incapacitated by vote or
resolution of this House, but by act of Parliament only." It is
remarkable that, in the debate which ensued, two members who
successively rose to the dignity of Lord Chancellor, Mr. Thurlow and Mr.
Wedderburn, took different sides; but nothing could shake the
ministerial majority. The resolution was rejected. And when Lord
Rockingham proposed the same resolution in the House of Lords, though it
was supported by all the eloquence of Lord Chatham, he was beaten by a
majority of more than two to one, and the ministers even carried a
resolution declaring "that any interference of the House of Lords with
any judgment of the House of Commons, in matters of election, would be a
violation of the constitutional rights of the Commons."

Even these decisive defeats of the Opposition did not finally terminate
the struggle. The notoriety which Wilkes had gained had answered his
purpose to no slight extent. The City had adopted his cause with
continually increasing earnestness and effect. It had made him Sheriff,
Alderman, Lord Mayor, and had enriched him with the lucrative office of
City Chamberlain; and, as one of the City magistrates, he subsequently
won the good opinion of many who had previously condemned him, by his
conduct during the Gordon Riots, in which he exerted his authority with
great intrepidity to check and punish the violence of the rioters. And
when, in 1782, Lord Rockingham became, for the second time,
Prime-minister, he thought he might well avail himself of the favor he
had thus acquired, and of the accession to office of those whom the line
which they had formerly taken bound to countenance him, to bring forward
a motion for the expunction of the resolutions against him which had
been passed in 1770. It was carried by a largo majority; and though this
was as evidently a party division as those had been by which he had been
defeated twelve years before, still, as the last resolution on the
subject, it must be regarded as decisive of the law and practice of
Parliament, and as having settled the doctrine that expulsion does not
incapacitate a member who has been expelled from immediate
re-election.[12]

The establishment of this rule, and the abolition of general warrants,
were, however, not the only nor the most important result of these
proceedings. They led indirectly to an innovation which, it is hardly
too much to say, has had a greater influence on the character and
conduct of Parli