Nothing  can  be  more  just  than  the  passage  in  which  he  explains  to  the  King
how  His  Majesty  had  been  the  making  of  Wilkes. "  There  is  hardly  a  period
at  which  the  most  irregular  character  may  not  be  redeemed. The  mistakes  of
one  sex  find  a  retreat  in  patriotism ;  those  of  another  in  devotion. The
rays  of  the  Royal  indignation,  collected  upon  him,  served  only  to  illuminate,
and  could  not  consume. Animated  by  the  favoiu-  of  the  people  on  one  side,
and  heated  by  persecution  on  the  other,  his  views  and  sentiments  changed  with
his  situation. -Hardly  serious  at  first,  he  is  now  an  enthusiast. Is  this  a  con-
tention worthy  of  a  king?"  "You  have  degjraded,"  he  says  elsewhere  to  the
Duke  of  Grafton,  ' '  the  royal  dignity  into  a  base  and  dishonourable  competition
with  Mr. Wilkes."  "  If  George  the  Third,"  wrote  Franklin  in  his  journal,
"  had  had  a  bad  private  character,  and  John  Wilkes  a  good  one,  the  latter
might  have  turned  the  former  out  of  his  kingdom."


I70  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  CH. v,

sedition  which  was  soon  to  deface  our  history. "Though
entirely  confiding  in  your  attachment  to  my  person,  as  well  as  in
your  hatred  of  every  lawless  proceeding,  yet  I  think  it  highly
proper  to  apprise  you  that  the  exclusion  of  Mr. Wilkes  appears
to  be  very  essential,  and  must  be  effected  ;  and  that  I  make  no
doubt,  when  you  lay  this  affair  with  your  usual  precision  before
the  meeting  of  the  gentlemen  of  the  House  of  Commons  this
evening,  it  will  meet  with  the  required  unanimity  and  vigour."
AVhat  were  the  lawless  proceedings  to  which  His  Majesty  re-
ferred he  perhaps  found  it  difficult  to  define  ;  for  the  only  con-
tribution which  he  made  towards  assisting  Lord  North  to  get
up  his  case  was  a  suggestion  that,  by  going  back  forty  years,  a
precedent  might  be  discovered  in  the  expulsion  of  a  member
who  had  been  convicted  of  forgery. Armed  with  his  meagre
brief,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  presented  himself,  first
to  his  brother  Ministers,  and  then  before  one  of  those  general
councils  of  the  party,  which,  as  a  link  in  the  delicate  mechanism
of  parliamentary  government,  had  not  yet  fallen  into  unmerited
disuse. Both  in  the  Cabinet,  and  in  the  larger  conclave,  the
voice  of  common  sense  made  itself  heard. 