on these resolutions of the commons was thrown out by the lords, as unneceffary and frivolous. The mercenary Swiss of ftate here prevailed over the patriotic phalanx.

It is not improbable that those resolutions on the illegality of general warrants, &c. which were agreed to by the commons in the latter end of April 1766, encouraged Mr. JOHN WILKES to return from exile, and make his fudden appearance in town on the 12th of May. This gentleman's life and character are fufficiently known to the public; but a fketch of both is here neceffary, in order to justify the rebuff he met with from Mr. BURKE, then acting for the marquis of ROCKINGHAM. During the earl of BUTE'S oftenfible continuance in power, Mr. WILKES, then a member of parliament for Aylesbury, and involved in the greatest diftrefs by vice and diffipation, often applied to the ministry for fome poft that might repair his shattered fortune. But prepoffeffions arifing from his notorious profligacy were so strong against him, that failing of success, he resolved, as he openly declared, to try how far it was practicable to carry the licentiousness of language, under pretext of exercising the liberty of the prefs. Though he had no pretenfion to genius or eloquence, he poffeffed fome degree of expertness in seasoning his writings to fuit the tafte of the populace. "The North Briton" appeared, containing ftrictures on the king's fpeech at the clofe of the feffion in April 1763. It made a far greater noife than fuch common-place remarks and fuch mediocrity of compofition deferved. Even the famous No. 45 was truly what Mr. BURKE called it, "a poor milk-and-water paper," equally void of point and dignity, and remarkable only for, the unmanlinefs and indecency of its attack upon the king. Yet fuch was the extreme foreness and irritability of the minifters, that they called forth the utmost stretch of arbitrary

arbitrary power to punish the author, whofe fole aim was to provoke perfecution. He was apprehended upon a general warrant, figned by lord HALIFAX, one of the fecretaries of state; and was committed to the Tower. In a few days after, being brought before the court of common pleas by an habeas corpus, he was difcharged on the plea of privilege as a member of parliament. But, though this privilege implied an exemption from the ordinary course of law, yet Mr. WILKES fucceeded in making the people regard it as the triumph of the whole English nation over their oppreffors, and confider him as a dauntless champion in the cause of liberty. In this moment of delufion, he did not neglect putting to the proof the fhrewdness of one of his own favorite remarks, which he often made to his bofom friends and bottlecompanions, and by which his conduct was uniformly regulated :

The public is a goofe; and that man must be a d----d fool, who does not know how to pluck a feather." He fet up a printing-prefs at his houfe in Great George Street; advertised the proceedings against him and the original papers for a guinea; and thus by levying contributions on the folly and credulity of his countrymen, took care not only to indemnify himself for his fufferings and expence, but greatly to recruit his exhaufted finances. He also perfuaded the printers of the North Briton and fome other perfons, who had been taken up by general warrants, to feek redress at law; and fuch was the temper of the times, that they all obtained confiderable damages. He took the firft favorable opportunity to avail himself of the fame encouragement; but was obliged to quit the country before he could accomplish his object. There is no doubt but in the number of Mr. WILKES's fupporters there were many real and enlightened patriots, who thought it their duty to refift oppreffion, though directed against the most worthlefs

worthless individual; while others were influenced by perfonal enmity to minifters, and, like JUNIUS, efpoufed the cause of WILKES, because they did not know "where to find a man, who, with purer principles, would go the lengths, and run the hazards, that he did."

The rafhnefs and violence of the minifters at that time tended no less than the artifice of Mr. WILKES to fwell the tide of popular difcontents. It feemed as if the crushing of that one individual conftituted the whole business of government. Towards the clofe of the king's fpeech at the opening of the next feffion, fome hints were thrown out on the neceffity of difcouraging the licentious fpirit of the times; and it foon appeared that these hints were defigned as a prelude to the most rigorous proceedings against WILKES. Even before the king's speech was taken into confideration, a message from his majesty respecting Mr.WILKES'S writings and conduct was laid before the commons, when it was refolved by a majority of two hundred and seventy-three against one hundred and eleven, "That the paper entitled the North Briton, No. 45, is a falfe, fcandalous, and feditious libel, containing expreflions of the most unexampled infolence and contumely towards his majefty, the groffeft afperfions upon both houses of parliament, and the most audacious defiance of the authority of the whole legiflature; and moft manifeftly tending to alienate the affections of the people from his majefty, to withdraw them from. their allegiance to the laws of the realm, and to excite them to traitorous infurrections." In confequence of this refolution, an order was agreed to by the houfe, that the faid paper should be burned by the hands of the common hangman.

A few days after, a motion was carried in the commons, and. concurred in by the lords, "That privilege of parliament does not

extend to the cafe of writing and publishing feditious libels, nor ought to be allowed to obstruct the ordinary course of the laws in the speedy and effectual profecution of fo heinous and dangerous an offence." As this refolution tended to confine within. narrower limits the fuppofed privileges of every member of the legislature, and was alfo diametrically oppofite to the late determination of the court of common pleas, the miniftry were deferted by a few of their ufual fupporters; and the oppofition made a vigorous though ineffectual ftand against it. Mr. PITT exerted himself with extraordinary ardor in the debate: but while he opposed the surrender of privilege, he disclaimed any connexion with the writer of the libel. "No man," he said, " could condemn the paper more than he did; but he would come at the author fairly,---not by an open breach of the constitution, and a contempt of all reftraint. The house had already voted that paper a libel---he joined in that vote. He condemned the whole feries of North Britons: he called them illiberal, unmanly,, and deteftable. He abhorred all national reflections. The king's fubjects were one people. Whoever divided them was guilty of fedition. His majesty's complaint was well founded:---it was just---it was neceffary.. The AUTHOR did NOT deferve to be ranked among the HUMAN SPECIES---he was the BLASPHEMER of his GOD, and the LIBELLER of his KING."

In the first part of this fevere, but juft invective, Mr. PITT alluded to Mr. WILKES'S "Eflay on Woman," a poem full of the most indecent and profane ribaldry, and accompanied with notes, stated in the title-page to have been written by Dr. WARBURTON, bishop of Gloucester. This circumstance brought the book within the cognizance of the house of lords, who proceeded against the author for a breach of privilege, while he was indicted

in the courts below for blafphemy. But Mr. WILKES, who, in the mean time had been expelled the house of commons, made his escape to Paris, and eluded fome of the blows, under the irrefiftible force of which he must have otherwife have fallen. He was foon run to an outlawry for not appearing to the indictments against him; and the suits, which he had carried on against the fecretaries of state with the greatest probability of success, fell of course to the ground.

Mr. WILKES's flight from public juftice, the turpitude of his private life, and the extreme obscenity as well as profaneness of his "Effay on Woman," tended very much to lower him in the opinion even of the mob, and to abate the fervor of his warmest advocates. Few men were fo loft to all sense of decency, as not to be ashamed of coming, as it were, into contact with fuch an infamous character. In this fituation, an exile from his country, distrest in his circumstances, and abandoned by his party, he seemed not only totally ruined, but nearly forgotten. A sudden ray of hope fhot through these glooms, on the promotion of fome of his former friends to office in the marquis of ROCKINGHAM'S adminiftration. Goaded by extreme want, and encouraged by fome intimations of kindness and pity, as well as by the beforementioned refolutions of the house of commons on the illegality of general warrants, and the breach of privilege in cafe of their being executed upon a member of the house, he came to London accompanied by a Mr. MACLEANE, one of Mr. BURKE's intimate friends. The latter The latter gave Mr. WILKES very kind affurances of the minister's difpofition to ferve him; but, at the fame time, would not suffer these voluntary and generous offers to be confidered as a treaty or bargain which was to lay the marquis under any specific obligation. Mr. WILKES, on the other hand, fan