The obstinacy shown in Boston, with the accounts they disseminated all over the colonies, wonderfully encouraged others in the same temper. The same resistance to the demands of the governor and officials manifested itself, and governors and assemblies assumed a menacing attitude to number of poor families; they again declined, and Barnard himself endeavoured to clear out the families, but, encouraged by the townsmen, they stood firm, and refused to evacuate the house. Meantime, the troops were landing, and marched into the town with drums beating and flags flying. One of the regiments was permitted to take up its tempo-wards each other; and, unfortunately, the system by which rary quarters in Faneuil Hall; the other was compelled to encamp on the neighbouring common. Thence they removed to the town, or state house, which the governor ordered to be vacated for them, all but the council chamber, and there the soldiers made good their entrance. This was opposite to the principal meeting house; and the strict presbyterian frequenters of it were scandalised to see cannon governors and other officials had been supplied, which still is too much in practice, was ill calculated to stand the test of a crisis like this. Instead of men chosen for their abilities and respectability, they had been sent out because they were the relatives or dependents of great families. The idea was to find places for men who would not be tolerated at home-not suitable governors and magistrates for the colonies. General Huske planted in front of it, and to hear the sound of drum and had, in 1758, spoken pretty plainly on this subject:-" As fife whilst at their worship. General Gage, commander-in-chief for the colonies, came himself to Boston, to enforce the finding of proper quarters for the troops, but the council and magistrates still refused, neither would they find any provisions according to the Mutiny Act; and Gage was obliged to hire houses and make the necessary supplies at the government cost. Nothing could be worse than the spirit existing between the Bostoniaus and the soldiers. They regarded the soldiers as the tools of despotism, and the soldiers had been taught to look on them as a smuggling, canting, and rebel population. to the civil officers appointed for America, most of the places in the gift of the crown have been filled with broken meinbers of parliament, of bad, if any, principles, valets-dechambre, electioneering scoundrels, and even livery servants. In one word, America has been for many years made the hospital of England." Is it any wonder that the high-spirited colonies should yearn to be rid of this incubus? Such, then, was the state of affairs at the meeting of parliament in November, 1768. These events in America claimed immediate attention. The petition of the conven tion of Massachusetts, on its arrival, was rejected indignantly. The opposition called for the production of the correspondence with the civil and military authorities there on the subject, but this demand was negatived. In January, 1769, the house of lords took up the subject in a lofty tone. They complained of the seditious and treasonable proceedings of the people of Boston and of Massachusetts generally; and the duke of Bedford, affirming that it was clear that no such acts could be punished by the magistrates or tribunals of the colony, moved an address to the king recommending that the criminals guilty of the late outrages should be brought to this country and tried here, according to an act of the 35th of Henry VIII. It was certainly a strange proceeding for a descendant of the whigs of 1688 to rake up an act of one of the greatest tyrants of our history, in order to punish men contending for the very same thing as was contended for in 1688-the maintenance of the liberty of the subject against unconstitutional proceedings on the part of the crown; yet this monstrous resolution was carried triumphantly through the lords. On the 26th of January it was introduced to the commons. There it excited a very spirited opposition from colonel Barré, alderman Beckford, Messrs. Burke, Dowdeswell, Pennant, the member for Liverpool, governor Johnstone, governor Pownall, and Cornwall. George Grenville, forgetting his indignation at their resistance to his stamp act, expressed his astonishment at the lords naming this act of Henry VIII., which was entitled "an act concerning the trials of treasons committed out of his majesty's dominions," and therefore implying that the Americans were out of his majesty's dominions. Dowdeswell declared that this was a direct attack on the rights of juries; that they could not bring an American to be tried here, where he would be cut off from his native place, his friends, and witnesses. They could not send backward and forward three thousand miles for witnesses, and, without that, a man could not have a fair trial. It was a monstrous proposition. The lords had no brother peers in America; they might overlook the interests of the inhabitants of that country; but that it did not become the commons to put men on trial in a manner which could neither be justified at the bar of justice or of reason. Pownall, who had himself been governor of Massachusetts, and knew the Americans well, accused the lords of gross ignorance of the charters, usages, and character of the Americans; and governor Johnstone as strongly condemned the motion, which was carried by one hundred and fiftyfive to eighty-nine. On the 8th of February Mr. Rose Fuller moved to have the address recommitted, and that brought on a fresh debate on this important subject. He warned the house of the danger there was of our quarrel with our American subjects encouraging the French to renew the war in Europe, and what serious difficulties we might involve ourselves in, if our forces and resources were engaged in contending with America. He believed that France would not have dared to seize Corsica had it not been for these unhappy quarrels; and now a general European war would, in all probability, arise. Alderman Trecothick denounced the attempt to tax the Americans as one never likely to succeed, and as destructive to the commerce of this country. It was not only taxing the Americans, but the merchants of England. He severely censured the conduct of the new commissioners, who had dismissed the old revenue officers of the crown-good men, approved of both there and here. He thought we had done mischief enough, and had now a better opportunity of relaxing our measures than we might have again. Alderman Beckford characterised the whole proceeding as having all the aspect of a plan for ruling by military force; declared that they had no right to tax the colonies, and that the attempt was as unprofitable as it was foolish; the whole endeavour had not produced a single shilling-the money was all eaten up by the number of officers employed to collect it. Dunning, the new solicitor-general, who began as a patron of Wilkes, and professed himself a zealous whig, defended the measure as necessary; that it was applicable to Ireland, and therefore to America. Chatham was so struck with the reasoning and abilities of Dunning some time before, that he said "he was not a lawyer, but the law itself." In this case, his office, which led him on to the title of lord Ashburton, blinded him to the greatest of our constitutional principles. Hannah More represented “his manners as insufferable, coughing and spitting at every word; but his sense and expression finished to the last degree." In this case, he spit in the face of the Americans to the last degree, and was followed by Mr. Vansittart and Mr. Dyson on the same side. But the bulk of the speakers energetically condemned this flagrant violation of the right of jury. Sir William Meredith, quoting lord Bacon, that "to ramble back into antiquity was the same as to innovate," observed, what a monstrous idea it must give the Americans of the English parliament to see it raking up the acts of the most arbitrary times in order to punish her; and sir William Pownall quoted the charter of Massachusetts, and observed that it expressly prohibited the bringing over any man for treasonable acts out of the colony, to try him. He reminded them that these very people quitted this country to avoid tyrannical government, and he was certain that they would now rise to a man rather than submit to any kind of taxation which their own assemblies had not sanctioned. If they would not believe it, at least ministers were now warned. Notwithstanding, Mr. Rose Fuller's motion to re-commit the address was negatived by one hundred and sixty-nine to sixty-five votes. On the 14th of March a petition from New York, denying their right to tax America in any way, was rejected, on the motion of lord North; and, still later in the session, governor Pownall moved that the revenue acts affecting America should be repealed forthwith. By this time everybody seemed to have become convinced of the folly of the attempt; but ministers had not the magnanimity to act at once on the certainty that stared them in the face. Parliament was prorogued on the 9th of May, and did not meet again till the following January, as if there were nothing of moment demanding its attention. But during this interval the great events of the time were steadily rolling on, whilst the parliamentary power of England slept. Before tracing these events, we must, however, bring up the other leading topics of the session. The A.D. 1769.] PROCEEDINGS IN THE CASE OF WILKES. 69 greatest of these, next to that of America, was the case of decided that he was guilty of an insolent and seditious libel, Wilkes. and on the following day, February 3rd, on the motion of With the same want of sagacity which was driving lord Barrington, expelled him the house, by a majority of ministers and parliament to the loss of America, they were two hundred and nineteen to one hundred and thirty-seven. still persecuting Wilkes into popularity. On the 14th of The king had directly asked for such a verdict by a letter to November, 1768, Sir Joseph Mawby, member for South-lord North, declaring that Wilkes's expulsion was highly wark, presented a petition from Wilkes, reciting all the expedient and must be effected." proceedings of government against him, and praying for his being heard at the bar of the house. The 2nd of December was fixed for this hearing; but, owing to inquiries into the massacre of St. George's Fields, it was postponed, and he still continued in the King's Bench prison unheard, when Mr. Martin, on the 23rd of January, 1769, moved that though he had been convicted of a seditious libel, he was still entitled to the privilege of parliament. Lord North, now chancellor of the exchequer, moved an amendment, in which he styled the libel not only seditious, but impious and blasphemous, and proposed only his discharge from prison. This was carried by a large majority. On the 27th of January, when the subject was again pressed, lord North moved that the petitioner's counsel should confine himself to two points. These two points were, that lord Mansfield had altered the record of his indictment the day before the trial in Westminster, which alteration amounted only to substituting the word "tenor" for "import," a mere technical variation; and the other that Wilkes's "Essay on Woman" had been surreptitiously obtained, by bribing the printer, Curry, to take it from his house, when it had never been published. All other points, lord North contended, were open in a court of law, and that Wilkes was now availing himself of them, and was prosecuting lord Halifax, the secretary of state, on such grounds, laying his damages at twenty thousand pounds. The motion of North was carried, though opposed strenuously by the opposition. But the decision was not accomplished without a most determined opposition. The debate lasted till two o'clock of the morning, and called forth all the eloquence of Burke, Beckford, Barré, and others. George Grenville, who commenced the prosecution of Wilkes, as well as the proceedings against America, was partly in favour of both. But his speech, so far from pleasing Wilkes, occasioned him to write a fierce letter to him on some parts of it, which so offended Grenville, that he never again spoke to Wilkes during his life. Burke declared the whole debate a tragi-comedy for the benefit of Wilkes, at the expense of the constitution. The fact that the government was blindly running their heads against the constitution, whilst aiming only at Wilkes, was so palpable, that Dunning, though solicitorgeneral, kept away, and Conway would not vote. Out of the house, Horace Walpole said, that, to render Wilkes insignificant, was not to keep him out of the house, but to let him in. Wilkes himself, who saw what the result of such proceedings must be, rejoiced in them. The expression of captain Phipps, that the house of commons was wasting the whole session in examining "horse-waterers and newspaper-jackals " was far from expressing the whole mischief. The government were actually stabbing the very vitals of the constitution, and adding, every day, power to the man they sought to put down. Even whilst these debates were proceeding, Wilkes was chosen an alderman of Farringdon ward, and thus became a magistrate of London, whilst declared unfit to sit in parliament, and kept prisoner by government as a criminal! Wilkes appeared on the 31st at the bar of the house, where he took exception to the word "blasphemous" as applied The direct consequence was that he was immediately to the "Essay on Woman." Thurlow, afterwards lord chan-nominated again by the freeholders of Middlesex. Mr. cellor, a most swearing, blaspheming man, protested that, if Dingley, a mercantile speculator of London, offered himself the house did not declare it blasphemous, it would be a as the government candidate, but withdrew in a fright, and disgrace to it. However, the words " impious " and Wilkes was returned, without opposition, on the 16th of "obscene" were substituted. On the 1st of February the February, only thirteen days after his expulsion. The next house determined that Wilkes had not made good the two day lord Strange moved in the commons, that John Wilkes, points, and therefore his petition was frivolous. The next after having been expelled, was incapable of serving again day the house went into another charge against Wilkes. In in the present parliament, and the case of Sir Robert the preceding April lord Weymouth, previous to the riots Walpole was quoted in justification. The opposition once in St. George's Fields, had issued a letter, as secretary of more resisted with the usual arguments, but Dowdeswell hit state, to the magistrates of Lambeth, warning them of the the weakest point of the expulsion most happily. He asked, danger of these riots taking place in the endeavour to free if they expelled Wilkes on the grounds of morality, where Wilkes from prison, and offering them the aid of the were they to stop? "You have turned out one worst man military. Wilkes, while in the King's Bench, had obtained in the house; well, is there not, then, another worst man left? a copy of this letter, and sent it to the "St. James's And, if you turn him out too, there is another worst man Chronicle," with his own comments, styling it a "hellish yet left; where will you stop? Whose seat will be secure? project," and as the direct cause of that "horrid massacre." You turn out one man of impiety and obscenity: when halfWeymouth complained to the house of lords that this was a a-dozen members meet over their bottle, is their discourse breach of privilege. A conference was had with the entirely free from obscenity? Even in the cabinet--that commons; Wilkes was brought to the bar, where Baldwin, pious, reforming society! - why, were Mr. Wilkes to be the printer, had acknowledged the letter to be his, and then, adjudged there, and the innocent man to throw the first so far from denying it, claimed the thanks of the country stone, they would slink out, one by one, and leave the for having exposed that "bloody scroll." The commons culprit uncondemned!" This sally not only hit hard many members of the commons, but of the lords too; especially Sandwich and the duke of Grafton, who paraded the notorious Nancy Parsons at the head of his table, and, though first lord of the treasury to the pious king George, was frequently seen handing her from the opera house in presence of the queen. A ministry with such unclean hands, thus straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel, was damaging public morals far more than Wilkes could have done. Wilkes was a second time declared incapable of sitting, the election was declared void, and the public indignation rose higher than ever. The freeholders of Middlesex instantly met at the London Tavern, and subscribed on the spot two thousand pounds towards defraying the expenses of Wilkes's election. They then formed themselves into a "Society for Supporting the Bill of Rights," and a third time proposed Wilkes as their candidate. The Dingley party, on the other hand, met at the King's Arm Tavern, in Cornhill, to propose a loyal address to his majesty, but were ousted by the Wilkesites. Eventually, however, they managed to get up their address, and on the 22nd of March went in procession to present it. But the mob surrounded them, shouting "Wilkes and liberty!" and accompanied them by a hearse, with rude paintings upon it of the death of young Allen by the soldiers, and that of Clarke, a man killed by the chairmen of Sir William Beauchamp Procter, in the election contest with Wilkes's friend, serjeant Glynn. On reaching St. James's Palace, lord Talbot rushed out and seized two of the mob, and the soldiers seized fifteen more. The address was carried in amid groans and hisses. Wilkes was immediately returned for Middlesex, Dingley not finding any one who dared to nominate him. The next day, the 17th of March, the commons again voted the election void. In this exasperated state of the public feeling, the chairmen of Sir William Procter, Balfe and Macquirk, were brought to trial, and a verdict of wilful murder returned against them. The government referred the point to the College of Surgeons, who declared that the blow received by Clarke was not necessarily the cause of his death; and government granted the condemned men a free pardon. This open contempt of the law in the case of murderers-so that they were murdering in support of the government did not merely shock the populace, it roused the indignation of the most clear-sighted of the community. With the commencement of this year, 1769, there commenced the most remarkable series of political letters, under the signature of "Junius," which ever appeared in our political literature. Time has not yet disclosed who this public censor was, though the most weighty reasons attach the belief to its having been Sir Philip Francis. Whoever he was, his terrible dissections of the conduct and characters of public men-the duke of Grafton, the duke of Bedford, lord Mansfield, and others, not excepting the king himself caused the most awful consternation amongst the ranks of the ministry, and raised the highest enthusiasm in the public by the keen and caustic edge of his satire and his censure, by the clear tone of his reasonings, his obvious knowledge of secret government movements, and the brilliant lustre of his style. In a letter to the duke of Grafton, dated March 18th, on this acquittal of the mur derers, he showed that the surgeon who gave evidence on the trial, that Clarke did die of the wound, was on his oath, while the two applied to afterwards by government were not on their oaths; and he asked the duke of Grafton, “When this unhappy man, Macquirk, had been solemnly tried, convicted, and condemned, when it appeared that he had been frequently employed in the same services, and no excuse for him could be drawn, either from the innocence of his former life or the simplicity of his character, it was not hazarding too much to interpose the strength of the prerogative between this felon and the justice of his country?" Whether he could not be satisfied "without committing the honour of his sovereign, or hazarding the reputation of his government?" At the same unfortunate juncture, the king insisted on lord North demanding from parliament half a million for the liquidation of his debts, though he possessed a civil list of eight hundred thousand a-year. Simple as were the habits of George and his queen, the most reckless disregard of economy was practised in his household. There were no means taken to check the rapacity of his tradesmen, and it was shown that even for the one item of the royal coach, in 1762, there had been charged seven thousand five hundred and sixty-two pounds! The commons voted the half million, the public grumbled, and the popularity of Wilkes, the great champion of reform, rose higher than ever. A fourth time the freeholders of Middlesex nominated him as their candidate; and on this occasion a fresh government nominee presented himself. This was colonel Henry Lawes Luttrell, the cldest son of lord Irnham, lately created an Irish peer, and afterwards made viscount and earl of Carhampton. Luttrell was already member for Bossiney, but resigned and run this risk at the request of government. These Luttrells, father and son, had a most odious name in Ireland, and Junius, in his sixty-seventh letter, one addressed to Grafton, has branded this opponent of Wilkes, this government protegé, to all posterity for his crimes. Two other candidates, encouraged by Luttrell's appearance, came forward; and on the 13th of April the list of the poll, which had gone off quietly, showed Wilkes, one thousand one hundred and forty-three; Luttrell, two hundred and ninety-six; Whitaker, five; and Roach, none. On the 15th of April, notwithstanding Luttrell's signal defeat, the house of commons, on the motion of Onslow, son of the late speaker, voted, after a violent debate by a majority of fifty-four, that "Henry Lawes Luttrell, Esq., ought to have been returned for Middlesex." The debate was very obstinate. The whole of the Grenville interest, including lord Temple, was employed against government, and the decision was not made till three o'clock on Sunday morning. Doctor, afterwards judge Blackstone, the author of the celebrated "Commentaries on the Laws of England," at this time solicitor-general, supported the government in destroying the very rights he had maintained in his book! Grenville retorted this upon him, but Junius humbled him more severely. He said, in his fourteenth letter, “We have now the good fortune to understand the doctor's principles as well as writings. For the defence of truth, of law, and reason, the doctor's book may be safely consulted; but who |