leasure. His friends
were so apprehensive that he was going to his death that his life was
insured, and the gentlemen of the clubs, who were always willing to bet
upon any imaginable contingency, betted freely on his chances of
surviving his adventure. Wilkes's friends, however, were resolved to
disappoint the expectations of their enemies. Thanks to their energy
and patience, the election went off with perfect order. Wilkes was, of
course, returned at the top of the poll by an enormous majority.
Luttrell came next with less than a quarter of his votes, and an absurd
attorney, who had thrust himself into the election at the last moment,
came last with a ludicrous poll of five votes.

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[Sidenote: 1769--Lord North and the Wilkes case]

On Thursday, April 13, Wilkes was elected. London was again
illuminated, and a great demonstration outside the King's Bench Prison
congratulated the hero of the hour on his third triumph. On the
following day the House of Commons prepared again to reject Wilkes.
The debate lasted over the Saturday--a rare event in those days--and in
the early dawning of Sunday morning Colonel Luttrell was declared to be
duly elected as the member for Middlesex. The ministerial victory was
not a very great victory. They had only a majority of 197 votes to
143. It served their turn at a pinch, but it was not a big enough
majority to inspire Lord North with the courage to resist a proposal
that a fortnight should be allowed to the electors of Middlesex in
which, if they wished, to petition against conduct which practically
deprived them of their constitutional rights.

Lord North had many years of public life before him, many years of
slumbering and blundering on the treasury bench, before his death in
1792, as Lord Guildford, in a melancholy, premature old age. In those
years he was privileged to do a vast amount of injury to his country,
uncompensated for by any act to her advantage. Lord North's conduct in
the case of Wilkes was not the most foolish act in a career of folly,
but it certainly served as an illuminating preface to a chronicle of
wasted time. No proofs of the wit that endeared him to his
contemporaries have been preserved; his fame for an unalterable
urbanity is but an empty memory; his record is only rescued from
oblivion by the series of incredible follies which began with the
unjust attempt to annihilate Wilkes.

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CHAPTER L.

THE SPIRIT OP JUNIUS.

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