rth Briton_. The
_North Briton_ had ceased to exist. Of the two men whose bitter genius
had been its breath, Churchill was dead, and Wilkes himself, a fugitive
and a beggar, drifting from one European capital to another, seemed as
little to be feared as if he slept by Churchill's side. The visit of
the Commander's statue to Don Juan seemed scarcely more out of the
course of nature to Don Juan's lackey than the reappearance in active
public life of Wilkes appeared to the King's friends, for whom Wilkes
had ceased to exist.

Wilkes had wearied of Continental life. His affection for his own
country was so earnest and so sincere that, in a letter to the Duke of
Grafton, he declared his willingness to bury himself in the obscurity
of private life, if he were permitted to return unmolested to England.
The appeal failed to extract a satisfactory reply. The Ministers would
make no terms with their ruined foeman. Wilkes then resolved to show
that he was not so helpless as his enemies appeared to think him. He
published in 1767, in London, a pamphlet, in which he stated his case
with indignation, but not without dignity. When the pamphlet had
obtained a wide circulation, Wilkes followed {116} it up by appearing
himself in London in the February of 1768, at the moment of the general
election, and announcing himself as a candidate for Parliament for the
City of London. The audacity of this step amazed his enemies and
delighted his friends. If it had been taken a little earlier it might
have won him the seat. So calm and so wise an observer as Franklin, at
least, thought that it would have done so. As it was, though Wilkes
came late into the field, and was placed at the bottom of the poll, he
secured more than twelve hundred votes, and did, in the conventional
phrase too often used to soothe defeat, gain a great moral victory.

The courage of the outlaw had more than revived all the old enthusiasm
for him. We know on the authority of Burke that the acclamations of
joy with which he was welcomed by the populace were inconceivable, and
that the marks of public favor which he received were by no means
confined to the lower order of the people. Several merchants and other
gentlemen of large property and of considerable interest openly
espoused his cause, and a subscription was immediately opened in the
City for the payment of his debts. We know on other authority that in
an age when betting was the mode the extraordinary