he Court and the Parliamentary majority was
heroism in the eyes of the majority of the citizens of London.

Once again Wilkes had won the day. From that time forward Parliament
put no embargo upon the publication of reports of its debates. Fresh
honors were showered on Wilkes. He was elected sheriff. He was
presented by the Court of Common Council with a silver goblet, designed
according to his own wish with a representation of the death of Caesar,
and graced with the ominous motto from one of the poems of Churchill:

May every tyrant feel
The keen deep searchings of a patriot steel,

a citation which, taken in conjunction with Barre's wild talk in the
House about assassination, was sufficiently significant of the temper
of the time.

[Sidenote: 1774--Wilkes Lord Mayor of London]

Wilkes had been alderman; he had been sheriff; he was now to bear the
crown of civic honors. He was put in nomination for the office of Lord
Mayor. The Court party made a desperate effort to defeat him. They
had tried and failed to prevent him from being elected to Parliament.
They had tried and failed to prevent him from being made alderman, from
being made sheriff. They now tried with all their might to prevent him
from being made Lord Mayor. Wilkes had much to fight against. There
were defections from his own party. The once devoted Horne had
squabbled with his idol over money matters, and was now as venomous an
enemy as he had been a fulsome partisan. Alderman Townshend, an
ex-Lord Mayor, strained all his influence, which was great in the City,
against Wilkes. A wild rumor got about at one time, indeed, that
Townshend had settled the difficulty of the Court forever by
challenging Wilkes and shooting him dead. The story had no foundation,
but for a moment it flattered the hopes of Wilkes's {137} enemies and
fluttered the hearts of Wilkes's friends. The opposition ended as
opposition to Wilkes always ended. Twice he was placed at the head of
the poll, and twice the Court of Aldermen chose another candidate. The
third time, in the election of 1774, Wilkes was at last chosen as Lord
Mayor by the Court of Aldermen in despite of the unwearied efforts of
the Court party to defeat him. "Thus," wrote Walpole, "after so much
persecution by the Court, after so many attempts upon his life, after a
long imprisonment in jail, after all his own crimes and indiscretions,
did this extraordinary man, of more extraordinary fo