the king's-bench prison, by virtue of two several
judgments in the court of king's-bench, for the said offences, is
entitled, by privilege of parliament, to be discharged from his
imprisonment for the said offences." After a fiery debate, the amendment
was carried by a large majority; and Mr. Martin, feeling himself
disgraced by its making him the patron of sedition, obscenity, and
impiety, moved, "That, in entering in the votes of this day the
proceedings of the house upon the said question, the original motion
be stated, with the proceedings of the house in making the several
amendments thereto." This was reasonable, but when put to the vote it
was rejected.

By these proceedings the temper of the house towards Wilkes was fully
manifested, and it seemed morally certain that when his petition was
taken into consideration it would prove a failure. It was on the 27th of
January that this debate fairly commenced. On that day Lord North moved
that the petitioner's counsel should be confined to two specified points
only; namely, to prove the allegations in his petition, which asserted
that Lord Mansfield had altered the record of his indictment the day
before his trial in Westminster-hall; and that Mr. Carteret Webb,
solicitor to the treasury, had bribed one Curry, a man in Wilkes's
employment, to purloin the copy of the "Essay on Woman," for which
he was undergoing imprisonment. This motion was agreed to, though not
without fierce opposition, and Wilkes appeared at the bar of the house
on the 31st, to make good these allegations. He objected, that as a
member he could not legally appear there without taking the oaths, but
this was overruled, he then proceeded to support his allegations,
but all he could substantiate was, that Lord Mansfield had made an
alteration on the record, and as this was in accordance with ancient
custom, and had been sanctioned by all the judges, the house agreed,
without a division, that the petitioner had not made good the two
allegations upon which he had been heard, and that his petition was
frivolous.

The tables were now turned. Lord Weymouth made a complaint in the upper
house, regarding a breach of privilege, in publishing his letter sent
to the magistrates of Surrey, with an inflammatory preface. A conference
between the two houses had been held, and Wilkes was charged with this
misdemeanour before the bar of the commons. But at that bar Wilkes
not only avowed himself the author of the pu