umber 45" of the
_North-Briton_ Wilkes had censured the speech from the throne at the
opening of Parliament, and a "general warrant" by the Secretary of State
was issued against the "authors, printers, and publishers of this
seditious libel." Under this warrant forty-nine persons were seized for
a time; and in spite of his privilege as a member of Parliament Wilkes
himself was sent to the Tower. The arrest however was so utterly illegal
that he was at once released by the Court of Common Pleas; but he was
immediately prosecuted for libel. The national indignation at the
harshness of these proceedings passed into graver disapproval when
Parliament took advantage of the case to set itself up as a judicial
tribunal for the trial of its own assailant. While the paper which
formed the subject for prosecution was still before the courts of
justice it was condemned by the House of Commons as a "false,
scandalous, and seditious libel." The House of Lords at the same time
voted a pamphlet found among Wilkes's papers to be blasphemous, and
advised a prosecution. Though Pitt at once denounced the course of the
two Houses as unconstitutional, his protest, like that of Shelburne in
the Lords, proved utterly ineffectual; and Wilkes, who fled in terror to
France, was expelled at the opening of 1764 from the House of Commons.
Rapid and successful blows such as these seem to have shown to how
frivolous an assailant Bute had yielded. But if Wilkes fled over the
Channel, Grenville found he had still England to deal with. The
assumption of an arbitrary judicial power by both Houses, and the system
of terror which the Minister put in force against the Press by issuing
two hundred injunctions against different journals, roused a storm of
indignation throughout the country. Every street resounded with cries of
"Wilkes and Liberty!" Every shutter through the town was chalked with
"No. 45"; the old bonfires and tumults broke out with fresh violence:
and the Common Council of London refused to thank the sheriffs for
dispersing the mob. It was soon clear that opinion had been embittered
rather than silenced by the blow at Wilkes.

[Sidenote: Grenville and the Colonies.]

The same narrowness of view, the same honesty of purpose, the same
obstinacy of temper, were shown by Grenville in a yet more important
struggle, a struggle with the American Colonies. The plans of Bute for
their taxation and restraint had fallen to the ground on his retirement