at 17;
represented his native town in Parliament as soon as he was of age; he
was early and deeply impressed with the inhumanity of the slave-trade,
and to achieve its abolition became the ruling passion of his life; with
that object he introduced a bill for its suppression in 1789, but it was
not till 1801 he carried the Commons with him, and he had to wait six
years longer before the House of Lords supported his measure and the
Emancipation Act was passed; he retired into private life in 1825, and
died three days after the vote of 20 millions to purchase the freedom of
the West Indian slaves; he was an eminently religious man of the
Evangelical school; wrote "Practical View of Christianity" (1759-1833).

WILD, JONATHAN, an English villain, who for housebreaking was
executed in 1725, and the hero of Fielding's novel of the name; he had
been a detective; was hanged amid execration on the part of the mob at
his execution.

WILDERNESS, a district covered with brushwood in Virginia, U.S.,
the scene of a two days' terrible conflict between the Federals and the
Confederates on the 5th and 6th May 1864.

WILDFIRE, MADGE, a character in the "Heart of Midlothian," who,
being seduced, had, in her misery under a sense of her crime, gone crazy.

WILFRID, ST., a Saxon bishop of York, born in Northumbria; brought
up at Lindisfarne; had a checkered life of it; is celebrated in legend
for his success in converting pagans, and is usually represented in the
act; _d_. 709.

WILHELMINA I., queen of the Netherlands, daughter of William III.,
and who ascended the throne on his decease in November 1890; her mother,
a sister of the Duchess of Albany, acted as regent during her minority,
and she became of age on the 11th August 1898, when she was installed as
sovereign amid the enthusiasm of her people; _b_. 1880.

WILHELMSHAVEN (13), the chief naval port of Germany, on Jahde Bay,
43 m. NW. of Bremen.

WILKES, CHARLES, American naval officer; made explorations in the
Southern Ocean in 1861; boarded on the high seas the British mail-steamer
_Trent_, and carried off two Confederate commissioners accredited to
France, who were afterwards released on the demand of the British
Government (1798-1877).

WILKES, JOHN, a notable figure in the English political world of the
18th century, born in Clerkenwell, son of a distiller; was elected M.P.
for Aylesbury in 1761; started a periodical called the _North Briton_, in
No. 45 of