ke out in London and over the whole
country at the news of his arrest; and continued throughout the rest of
the year. In the midst of these tumults the ministry itself was torn
with internal discord. The adherents of Chatham found their position in
it an intolerable one; and Lord Shelburne announced his purpose of
resigning office. The announcement was followed in the autumn by the
resignation of Chatham himself. Though still prostrated by disease, the
Earl was sufficiently restored to grasp the actual position of the
Cabinet which traded on his name, and in October 1768 he withdrew
formally from the ministry.

The withdrawal of Chatham however, if it shook the ministry, only
rendered it still more dependent on the king; and in spite of its
reluctance George forced it to plunge into a decisive struggle with the
public opinion which was declaring itself in tumult and riot against the
system of government. The triumph of Wilkes had been driven home by the
election of a nominee of the great agitator as his colleague on a fresh
vacancy in the representation of Middlesex. The Government met the blow
by a show of vigour, and by calling on the magistrates of Surrey to
disperse the mobs; a summons which ended in conflicts between the crowd
and the soldiers, in which some of the rioters were slain. Wilkes at
once published the letter of the Secretary of State with comments on it
as a cause of bloodshed; and the ministry accepted the step as a
challenge to combat. If his comments were libellous, the libel was
cognizable in the ordinary courts of law. But no sooner had Parliament
assembled in 1769 than the House of Commons was called to take the
matter into its own hands. Witnesses were examined at its bar: the forms
of a trial were gone through; and as Wilkes persisted in his charge, he
was expelled as a libeller. Unluckily the course which had been adopted
put the House itself on trial before the constituencies. No sooner was
the new writ issued than Wilkes again presented himself as a candidate,
and was again elected by the shire of Middlesex. Violent and oppressive
as the course of the House of Commons had been, it had as yet acted
within its strict right, for no one questioned its possession of a
right of expulsion. But the defiance of Middlesex led it now to go
further. It resolved, "That Mr. Wilkes having been in this session of
Parliament expelled the House, was and is incapable of being elected a
member to serve in the pr