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 parliamentary proceedings, while he availed himself of the abundant opportunities which the lax rules of the king's bench prison afforded of carrying on the campaign in the country. He had succeeded in issuing a ‘Letter on the Public Conduct of Mr. Wilkes’ (1 Nov.) and an ‘Address’ to his constituents (3 Nov.) His next step was to procure an authentic copy of Lord Weymouth's instructions to the chairman of the Lambeth quarter sessions, by which he and his brother magistrates were enjoined to make prompt use of the military in the event of a riot. These instructions were dated 17 April, fully three weeks before the ‘massacre,’ as the affair in St. George's Fields was now called. Wilkes procured their insertion, with some inflammatory remarks of his own, in the ‘St. James's Chronicle’ of 10 Dec., and in a subsequent address to his constituents (17 Dec.) acknowledged himself responsible for their publication. The writ of error was dismissed on 19 Jan. 1769, and the petition shared the same fate; the article in the ‘St. James's Chronicle’ was voted libellous by both houses, and Wilkes was again expelled the House of Commons (4 Feb.) To give a colour of legality to the expulsion, account was taken of all his previous offences and his present position as a condemned criminal. The unfairness of this treatment was ably exposed by George Grenville (now reconciled with Lord Temple) in a speech full of cold and dispassionate constitutionalism, the publication of which drew from Wilkes an ungracious ‘Letter’ (see infra) which ruptured his relations with Temple for ever. The expulsion led to a conflict between the electors of Middlesex, who at once re-elected Wilkes, and the House of Commons, which not only annulled the return, but resolved (17 Feb.) that he ‘was and is incapable of being elected a member to serve in this present parliament,’ annulled two subsequent returns, and eventually declared the beaten candidate, Colonel Luttrell, duly elected, and falsified the return accordingly (13 April). Against these unconstitutional proceedings petitions were presented to parliament and the king. Wilkes found a doughty champion in Junius; the government a dull apologist in Johnson, to whose ‘False Alarm’ Wilkes replied in a spirited ‘Letter to Samuel Johnson, LL.D.’ (London, 1770, 8vo). The matter was also handled in other pamphlets [see ]. On 10 Nov. 1769 Wilkes's action against Lord Halifax, long delayed, in the first instance, by legal chicane, then by the effect of the outlawry, was brought to trial, and resulted in a verdict for Wilkes with 4,000l. damages.

On the formation of Lord North's administration, the opposition made of Wilkes a regular cheval de bataille. But a resolution that in matters of election the House of Commons is bound to judge according to the law of the land was defeated in both houses, though Chatham joined with the Rockingham whigs in its support (25 Jan., 2 Feb. 1770). The question was revived on Wilkes's discharge (17 April 1770), and Chatham proposed a bill for his reinstatement (May). The motion was negatived, and a serious conflict between the two houses was thus avoided [see, second ]. Chatham then suggested an address to the king for an immediate dissolution, but failed to carry the Rockingham whigs with him. Even before his discharge Wilkes had been elected (27 Jan. 1769) alderman for the ward of Farringdon Without. The city interest was strongly on his side, and on 14 March 1770 the lord mayor presented to the king the remonstrance of the livery on his behalf. It was contemptuously dismissed, and other remonstrances shared the same fate. Annual motions on the subject continued to be made in the House of Commons during the remainder of the parliament.

Wilkes had entered the king's bench prison a ruined man. He left it free from embarrassment. This prosperous turn in his affairs was due to the liberality of his sympathisers on both sides of the Atlantic, wisely directed by a committee of ‘supporters of the bill of rights,’ over which John Horne (afterwards Horne Tooke) presided [see ]. In discharging Wilkes's various liabilities the committee disposed of upwards of 17,000l. Wilkes had also his reward in other ways: he was the idol of the populace, his portrait was exposed in shop windows, decorated trinkets, and dangled before alehouses. He was able to take a villa at Fulham and once more to live delicately. If he had lost his old political connection, if the agitation which the opposition carried on in his behalf was merely designed to vindicate the constitution, a civic career was open to him; and by his election to the office of alderman he had, in fact, been invited to stand for the mayoralty. In 1771 the threatened invasion of a city charter by the bill for embanking Durham Yard (the Adelphi) embittered the city against parliament and the court. Wilkes, of course, ranged himself on the side of the malcontents, stoutly supported Lord-mayor Brass Crosby [q. v.]