ghteen years, only scored 827, and Sir W.
Beauchamp Procter, the Whig candidate, only got 807 votes.

There was great excitement in London when the result of the election
was known. It pleased the popular voice to insist that every window
should be illuminated in honor of Wilkes's triumph, and all windows
that were not lit up were unhesitatingly broken. Those persons who
were known to be Wilkes's principal opponents received the special
attentions of the mob. Lord Bute's house had to stand a siege; so had
the house of Lord Egremont, who had signed the warrant for Wilkes's
committal; so had other houses which were either known to belong to the
{118} opponents of the hero or showed themselves to be such by their
darkened windows. All such windows were instantly broken, to the joy
of the glaziers, who declared that a Middlesex election was worth any
number of Indian victories. The mob had it all its own way, for the
strength of the constabulary had been drafted off to Brentford in
expectation of rioting there which never took place. But the mob did
not abuse its triumph. It was in its playful, not its dangerous mood.
It stopped the carriages of the gentry, made the occupants cheer for
Wilkes and Liberty, scrawled the number Forty-five upon the polished
panels, broke the glasses, but in the main let the carriage-owners go
unmolested. The Duke of Northumberland was forced to toast the popular
favorite in a mug of ale. One ludicrous occurrence very nearly became
an international episode. The Austrian Ambassador, Count Hatzfeldt,
famed for his stateliness, for his punctiliousness in ceremonial, fell
a victim to popular misapprehension. The mob that surrounded his coach
took him, unhappily, for a Scotchman, either because of his stiffness
of demeanor or because they could not understand what he was saying.
To be thought Scotch was a bad thing for any man in the hands of a mob
that howled for Wilkes, that howled against Bute. The Austrian
Ambassador was dragged from his carriage and held uplifted in
sufficiently uncomfortable fashion while the magic number Forty-five
was chalked upon the soles of his shoes. He was no further hurt; if he
had been a more prudent man he would have grinned at the mischance and
said no more about it. But he chose to consider his dignity and the
dignity of his empire affronted by the follies of a crowd. He lodged a
formal complaint with the English Government. The English Government
co