It is true that half the success of Wilkes was owing to the supineness of the Ministers. Lord Chatham would take no part in business. The Duke of Grafton neglected everything, and whenever pressed to be active, threatened to resign. The Chancellor, placed between two such untractable friends, with whom he was equally discontent, avoided dipping himself farther. Conway, no longer in the Duke’s confidence, and who was more hurt at neglect than pleased with power, stood in the same predicament. Lord Gower thought of nothing but ingratiating himself at St. James’s, and though what little business was done, Lord Weymouth executed, it required all Wood’s violence and animosity to Wilkes to spur him up to any activity. Wood indeed said that if the King should pardon Wilkes, Lord Weymouth would not sign the pardon. The Scots complained grievously of this want of spirit; and the Lord Mayor consulting the Chancellor on what he should do if Wilkes should stand for the City, and being answered that he must consult the Recorder, Harley sharply replied, “I consulted your Lordship as a minister; I do not want to be told my duty.” Some of the sheriff’s officers, too, not having dared to apprehend Wilkes, though a _capias_ had been issued for that purpose, the Lord Mayor insisted on their being turned out of their places.
Previous to his surrender Wilkes went to Bath, but met with neither honours nor notice. A subscription had been opened for him, and went on but heavily. His enemies served him better. Lord Mansfield tried every subterfuge of the law, not so much to crush Wilkes as to shift the odium of the prosecution on any other shoulders; and as the law is never defective in furnishing expedients to meanness and chicanery, and as the lowest quibbles appeared like armour to the eyes of Lord Mansfield’s cowardice, it is scarce credible what stores of rusty nonsense were brought forth on this occasion, to the equal disgrace of the Chief Justice and the practice.
On the 20th, Wilkes, according to his promise, appeared to his outlawry in the King’s Bench. He did not avow himself for author of the _North Briton_, though he owned he had written the forty-fifth number, and approved every word of it. When he recollected the “Essay on Woman” he confessed he blushed; yet pleaded that it would not have been published unless stolen from him. He complained of the usage he had received, and of the alteration of the record. Lord Mansfield palliated the latter charge; and then pronounced that Wilkes was not before the court, as nobody had taken out the writ _capias ablegatum_, which he affirmed the Attorney-General ought to have done. This implied that an outlaw could not surrender himself voluntarily, though he might get anybody to take out that writ. The judges, Yates and Willes, agreed to this jargon, having been induced by Mansfield to cast the blame on the Attorney.[99] On this curious reasoning was Wilkes dismissed. His speech had been received with little applause, and he retired without riot. He had, indeed, advertised a request to the people to make no disturbance; yet the Government had been so much alarmed that a field-day had been appointed in the Park, that troops might be at hand to quell any tumult.