y got the
worst of it at first, but his discomfiture was set off by many
compensations in different ways, which his long struggle procured for
him. The obnoxious article, boldly assuming the responsibility of
ministers for the king's speech--for Wilkes always asserted that he had
the highest respect for the king himself--practically charged them with
falsehood. Upon this they issued a general warrant for the apprehension
of all the authors, printers, and publishers of the _North Briton_.
Wilkes was seized and thrown into the Tower, where he was kept for four
days, all access of friends and legal advisers being denied to him. At
the end of that period he was brought before the Court of Common Pleas
upon a writ of _habeas corpus_. Three points were raised in his favor,
namely, whether the warrant was legal, whether the particular passage in
the libel complained of ought not to have been specified, and whether
his privileges as a member of Parliament did not protect him from
arrest. The celebrated Lord Camden, then Chief Justice Pratt, presided,
and ruled against Wilkes on the first two points, but discharged him
from custody on the third. Wilkes hereupon reprinted the article. Both
Houses of Parliament now took up the cudgels in behalf of the
Government, and resolved that privilege of Parliament did not extend to
arrest for libel. The House of Commons also resolved 'that the _North
Briton_, No. 45, is a false, scandalous, and seditious libel, containing
expressions of the most unexampled insolence and contumely toward his
Majesty, the grossest expressions against both Houses of Parliament, and
the most audacious defiance of the authority of the whole legislature,
and most manifestly tending to alienate the affections of the people
from his Majesty, to withdraw them from their obedience to the laws of
the realm, and to excite them to traitorous insurrection against his
Majesty's Government.' They also ordered the libel to be publicly burned
by the common hangman, in front of the Royal Exchange. The authorities
attempted to carry out this order, but an enormous mob assembled, drove
off the officers, rescued the journal from the flames, and, in revenge,
built a huge bonfire at Temple Bar, into which they threw the jackboot,
the favorite emblem for expressing the public dislike of Lord Bute. It
was now Wilkes's turn, and he brought an action in the following year
against the under secretary of state, for the illegal seizure of