l warrant: his papers were seized, and he was carried before Lord
Halifax. At the request of Wilkes, his friend, Lord Temple, applied to
the court of common pleas for a writ of habeas corpus, and the motion
was granted; but before it could be prepared, he was committed to the
Tower in close custody, and his friends, his counsel, and his solicitor
were denied access to him. The confinement of Wilkes, however, was
of short duration, for on the 3rd of May, a writ of habeas corpus was
directed to the constable of the Tower, by which he was brought before
the court in Westminster Hall. In that court he made a virulent speech
against the existing administration, broadly asserting that there was a
plot among its members for destroying the liberties of the nation, and
that he was selected as their victim, because they could not corrupt him
with their gold. The court took time to consider the matter, and on the
6th, Lord Chief Justice Pratt proceeded to deliver the joint opinion of
the judges. This opinion was, that though the commitment of Wilkes
and the general warrant were not in themselves illegal, as they were
justified by numerous precedents, yet he was entitled to his discharge
by virtue of his privilege as a member of parliament; that privilege
being only forfeited by members who were guilty either of treason,
felony, or a breach of the peace. Wilkes was therefore discharged, but
the attorney-general immediately instituted a prosecution against him
for the libel in question, and the king deprived him of his commission
as colonel in the Buckinghamshire militia, and dismissed his friend Lord
Temple from the lord-lieutenancy of Buckinghamshire, and struck his
name out of the roll of privy councillors. The liberation of Wilkes was
followed by a long inky war. Upon regaining the use of his pen, he wrote
a letter to the secretaries of state, in which he complained of the
treatment he had received, and accused them of holding in their hands,
goods of which his house had been robbed by their messengers. This
letter, to which government replied, was printed and distributed by
thousands, and considerable numbers of the opposition in parliament
rallied round the author of the "North Briton," while the populace began
to hail him throughout the country, as the noblest patriot England had
known since the days of Algernon Sidney and Hampden. Taking advantage
of his popularity, when he found publishers averse to the hazard of
publishing h