assistance. The night before, they had
obliged the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland to give them beer, and
appear at the windows, and drink "Wilkes's health." They stopped and
opened the coach of Count Seilern, the Austrian ambassador, who has made
a formal complaint, on which the Council met on Wednesday night, and
were going to issue a Proclamation, but, hearing that all was quiet, and
that only a few houses were illuminated in Leicester Fields from the
terror of the inhabitants, a few constables were sent with orders to
extinguish the lights, and not the smallest disorder has happened since.
In short, it has ended like other election riots, and with not a quarter
of the mischief that has been done in some other towns.

There are, however, difficulties to come. Wilkes has notified that he
intends to surrender himself to his outlawry, the beginning of next
term, which comes on the 17th of this month. There is said to be a flaw
in the proceedings, in which case his election will be good, though the
King's Bench may fine or imprison him on his former sentence. In my own
opinion, the House of Commons is the place where he can do the least
hurt, for he is a wretched speaker, and will sink to contempt, like
Admiral Vernon,[1] who I remember just such an illuminated hero, with
two birthdays in one year. You will say, he can write better than
Vernon--true; and therefore his case is more desperate. Besides, Vernon
was rich: Wilkes is undone; and, though he has had great support, his
patrons will be sick of maintaining him. He must either sink to poverty
and a jail, or commit new excesses, for which he will get knocked on the
head. The Scotch are his implacable enemies to a man. A Rienzi[2] cannot
stop: their histories are summed up in two words--a triumph and an
assassination.

[Footnote 1: In 1739 our Government had declared war against Spain.
"There was at the time among the members of the Opposition in the House
of Commons a naval captain named Vernon, a man of bold, blustering
tongue, and presumed therefore by many to be of a corresponding
readiness of action. In some of the debates he took occasion to inveigh
against the timidity of our officers, who had hitherto, as he phrased
it, spared Porto Bello; and he affirmed that he could take it himself
with a squadron of six ships. The Ministry caught at the prospect of
delivering themselves from his harangues, and gave him half as many
ships again as he desired, with the te