It
was outside the walls of Westminster that he first made a reputation as
a public man. In the unpopularity of Bute, Wilkes found opportunity
for his own popularity. The royal peace policy was very unwelcome, and
agitated the feeling of the country profoundly. Political controversy
ran as high in the humblest cross-channels as in the main stream of
courtly and political life. At that time, we are told by a
contemporary {51} letter-writer, the mason would pause in his task to
discuss the progress of the peace, and the carpenter would neglect his
work to talk of the Princess Dowager, of Lord Treasurers and
Secretaries of State. To win support and sympathy from such keen
observers, the Ministry turned again for aid to the public press that
had been so long neglected by the Whigs. Smollett, the remembered
novelist, Murphy, the forgotten dramatist, were commissioned to
champion the cause of the Government in the two papers, the _Briton_
and the _Auditor_.

The Government already had a severe journalistic critic in the
_Monitor_, a newspaper edited by John Entinck, which had been started
in 1755. The _Monitor_ was not at all like a modern newspaper. It was
really little more than a weekly pamphlet, a folio of six pages
published every Saturday, and containing an essay upon the political
situation of the hour. Its hostility to Bute goaded the minister into
the production of the _Briton_, which was afterwards supplemented by
the creation of the _Auditor_ when it was found that Smollett had
called up against the Ministry a more terrible antagonist than the
_Monitor_. For the _Briton_ only lives in the memories of men because
it called into existence the _North Briton_.

Wilkes had entered Parliament as the impassioned follower of Pitt. He
made many confessions of his desire to serve his country, professions
which may be taken as sincere enough. But he was also anxious to serve
himself and to mend his fortunes, and he did not find in Parliamentary
life the advancement for which he hoped. Twice he sought for high
position under the Crown, and twice he was unsuccessful. He wished to
be made ambassador to Constantinople, where he would have found much
that was congenial to him, and his wish was not granted. He wished to
be made Governor-General of the newly conquered Quebec, and again his
desires were unheeded. Wilkes believed that Bute was the cause of his
double disappointment. He became convinced that while