Douglas Peerage Claim.--Andrew Stuart.--Trial of Macquirk and Balf.--Discussions concerning Wilkes Resolutions on America.--Wilkes appears before the House of Commons.--Censure on him passed.--His Expulsion carried.--Republican Party in England.--Grenville’s _State of the Nation_.--Burke’s Reply.
On the 2nd of January Wilkes was chosen alderman of the ward of Farringdon Without. Bromwich, a merchant of paper for furniture, stood against him, but soon gave up the contest, Wilkes polling thirteen out of fifteen hundred; and thence the latter became a magistrate of the Metropolis, while yet a criminal of State, and a prisoner! At the same time the outrageous abuse, for which he had been sentenced, was continued in _North Britons_ (though no longer written by him), and in other public papers. Even the constables of the City were, almost to a man, devoted to Wilkes.
On the 13th, at a ballot at the East India House, the agreement with the Government was rejected by 248 proprietors against 207.
The next day two of the rioters at Brentford, on the side of the Court, were tried at the Old Bailey, and convicted of the murder of George Clarke; but their counsel, urging that there was a flaw in the indictment, judgment was stayed till the point could be argued, when that plea was overruled, and the criminals were ordered for execution on the 17th, the King not daring to interfere with a pardon.
The 16th, the House of Lords meeting after the adjournment, Wilkes’s writs of error were argued before them by his counsel, Glynn and Davenport; on the side of the Crown by the Attorney-General De Grey and Thurloe--Dunning, the Solicitor-General, not choosing to act, as he had been so much employed in behalf of Wilkes. Wilmot, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, in the name of the other judges, (Lord Mansfield, and the judges of the King’s Bench, not being present as parties,) gave a full opinion against Wilkes, and the verdicts were confirmed without one peer saying a syllable against them, but suffering themselves to be directed by the judges.
