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.