than in his devotion to Wilkes.

Churchill met Wilkes in 1762, and seems to have fallen instantly under
the spell which Wilkes found it so easy to exercise upon all who came
into close contact with him. Undoubtedly Churchill's friendship was
very valuable to Wilkes. If Churchill loved best to express his satire
in verse, he could write strongly and fiercely in prose, and the _North
Briton_ owed to his pen some of its most brilliant and some of its
bitterest pages. In the _North Briton_ Wilkes and Churchill laid about
them lustily, striking at whatever heads they pleased, holding their
hands for no fame, no dignity, no influence. It was wholly without
fear and wholly without favor. If it assailed Bute again and again
with an unflagging zeal, it was no less ready to challenge to an issue
the greatest man who over accepted a service from Bute, and to remind
Dr. Johnson, who had received a pension from the King's favorite, of
his own definition of a pension and of a pensioner.

Before the fury and the popularity of the _North Briton_ both the
_Auditor_ and the _Briton_ had to strike their colors. The _Auditor_
came to its inglorious end on February 8, 1763. The _Briton_ died on
the 12th of the same month, leaving the _North Briton_ master of the
field. Week after week the _North Briton_ grew more severe in its
strictures upon the Government, strictures that scorned the veil of
hint and innuendo that had hitherto prevailed in these pamphleteering
wars. Even the _Monitor_ had always alluded to the statesmen whom it
assailed by initial letters. {56} The _North Briton_ called them by
their names in all the plainness of full print, the name of the
sovereign not being excepted from this courageous rule. But the fame
of the _North Briton_ only came to its full with the number forty-five.

{57}

CHAPTER XLV.

NUMBER FORTY-FIVE.

[Sidenote: 1763--Wilkes's criticism of the King's speech]

When Bute disappeared from the public leadership of his party, Wilkes,
from professedly patriotic motives, delayed the publication of the
current number of the _North Briton_, to see if the policy which Bute
had inspired still guided the actions of the gentle shepherd, George
Grenville. Wilkes wished to know if the influence of the Scottish
minister was at an end, or if he still governed through those wretched
tools who had supported the most odious of his measures, the
ignominious peace, and the wicked extension of the ar