Walpole determines to resume his Memoirs.--General Election.-- Audacity of Wilkes.--He contests the City of London and the County of Middlesex.--Riots during his Election.--His Triumph.--He surrenders to the King’s Bench.--The Elections.--Plan for the Expulsion of Wilkes.--Meeting of Parliament.--Riot before the King’s Bench.--Debate on Wilkes in the Commons.--French Designs on Corsica.--Riot among the Coalheavers.--Heroism of a Sailor.--Renewal of Wilkes’s Outlawry.--His Condemnation for the _North Briton_ and the _Essay on Woman_.--Riots at Boston.
As I had rather disparage these Memoirs than disappoint the reader by promising him more satisfaction than he will find, let me remind him that I had now quitted my seat in Parliament; and consequently, what traces of debates shall appear hereafter must be mutilated and imperfect, as being received by hearsay from others, or taken from notes communicated to me. As I had detached myself, too, from all parties, I was in the secrets of none: and though I had curiosity enough to fathom some, opportunities of learning others, and made observations on what was passing, in which I was assisted by the clue of what I had formerly known; yet it will doubtless be perceived that my information was often incomplete, and that the mysterious springs of several events never came to my knowledge. In those situations I shall be far from decisive: yet that very ignorance may guide future historians to the search after authentic papers; and my doubts may lead to some certainty. It may yet be asked why I choose, under these impediments, to continue my narrative, while I allow that it must fall short of the preceding parts? The honestest answer is the best: it amuses me. I like to give my opinion on what I have seen: I wish to warn posterity (however vain such zeal) against the folly and corruption and profligacy of the times I have lived in; and I think that, with all its defects, the story I shall tell will be more complete than if I had stopped at the end of the foregoing Parliament, which was no era of anything but of my own dereliction of politics; and not having been the hero of my own tale, I am desirous at least of bringing it down to the termination of the political life of some of the principal actors in the foregoing pages. I propose to carry the work down to the pacification with Spain in 1771, when not only all our foreign quarrels were terminated, but when the Court had surmounted every domestic difficulty, had pacified the Colonies and Ireland; and by the aid of fortune and by the folly of opposition, had little to disturb them but their own indiscretion, and the restless, though timid desires of ascertaining and extending a prerogative which the King enjoyed effectually by less obnoxious, though less dangerous, means than force. Whether I shall live to complete this plan, or whether, if I do, I shall not again be tempted to prosecute it farther, I am equally ignorant. The reader, that is amused, may perhaps be glad if I proceed. If I am tedious, the most delicate of my readers will always have that facile remedy in his power, of ceasing to read me the moment he is tired. To such, therefore, I make no apology. To please the other sort, if I can--at least, to employ some vacant hours, I continue my journal.