James Townshend and Sawbridge becoming considerable actors in the scenes that followed, it is necessary to give some brief account of them. The father[156] of the former had been all his life attached to the Court. The son, inheriting an easy fortune from a relation, and being of a fiery constitution, and not void of parts, had entered into the politics and following of the Earl of Shelburne, and had a mind assorted to violent and determined counsels. Sawbridge was brother of the celebrated historian, Mrs. Macaulay. He had quitted the army on marrying a lady[157] of large fortune. Independence and his sister’s republicanism had thrown him into enthusiastic attachment to liberty. His soul was all integrity, and his private virtues all great and amiable. His capacity, though not deficient, was not bright, nor his eloquence adapted to popularity. Consequently he was more respected in his party than followed, his honesty restraining the dictates of his zeal, and his bigotry being founded on principle, not on doctrines and creeds.[158]
A man differently constituted began now to distinguish himself on the other side. This was Colonel George Onslow, nephew, of the late Speaker. He had been known as one of those burlesque orators who are favoured in all public assemblies, and to whom one or two happy sallies of impudence secure a constant attention, though their voice and manner are often their only patents, and who, by being laughed at for absurdity as frequently as for humour, obtain a licence for saying what they please. This man, who was short, round, quick, successful in jokes, and of a bold and resolute nature, had gone warmly into Opposition with Lord Rockingham and the old Whigs; but now with his cousin, the elder George Onslow, had enlisted under the Duke of Grafton, and followed the banners of the Court; incensed particularly at Wilkes for exposing the correspondence of his cousin, lately one of Wilkes’s passionate admirers. The Colonel seeing a man in the street pasting up a speech of Oliver Cromwell, ordering the people to pull the members out of the House, Onslow seized the fellow in spite of the mob, and complained of him to the House. This act was applauded, and the prisoner ordered to attend. He accused a milkman of having incited him, and the latter was committed to Newgate.[159] An exploit of greater rashness and much more memorable consequence, about two years afterwards, will confirm what I have said of this Colonel.[160]