376. Horace Walpole to Sir Horace

Mann (November 17, 1763)

Parliament votes for the condemnation

Briton

hero, simply because he opposed the government vigorously, shows how deep was the chasm which at that time separated the people on the one side from both parliament and king on the other side.

The parliament met on Tuesday. We-for you know I have the honor of being a senator - sat till two in the morning; and had it not been that there is always more oratory, more good sense, more knowledge, and more sound reasoning in the House of Commons than in the rest of the universe put together, the House of Lords only excepted, I should have thought it as tedious, dull, and unentertaining a debate as ever I heard in my days. The business was a complaint made by one King George of a certain paper called The North Briton, No. 45, which the said king asserted was written by a much more famous man called Mr. Wilkes. Well! and so you imagine that Mr. Wilkes and King George went from the House of Commons and fought out their quarrel in Hyde Park? And which do you guess was killed?

Again you are mistaken. Mr. Wilkes, with all the impartiality in the world, and with the phlegm of an Areopagite, of The North Sat and heard the whole matter discussed, and now and then put in a word, as if the affair did not concern him. The House of Commons, who would be wisdom itself if they could but all agree on which side of a question wisdom lies, and who are sometimes forced to divide in order to find out, did divide twice on this affair. The first time, one hundred and eleven, of which I had the misfortune to be one, had more curiosity to hear Mr. Wilkes's story than King George's; but three hundred being of the contrary opinion, it was plain they were in the right, especially as they had no private motives to guide. them. Again, the individual one-hundred-and-eleven could not see that The North Briton tended to foment treasonable insurrections, though we had it argumentatively demonstrated to us for seven hours together; but the moment we heard two hundred and seventy-five gentlemen counted, it grew as plain to us as a pike-staff, for a syllogism carries less conviction than a superior number, though that number does not use the least

force upon earth, but only walks peaceably out of the house

and into it again.

The next day we were to be in the same numerical way con- Expulsion of vinced that we ought to be but one-hundred-and-ten, for that Wilkes from parliament we ought to expel Mr. Wilkes out of the house, and the majority were to prove to us (for we are slow of comprehension, and imbibe instruction very deliberately) that in order to have all London acquainted with the person and features of Mr. Wilkes, it would be necessary to set him on a high place called the pillory, where everybody might see him at leisure. Some were even almost ready to think that, being a very ugly man, he would look better without his ears, and poor Sir William Stanhope, who endeavored all day by the help of a trumpet to listen to these wise debates and found it to no purpose, said, "If they want a pair of ears they may take mine, for I am sure they are of no use to me." The regularity, however, of these systematic proceedings has been a little interrupted. One Mr. Martin, who has much the same quarrel with Mr. Wilkes as King George, and who chose to suspend his resentment like his Majesty, till with proper dignity he could notify his wrath to parliament, did express his indignation with rather less temper than the king had done, calling Mr. Wilkes to his face cowardly scoundrel, which you, who represent monarchs, know, is not royal language.

Wilkes and
Martin

Mr. Wilkes, who, it seems, whatever may have been thought, Duel between had rather die compendiously than piece-meal, inquired of Mr. Martin by letter next morning, if he, Mr. Wilkes, was meant by him, Mr. Martin, under the periphrasis "cowardly scoundrel." Mr. Martin replied in the affirmative, and accompanied his answer with a challenge. They immediately went into Hyde Park; and, at the second fire, Mr. Wilkes received a bullet in his body. Don't be frightened, the wound was not mortal; at least it was not yesterday. Being corporally delirious to-day, as he has been mentally some time, I cannot tell what to say to it. However, the breed will not be lost, if he should die....

Well! but we have had a prodigious riot: are you not impatient to know the particulars? It was so prodigious a tumult

377. Horace Walpole to the earl of Hertford

that I verily thought half the administration would have run away to Harrowgate. The North Briton was ordered to be burned by the hangman at Cheapside, on Saturday last. The (December 9, mob rose; the greatest mob, says Mr. Sheriff Blunt, that he 1763) has known in forty years. They were armed with that most bloody instrument, the mud out of the kennels; they hissed in the most murderous manner; broke Mr. Sheriff Harley's coach-glass in the most frangent manner; scratched his forehead, so that he is forced to wear a little patch in the most becoming manner; and obliged the hangman to burn the paper with a link, though fagots were prepared to execute it in a more solemn manner. Numbers of gentlemen, from windows and balconies, encouraged the mob, who, in about an hour and a half, were so undutiful to the ministry as to retire without doing any mischief, or giving Mr. Carteret Webb the opportunity of a single information, except against an ignorant lad who had been in town but ten days. . . .

378. Horace Walpole to the earl of Hertford

...

Williams, the reprinter of The North Briton, stood in the pillory to-day in Palace Yard. He went in a hackney-coach the number of which was 45. The mob erected a gallows oppo(February 14, site to him, on which they hung a boot with a bonnet of straw. 1765) Then a collection was made for Williams, which amounted to near £200. In short, every public event' informs the administration how thoroughly they are detested, and that they have not a friend whom they do not buy. Who can wonder, when every man of virtue is proscribed, and they have neither parts nor character to impose even upon the mob! Think to what a government is sunk when a secretary of state is called in parliament to his face "the most profligate sad dog in the kingdom," and not a man can open his lips in his defense. Sure power must have some strange unknown charm when it can compensate for such contempt! I see many who triumph in these bitter pills which the ministry are so often forced to swallow; I own I do not; it is more mortifying to me to reflect how great and respectable we were three years ago, than satisfactory to see those insulted who have brought such shame

upon us.

Sir Horace

The day before yesterday the parliament met. There have 379. Horace been constant crowds and mobbing at the prison, but on Tues- Walpole to day they insisted on taking Wilkes out of prison and carrying Mann him to parliament. The tumult increased so fast that the riot (May 12, act was read, the soldiers fired, and a young man was shot. The 1798) mob bore the body about the streets to excite more rage, and at night it went so far that four or five more persons were killed and the uproar quashed, though they fired on the soldiers from the windows of houses. The partisans of Wilkes say the young man was running away, was pursued and killed; and the jury have brought it in wilful murder against the officer and men so they must take their trials; and it makes their case very hard and lays the government under great difficulties. On the other side, the young man is said to have been riotous, and marked as such by the guards. But this is not all. We have independent mobs that have nothing to do with Wilkes, and who only take advantage of so favorable a season. The dearness of provision incites, the hope of increase of wages allures, and drink puts them in motion. The coalheavers began, and it is well it is not a hard frost, for they have stopped all coals coming to town. The sawyers rose too, and at last the sailors, who have committed great outrages in merchant ships and prevented them from sailing. . . .

I wish with all my heart that I may have no more to tell you of riots; not that I ever think them very serious things, but just to the persons on whom the storm bursts. But I pity poor creatures who are deluded to their fate and fall by gin or faction, when they have not a real grievance to complain of but what depends on the elements or causes past remedy. I cannot bear to have the name of liberty profaned to the destruction of the cause; for frantic tumults only lead to that terrible corrective, arbitrary power, — which cowards call out for as protection, and knaves are so ready to grant.

The intense interest taken in the Junius Letters in their own time is hard to realize now. Their importance is to be found in the spirit of opposition they embody. The following is a typical letter, attacking the ministry,

380. One of

the Junius

Letters to

the Public Advertiser (July 30,

1768)

and through them the king, for their dilatory policy in regard to the American colonies.

Sir:

It is not many months since you gave me an opportunity of the printer of demonstrating to the nation, as far as rational inference and probability could extend, that the hopes which some men seem to entertain, or to profess at least, with regard to America, were without a shadow of foundation. They seemed to flatter themselves that the contest with the colonies, like a disagreeable question in the House of Commons, might be put off to a long day, and provided they could get rid of it for the present, they thought it beneath them to consult either their own reputation, or the true interests of their country. But whatever were their views or expectations, whether it was the mere enmity of party, or the real persuasion that they had but a little time to live in office, every circumstance which I then foretold is confirmed by experience.

The struggle to retain the American colonies

The conduct of the king's servants in relation to America, since the alteration in 1765, never had a reasonable argument to defend it, and the chapter of accidents which they implicitly relied on has not produced a single casualty in their favor. At a crisis like this, sir, I shall not be very solicitous about those idle forms of respect, which men in office think due to their characters and station; neither will I descend to a language beneath the importance of the subject I write on. When the fate of Great Britain is thrown upon the hazard of a die, by a weak, distracted, worthless ministry, an honest man will always express all the indignation he feels. This is not a moment for preserving forms, and the ministry must know that the language of reproach and contempt is now the universal language of the nation.

We find ourselves at last reduced to the dreadful alternative of either making war upon our colonies, or of suffering them to erect themselves into independent states. It is not that I hesitate now upon the choice we are to make. Everything must be hazarded. But what infamy, what punishment do those men deserve whose folly or whose treachery hath