Wilkes was then called in, seemed abashed, and behaved with great respect to the House. He demanded to be admitted and to take the oaths as a member, which after some debate was refused on his being a prisoner. His counsel were then called in, and were informed that they must confine themselves to the two points of his allegation; but it being then near midnight, the House adjourned to the 31st. The next day Conway told me, he and Lord Granby had agreed to stay away on the expulsion: having declared against violent measures, they would not concur in it; and disapproving Wilkes’s attacks on the Government, they would not defend him.
Wilkes appeared again before the House on the 31st. He complained that his character had been aspersed in the printed votes, which accused him of blasphemy, though he had not been convicted of it; and demanded reparation. The case was this:--some time before, when the House, at the motion of Lord Clare, had sent for the roll of his conviction on the _North Briton_ and “Essay on Woman,” it appeared that the clerk had forgotten to endorse them; on which he had been ordered to endorse them as they ought to have been; on which he wrote there the titles of _seditious libel_ and _blasphemy_. Dyson, who adjusted the votes for the Speaker, had (probably by design) inserted these titles in the votes. When Martin the banker had lately moved to admit Wilkes, and the House had refused on account of his condemnation for those libels, they were going to renew those words; but Beckford objecting to the word _blasphemy_, the House had acquiesced, and intituled the piece _a profane and impious libel_. Norton now endeavoured to prove that he had been convicted of _blasphemy_, because it being in the charge, and he being brought in guilty of the premises, Norton inferred that he was convicted of it; but Serjeant Glynn showed that in all indictments charges are ridiculously exaggerated, and though a man may be brought in guilty of a crime, half the articles of a charge are never attempted to be proved. Sir George Saville and Sir Joseph Mawbey stiffly maintained the same argument. Lord North, Dyson, and the Ministerial party as obstinately supported the contrary ground, till General Conway showed the injustice of the tenet, and that it was at most _constructive blasphemy_; on which Sir George Saville joining him, and the House applauding, Dyson was forced to insert other palliating words--a great point gained to Wilkes, to have gotten rid of the actual condemnation for blasphemy. He then proceeded on his defence, and brought Curry, a printer, to prove the manner in which the “Essay on Woman” had been stolen from Wilkes by the means of Carteret Webbe, who had sent Curry to Carrington the messenger to be paid for the theft. Curry showed and owned himself an infamous rogue; and having first sold Wilkes, was now in his pay. Men were shocked at the treachery used towards Wilkes, and thence he again gained ground. The two Earls were then brought before the House. Wilkes only asked Lord Sandwich (the projector of the plot) if he knew of Curry being bribed by the Ministry, and being promised a place? The Earl answered, that he had promised him all proper protection, but had nothing to do with the disposition of public money. Lord March said, Kidgell had shown him the fragment of the Essay on Woman, and he had advised him to complain of it; but had never seen Carteret Webbe till within the last four days. Webbe, now blind, sat there at the bar, and was grievously abused by Davenport, Wilkes’s counsel. At two in the morning the House adjourned the farther consideration till the next day.[186]