uld do nothing more than express regret with such gravity as it could
muster. As for the irreverent rogues who had laid their hands upon the
feet of the representative of a friendly State, it was not in the power
of the Government to punish them. The earth has bubbles as the water
has, and they were of them.

For two days the town was practically at the mercy of {119} the Wilkite
mob. The trainbands were called out by the Mayor, who was an ardent
courtier, but the men of the trainbands were, for the most part, no
less ardent Wilkites. They lent their drums to swell the noise of
Wilkes's triumph; they could not be counted on to lend their muskets to
the suppression of Wilkes's partisans. Even the regular troops were
not, it was thought, to be relied upon in the emergency. It was said
here that certain regimental drummers had beaten their drums for
Wilkes; it was said there that soldiers had been heard to declare that
they would never fire upon the people.

The fury of the Ministry, and especially the fury of the King, flamed
high. The King's heat was increased by a letter which Wilkes had
addressed directly to him on his return to England. In this letter
Wilkes made a not undignified appeal for the King's mercy and clemency,
complained of the wicked and deceitful acts of revenge of the late
Ministry, and assured the sovereign of his zeal and attachment to his
service. To this letter, naturally, no direct reply was made. The
form that the King's answer took was to insist that all the strength of
the Government must be used against Wilkes in order that he should be
driven from that Parliament to which the electors of Middlesex had
dared to return him.

[Sidenote: 1768--Wilkes in prison]

In the mean time the force of the law was slowly exerted against
Wilkes. Wilkes had promised that on the first day of the term
following his arrival in England he would present himself at the Court
of King's Bench. He kept his promise and surrendered himself on April
20. The judges of the King's Bench seem to have been paralyzed by the
position. It took them a whole week to decide that they would refuse
Wilkes bail--a whole week, every day, every hour of which served to
make Wilkes's cause better known and Wilkes himself more popular.
Wilkes went to prison under the most extraordinary circumstances. His
journey from Westminster to Bishopsgate was more like a royal progress
than the passage of a criminal and an outlaw. I