Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third (Vol. 1-4). Horace Walpole
confusion, I will here say a little more on this head. The plot so hopefully laid to blow up Wilkes, and ruin him in the estimation of all the decent and grave, had, at least in the latter respect, scarce any effect at all. The treachery was so gross and scandalous, so revengeful, and so totally unconnected with the political conduct of Wilkes, and the instruments so despicable, odious, or in whom any pretensions to decency, sanctimony, or faith, were so preposterous, that losing all sight of the scandal contained in the poem, the whole world almost united in crying out against the informers. Sandwich, in opening the discovery, had canted till his own friends could not keep their countenances. Sir Francis Dashwood was not more notorious for singing profane and lewd catches; and what aggravated the hypocrisy, scarce a fortnight had passed since this holy Secretary of State himself had been present with Wilkes at a weekly club to which both belonged, held at the top of Covent Garden Theatre, and composed of players and the loosest revellers of the age. Warburton’s part was only ridiculous, and was heightened by its being known that Potter, his wife’s gallant, had had the chief hand in the composition of the verses. However, an intimacy commenced between the Bishop and Sandwich, and some jovial dinners and libations of champagne cemented their friendship. Kidgell, the jackall, published so precise, affected, and hypocritic an account of the transaction, that he, who might have escaped in the gloom of the treachery, completely blasted his own reputation; and falling into debt, was, according to the fate of inferior tools, abandoned by his masters, and forced to fly his country. Though the rank and fortune of Sandwich saved him from disgrace of that kind, he had little reason to exult in his machination. He brought a stigma on himself that counterworked many of his own views and arts; and Churchill the poet has branded his name on this account with lasting colours. The public indignation went so far, that the Beggar’s Opera being performed at Covent Garden Theatre soon after this event, the whole audience, when Macheath says, “That Jemmy Twitcher should peach me, I own surprises me,” burst out into an applause of application; and the nick-name of Jemmy Twitcher stuck by the Earl so as almost to occasion the disuse of his title.
While the destruction of the character and fortune of Wilkes was thus prosecuted in one chamber of Parliament, a plot against his life was hatching in the other; his enemies not being satisfied with all the severities they could wring from the law to oppress him. Nor were several servants of the Crown sorry to make his outrages a handle for curtailing liberty itself. The House was no sooner met, than Wilkes rose to make his complaint of the breach of privilege in the seizure of himself and his papers. The Speaker interrupted him, and said the session was not yet open, the silly form of reading a bill not having been gone through. Grenville, too, urged that there was a message from the Crown that ought to be received before any other business. Beckford and Onslow pleaded that privilege ought to take place of every other consideration. A long and warm debate ensued. Mr. Pitt strenuously supported the precedence of privilege, though affecting to offer to take privilege and message together. Elliot moved to have a bill read. Pitt replied admirably, and said, if they were not yet a House, no member could have been sworn; nor was it necessary to have some nonsense read to which nobody would attend. Suppose it should have been forgotten, and the House had entered on some arduous business, some fool of form might have started up and told them,—“Lord bless us! it is all a nullity that we have been doing!” Privilege waived would really nullify the proceedings. The House would be a company of men put under force. The man who would waive privilege ought to have a question moved on him. Lord North, Nugent, and Dyson argued against privilege, and warm words passed between Pitt on one side, Grenville and Norton on the other. Yorke said, that if they did not begin regularly with a bill, Westminster Hall would not know how to date the commencement of the session, unless the two Houses started together. Pitt replied, that if the House should sit till three in the morning, it would still be deemed the 15th of November. The House divided at six in the evening, and it was carried, by 300 to 111, that a bill should first be read. Grenville then delivered the message from the Crown, acquainting the House with the imprisonment that had been made of one of their members; for which message Lord North moved the thanks of the House; together with an assurance that they would forthwith go into the consideration of the offence. Wilkes then made his complaint. Mr. Pitt approved of Lord North’s motion of thanks, but spoke against precipitation. Wilkes’s case, he said, was not to be paralleled. He desired to be tried by his peers,—and if he did not, said Pitt, I would force him. The North Briton No. 45 was then read; and two printers being examined, one said he had received it from Wilkes in his own hand-writing; the other, that Wilkes and Churchill were the authors of that periodic paper in general. Lord North, who had undertaken the conduct of the parliamentary prosecution against Wilkes, held forth on the sedition of those papers, and of No. 45 in particular. Wilkes replied, his Lordship, however, had not proved that it contained any falsehoods. Mr. Pitt said it was a scandalous, licentious paper, and false; but always distinguishing between the criminal and the illegal proceedings of the Ministers. The House, he said, was not a proper place for trying a libel; nor did this tend to excite traitorous insurrections. Was the motion calculated, by inserting the word traitorous, to justify what the Ministers had done? He himself could never learn exactly what was a libel. Whoever was the patron of these doctrines, fœnum habet in cornu. Norton said he did think the paper tended to excite insurrections. Scandalous reflections on private men or magistrates were a libel. Opposing law was treason. Pitt replied, a libel could not be treason. It might, said North, tend to excite treason. Pitt moved to omit the epithet traitorous, but the Ministry upholding it, the House divided at eleven at night, and the ministerial phrase was carried by 273 against 111; Sir Alexander Gilmour and Murray, two Scots, and the only two of that nation in opposition, voting with the rest of their countrymen on that occasion. Lord North then moved to have the paper burned by the hangman, which was ordered. Lord North affirmed next, that privilege did not extend to libels, nor to stay justice; which Pitt said was the boldest assertion and attempt ever made without consulting precedents or appointing a committee. He lamented the King was so ill served as to run aground on the liberties of Parliament. He would die, he said, if a day were not appointed for hearing Wilkes. Norton took this up hotly, and said he was called upon by insult and abuse. Pitt replied, that he had said the King had been ill served by lawyers and others; and he proposed to take the case of privilege into consideration the next day, and on the following day to hear the complaint of Wilkes; which was agreed to at one in the morning.
The next day when I went down to the House, I found all the members standing on the floor in great hubbub, questioning, hearing, and eagerly discussing I knew not what. I soon learned that Wilkes about two hours before had been dangerously wounded by Martin in a duel. In the foregoing spring, Wilkes, in one of his North Britons, had pointed out Martin by name as a low fellow, and dirty tool of power. Martin had stomached, not digested this; but in the debate on No. 45 the day before, he had risen and called the author of that paper on himself a cowardly, scandalous, and malignant scoundrel, and had repeated the words twice, trembling with rage. Wilkes took no notice; and as he did not, the House did not interfere, as is usual, when personalities happen, and seem to threaten a duel. The next morning Wilkes wrote to Martin, to ask if the words used the day before were meant to be addressed to him as the supposed author of the paper in which Martin had been abused. If Martin had thus intended to point the words, Wilkes owned he had written that paper. Martin replied, he had meant him, Wilkes; and as the latter had avowed himself the author, he should not deny, added Martin, what he had said before five hundred people, and gave him a challenge. About noon they went into Hyde-park; Martin alone; Wilkes, with Humphrey Cotes381 in a post-chaise, knowing if he killed Martin that he should have no chance of pardon. Cotes waited at a distance. They changed pistols, both fired, and both missed. Martin fired a second time, and lodged a ball in Wilkes’s side, who was going to fire, but dropped his pistol. The wound, though not mortal, proved a bad one.
It was thought an ill symptom of Martin’s heroism, that he had smothered the affront for so many months, nor had given vent to his resentment, till the affair with Forbes had left a doubt on Wilkes’s courage. If Martin got rid of this imputation, it was but at the expense of a worse charge. It came out, nor could he deny it, that his neighbours in the country had observed him practising to fire at a target for the whole summer. I shall not be thought to have used too hard an expression, when I called this a plot against the life of Wilkes. Churchill wrote The Duellist, one of his finest satires, on this occasion.
On the 16th, the King’s speech was