. The second design shows “the Temple of Liberty built by John Wilkes, A.D. 1762,” reinstated, “never to fall again.”
Nothing daunted by his defeat for the city of London, Wilkes at once offered himself for the county of Middlesex. In his “Memoirs of the Reign of George III.,” Walpole gives certain glimpses of the election proceedings, which are as descriptive as a more detailed account:--
“On the 23rd of March the Election began at Brentford; and while the irresolution of the Court and the carelessness of the Prime Minister, Grafton, caused a neglect of all precautions, the zeal of the populace had heated itself to a pitch of fury.”
The other candidates were Sir W. Beauchamp Proctor and Mr. Cooke, the former members. Cooke, who had sat from 1750, was confined with the gout; a relation, who appeared for him, was roughly handled. Amidst the wrecking of carriages which ensued, that of Proctor did not escape the attention of the roughs; it “was demolished by the mob.”
The coach-glasses of such as did not huzza for “Wilkes” and “Liberty” were broken, the paint and varnish of chariots and coaches, met and stopped for miles round, were spoiled by the mob--scratching them with the favourite “45.” Lord Bute, generally the object of popular disfavour, was denounced by an attack made on his residence, where the mob broke his windows, as usual, but failed to effect an entrance; the same unwelcome attention was paid to Lord Egremont’s, in Pall Mall, as the chief signatory to the warrant for Wilkes’s committal. The Duke of Northumberland had the honour of appearing, whether he would or no, of being forced to supply the mob with liquor, and to drink with them to Wilkes’s success. The demonstration assumed formidable proportions; all the windows from West to East were illuminated to please the mob, otherwise they were broken by the riotous “true loyal Britons and friends of Liberty,” who performed some curious feats; some of the regimental drummers, not the Scotch regiments it may be premised, beating their drums for Wilkes. This astute diplomatist, finding his election secure, very prudently dismissed his enthusiastic partisans, such as the weavers, back to town, the polling[50] was ended, and by the next morning quietude was resumed in the vicinity of Brentford. Some of the incidents were particularly ludicrous, the mob going out of the way to perpetuate the number of the _North Briton_ so objectionable to the Court. The Austrian Ambassador, the Count de Seilern, described by Horace Walpole in a letter to the Earl of Hertford as the most stately and ceremonious of men, was obliged to get out of his coach, and ignominiously held with his legs in the air while the figures “45” were chalked on the soles of his shoes. This insult formed the grounds of an official complaint. It was as difficult for the minister to help laughing at the gravity of his representations as to redress the slight offered to a friendly power in the person of its representative.
Wilkes was now master of the situation; all his expectations were verified. Elated with success, his audacity enabled him to make the most of his undeserved triumph, and assuming a tone which heaped fresh mortifications upon the Court, he printed an address of acknowledgment to his constituents, in which he invited them to give him their instructions from time to time, and promised that he would always defend their civic and religious rights. Although posing as the champion of liberty, Wilkes’s parliamentary career was a dismal failure; in the House he was of no account whatever.
It is interesting to note contemporaneous opinion on a point which is so strongly distorted by partisanship that independent impressions are rare. Dr. Franklin, whose genuine passion for liberty it must be admitted was as absorbing and unaffected as Wilkes’s assumed patriotism was shallow and self-serving, happened to be in London at the time of the violent ferment occasioned by the Middlesex election in 1768. Although lately returned from Paris, and himself, a citizen of the land which complimented Paine, he thus unreservedly sums up the popular candidate, together with the political agitation associated with his pretensions.
“’Tis really an extraordinary event to see an outlaw and exile of bad personal character, not worth a farthing, come over from France, set himself up as a candidate for the capital of the kingdom, miss his election only by being too late in his application, and immediately carrying it for the principal county. The mob, spirited up by numbers of different ballads, sung or roared in the streets, requiring gentlemen and ladies of all ranks as they passed in their carriages, to shout for ‘Wilkes and Liberty;’ marking the same words on their coaches with chalk, and ‘No. 45’ on every door, which extend a vast way along the roads into the country. I went last week to Winchester, and observed that for fifteen miles out of town there was scarcely a door or window-shutter next the road unmarked, and this continued here and there quite to Winchester, which is sixty-four miles.”
The day of Wilkes’s election appeared the portrait of “John Wilkes, elected Knight of the Shire for Middlesex, March 28, 1768, by the free voice of the people,” with, according to the allegorical taste of the time, Hercules and Minerva as supporters, the latter crowning the elect M.P. with a wreath, while the former tramples upon the serpent of Envy; the genius of Liberty is holding the staff of maintenance, surmounted by the cap of liberty (as invariably associated with Wilkes), and is pointing to the portrait as her champion. Simultaneously appeared an engraving commemorative of other incidents of the return from Brentford, showing the valour of the chief magistrate of the city. The guards on duty at St. James’s Palace had orders to be in readiness to march at beat of drum to suppress any riots which might take place; it has been described how certain drummers took to drumming for Wilkes, while his sympathizers marched through Westminster to the city, upsetting all in their way, chalking doors, breaking window-glass, both in houses and carriages, inscribing vehicles and foot-passengers impartially with “45.” “Wilkes and Liberty” was the cry, and woe to those who did not join in shouting, for they, without further inquiry, were promptly knocked down. In the city, the mob grew more outrageous, the lord mayor being the Hon. Thomas Harley, who had been elected for the city, at the top of the poll, when Wilkes, his name lowest on the list, had been defeated ignominiously; moreover, the lord mayor was a courtier, and was denounced subsequently in the _North Briton_ as “a political gambler,” nor was the charge groundless. The mob accordingly attacked the Mansion House and the lord mayor’s private residence in Aldersgate Street; neither of these places being illuminated in honour of Wilkes was a sufficient offence in the sight of the mob, who proceeded to demolish the windows: every pane of glass was broken, even to those of the lady mayoress’s bed-chamber. Then they erected a gallows, on which was suspended a boot and petticoat to symbolize the Princess of Wales, only too well-known, according to popular clamour, in association with the Earl of Bute, the “Laird of the Boot” thus indicated in close proximity; these suggestive emblems of hated “secret influence” were also marked “45” for the nonce. The pictorial satire evoked on this topic, “The Rape of the Petticoat” (March 28, 1768), exhibits the lord mayor making a sally from the Mansion House, supported by constables armed with long staves; the chief magistrate has himself seized the obnoxious boot and petticoat, amid the ridicule and laughing resistance of the rabble, who are treating his lordship to indignities. Below the design is inscribed, “He valiantly seiz’d the Petticoat and Boot at the portal of his own Mansion.--_Daily Advertiser._”
This loyal zeal was rewarded with signal favour. Harley was made a councillor of State, and subsequently, through Lord Suffolk, obtained a lucrative contract. To the impression of this print in the _Oxford Magazine_ the following verses were added:--
“Sing thou, my muse, the dire contested fray, Where Harley dar’d the dangers of the day; Propitious Day, that could at once create A Merchant Tailor[51] Councillor of State! A numerous multitude contriv’d to meet; And Halloo _Forty-Five_ thro’ every street; And (what’s incredible) were heard to cry Those words seditious, _Wilkes and Liberty_! On lofty standards in the air did float Those hieroglyphics ‘_Boot_ and _Petticoat_.’ Soon as their dreadful shouts accost the ear Of grocer knights, and traders in small-beer, Confounded and amaz’d the Guildhall court Forget their custard, and forsake their port; Away, with ghastly looks, lo, Harley ran, And thus, in doleful plight, their dismal tale began: ‘Most honour’d, most belov’d, thou best of men!’
* * * * *
Then from his mansion rush’d the val’rous chief, To serve his country, or to--take a thief: But more resolv’d to crush Rebellion’s root, And triumph o’er the Petticoat and Boot; In equal balance hung the fierce dispute Between the warlike Magistrate and Boot. The Boot and Petticoat at length gave way, And now remain the trophies of the day.”
On the 20th of April, Wilkes appeared before the Court of King’s Bench, Westminster, of which event an engraving was published. On his surrendering to his outlawry, the Attorney-General moved for Wilkes’s commitment, but the judges refused to grant an order to that effect, on the ground that he was not legally before the court; Wilkes then left, accompanied by the plaudits of the spectators. “The Scot’s Triumph; or, a Peep behind the Curtain” gives a further illustration of this subject; this print, and another following, are announced in the _Public Advertiser_:--
“To Connoisseurs.--This day is published a satirical scratch in the style of Rembrandt, entitled The Scotch Triumph; with the representation of their amazing exploits in St. George’s Fields; the murder of the innocent, and the sacrifice of Liberty, by Molock; with some curious anecdotes.”
In the first version, Wilkes and his friends are driving to surrender in state; their coach is about to crush a Scotch thistle by the way; the mob have taken the horses from the vehicle and are dragging it themselves on the road to the Bench; Wilkes is thus addressing his vociferous supporters--“Gentlemen and Friends, let me beg you to desist; I’m willing to submit to the laws of my country.”
All the leading political personages are introduced as spectators. Lord Holland, an alleged adviser of Lord Bute, is observing, “We have got him safe in a trap at last.” “Jemmy Twitcher” (Lord Sandwich) is responding, “Yes, but I much doubt whether we shall be able to keep him there.” On the 27th of April, Wilkes again came up for judgment, and was then committed to the King’s Bench Prison. On his way thither, in the custody of two tipstaffs of Lord Mansfield, the coach was stopped by the people, a further popular demonstration was made, the horses were removed, and the vehicle drawn through the city by an enthusiastic crowd, the marshal’s deputies being invited to get out. He finally was escorted to a public-house, the Three Tuns Tavern, in Spitalfields (or Cornhill, according to Walpole’s account); from thence, after the departure of his demonstrative admirers, Wilkes judged it prudent to make his escape, and surrender himself again, this time at the prison gates and to the marshal of the King’s Bench. When the news of his incarceration reached the mob there was a fresh uproar; the day following, the prison was surrounded, the palings enclosing the footpath were torn up and made into a bonfire, and the inhabitants of Southwark found themselves under the necessity, either of illuminating their houses, or of taking the consequences; the mob dispersed on the arrival of a small guard.
Meanwhile Sergeant Glynn was arguing before all the judges of the Court of King’s Bench respecting the errors of Wilkes’s outlawry; while, from his place of confinement, Wilkes next proceeded to address his sympathizing constituents:--
“TO THE GENTLEMEN, CLERGY, AND FREEHOLDERS OF THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX.
“GENTLEMEN,
“In support of the liberties of this country against the arbitrary rule of ministers, I was before committed to the Tower, and am now sentenced to this prison. Steadiness, with, I hope, strength of mind, do not however leave me; for the same consolation follows me here, the consciousness of innocence, of having done my duty, and exerted all my abilities, not unsuccessfully, for this nation. I can submit even to far greater sufferings with cheerfulness, because I see that my countrymen reap the happy fruits of my labours and persecutions, by the repeated decisions of our Sovereign courts of justice in favour of liberty. I therefore bear up with fortitude, and even glory, that I am called to suffer in this cause, because I continue to find the noblest reward, the applause of my native country, of this great, free, and spirited people.
“I chiefly regret, gentlemen, that this confinement deprives me of the honour of thanking you in person, according to my promise; and at present takes from me, in a great degree, the power of being useful to you. The will, however, to do every service to my constituents remains in its full force; and when my sufferings have a period, the first day I regain my liberty shall restore a life of zeal in the cause and interests of the county of Middlesex.
“In this prison, in any other, in every place, my ruling passion will be the love of England and our free constitution. For those objects I will make every sacrifice. Under all the oppressions which ministerial rage and revenge can invent, my steady purpose is to concert with you, and other true friends of the country, the most probable means of rooting out the remains of arbitrary power and Star-chamber inquisition, and of improving as well as securing the generous plans of freedom, which were the boast of our ancestors, and I trust will remain the noblest inheritance of our posterity, the only genuine characteristic of Englishmen.
“JOHN WILKES.
“_King’s Bench Prison, May 5th, 1768._”
By this letter it will be seen that Wilkes chiefly appealed to what is best described as clap-trap sensationalism; he continued, however, to be the cause of constant apprehension, the military and other authorities taking every precaution to preserve the peace of the metropolis.
While Wilkes was kept a prisoner in the King’s Bench, the authorities made demonstrations of resorting to armed force for the ostensible purpose of preserving the peace of the metropolis, and, taught precaution by the famous “45” demonstration which followed Wilkes’s election for Middlesex, to check further rioting with firmness, which unfortunately degenerated into ferocity.
Parliament met on the 10th of May, Lord Camden being now lord chancellor. It seems the misconception had arisen that Wilkes’s outlawry would be reversed, and that in any case he would be suffered to attend the assembling of parliament. With the design of conveying him thither in triumph, a great body of people were gathered at the King’s Bench. Finding their expectations disappointed of seeing the idol of the hour set at large and reinstated as “the tribune of the people,” they demanded him at the prison, and grew very tumultuous; whereupon the Riot Act was read by two justices of Surrey, but the mob threw stones and brickbats while it was reading, when one of the spectators, seeing other persons run, ran too, but was unhappily singled out by a picket of the Scotch Guards, who broke their ranks--a breach of military discipline--and followed him about five hundred yards into a cowhouse, and there shot him dead. “Soon after this, the crowd increasing, an additional number of the Guards was sent for, who marched thither, and also a party of horse grenadiers (two regiments had, it appears, been under arms in St. George’s Fields throughout the disturbances), when, the riot continuing, the mob were fired on by the soldiers, and five or six were killed on the spot, and about fifteen wounded, among them being two women, one of whom subsequently died of her wounds. She was, it appears, trying to move her oranges out of danger. Another account says (_Gentleman’s Magazine_) several of the people killed were passing along the road at a distance; and, later on, it is said not one of the persons actually concerned in the rioting were hurt by the firing. Several versions of the fatal affair appeared immediately. The case of the inoffensive youth who was thus barbarously slaughtered excited general sympathy; his name was William Allen, and his father was master of the Horseshoe Inn and Livery Stables, Blackman Street, Southwark. On the Scotch faction was heaped all the opprobrium of this regretable transaction.”
Among others, appeared the illustration of “The Scotch Victory,” 1768; on the wall of the outhouse, to which the lad had fled for shelter when pursued, is “’45,” an allusion to the cruelties of the Highland raid in 1745, as well as to the “XLV. North Briton.” Alexander Murray, the officer, Donald Maclury, a corporal, and MacLaughlin, a grenadier, are shown in the act of assassinating Allen. A halter which lies near the feet of the soldiers and a sketch of a gallows and a man hanging indicate the public sentiments on the matter. The letterpress is to this effect:--
“The monumental inscription on a tombstone erected over the grave of Mr. William Allen, junior, in the churchyard of St. Mary Newington, Surrey. ‘Sacred to the memory of William Allen, an Englishman of unspotted life and amiable disposition, who was inhumanly _murdered_ near St. George’s Fields, the 10th day of May, 1768, by Scottish detachments from the army.’
“’Twas Grafton plann’d the horrors of that day; ’Twas Weymouth urg’d th’ enforcing his commands; ’Twas Barrington that gave th’ exciting pay, The price of blood flow’d through his guilty hands.”
The Duke of Grafton was first lord of the treasury. Viscount Weymouth, afterwards Marquis of Bath, was one of the secretaries of state; he had urged the advisability of calling out military aid to strengthen the civil authority. Viscount Barrington was secretary at war. He had thought proper to convey to the field-officer in command of the Foot Guards the royal approval of the men’s behaviour.
He begged “that they may be assured that every possible regard shall be shown to them in return for their zeal and good conduct on this occasion,” “and in case any disagreeable circumstance should happen in the execution of their duty, they shall have every defence and protection that the law authorities, and this Office (the War) can give.”
Justice Gillam, who was the first to give the order to the third regiment of Guards to fire on the people, was tried for the murder of Redburn, a weaver; the judges acquitted him of all responsibility, and complimented him on the humane manner in which he had exercised his authority. Sergeant Glynn, Wilkes’s friend and adviser, was for the prosecution. In the course of the evidence it appeared that there had been assembled in St. George’s Fields a disorderly concourse, where, after shouting “_Wilkes and Liberty_,” they made an attack on the King’s Bench Prison, threw stones into the marshal’s house, and at length burst open the outward gate of the prison, to the terror of the keepers, who not only feared for the security of their prisoners, but imagined their own lives were endangered; notwithstanding their apprehensions, the keepers guarded the inner gates from the mob, so that the rioters dispersed without effecting their purpose.
The marshal, anticipating another attack the day following, applied to the magistrates for assistance, as shown in the foregoing. On the 10th of May, a larger mob assembled, repeating the cry of “Wilkes and Liberty;” whereupon the magistrates began to expostulate with them. The Riot Act was then read, and its intentions endeavoured to be explained. The rabble hissed and hooted the soldiers, who endeavoured to scatter them. At last, a stone struck Justice Gillam, and he ordered the firing, though, as far as could be proved, there existed no absolute necessity for this extreme measure. Gillam, who was exhibited to ridicule as “Midas, the Surrey justice,” appears to have been most unpopular, if not altogether unfit for the responsible position in which he was placed; “the note sent to a bookseller by a magistrate” is attributed to this hero: “Sir, Send me the ax Re Latin to a Gustus of Pease.” On his trial, James Derbyshire, a bookseller, deposed that Mr. Gillam said publicly in the hearing of the soldiers, “_that his orders from the ministry were, that some men must be killed, and that it were better to kill five and twenty to-day than one hundred to-morrow_.” According to the Rev. John Horne (afterwards Tooke, and known to fame as the “Brentford Parson”), who was present at the riot, it was he who procured the warrant for the arrest of the soldiers. The trial did not take place until the 9th of August. Witnesses appeared against Donald Maclury, who was charged with firing the fatal shot; it was Maclury (or M’Laury) who said “Damn him, that’s him, shoot him.” Mr. Allen’s ostler declared that when Allen fell, after the prisoner had fired, Maclury said, “Damn it, it is a good shot.” On his way to gaol, the day after the murder, it was proved Maclury acknowledged “that what they had done was in consequence of orders, and he hoped they should obtain mercy.” The defence was that MacLaughlin, a grenadier, acknowledged to Mr. Gillam and six soldiers that it was he who shot Allen, and _that his piece went off by accident_. He had since deserted, and, it was openly stated in the papers, received one shilling a day to keep out of the way. The verdict was “not guilty;” and it was admitted that, in order to save the life of the soldier, who was liable for murder, it had “been found necessary to suffer the prosecutors to persist in their mistake in apprehending and impeaching an innocent man, and in the mean time giving the grenadier who actually fired the gun an opportunity to escape.” Both soldiers were charged at the King’s Bench, when, by arrangement, the guilty man was admitted to bail, to be smuggled out of harm’s way; “the other was remanded back to prison as the person who actually shot the lad,” according to the proceedings, May 16, 1768.
Another version of the “Scotch Victory,” with the rebus of the jack-boot standing under a petticoat, and enclosed by Scotch thistles, forms part of a mock dedication: “To the Earl of (Bute), Protector of our Liberties, this plate is humbly inscribed by F. Junius Brutus.”
“The Operation,” a frontispiece to the _Political Register_ for June, 1768, shows Lord Bute stabbing Britannia with a dagger, while the ministers already mentioned in association with the death of Allen are catching the blood which flows from her wounds:--
“The Blood of Vitals from her wounds he drew, And fed the Hounds that help’d him to pursue.”
(DRYDEN.)
The _Oxford Magazine_ for 1769 gives an engraving of the monument finally erected over the grave of Mr. Allen, junior. It represents an altar tomb enclosed by iron rails: on one side is introduced the reprobated Scotch thistle, with the legend, “Murder screen’d and rewarded;” on the other side is shown a Scotch soldier of the third regiment of Foot Guards, evidently intended for the murderous MacLaughlin, approaching and pointing to the inscription on the tomb, exclaiming, “I have obtain’d a pension of a shilling a day, only for putting an end to thy days!”