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THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX &
TILDEN FOUNDATION

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THE

POLITICAL REGISTER,

For NOVEMBER, 1768.

NUMBER XX.

To the Author of the POLITICAL REGISTER,

SIR,

Την ελευθερίαν το καλλιτον και περιμαχιμωτατον αθλον.

Plutarch in the life of T. Q. Flaminius

October 29, 1768.

A FTER the great variety of pieces, which to this hour

have appeared for and against Mr. Wilkes, that fubject does not feem yet exhaufted, nor indeed is every particular of importance relative to his public conduct hitherto known and authenticated. I fay, fir, public conduct, for I am entirely of opinion with ******, who declares, "I do not think myself at liberty to scan the private actions "of any man, but have a right to confider the conduct of every man in public, and to approve or to condemn his "doings, as they appear to me to be calculated, either for "the good or the hurt of his country." A letter concerning libels, warrants, &c. first published in 1764. I fhall not now ftay to fhew how far the equity of this rule was vioVOL. III. L1 lated

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lated by the concealed author himself before he got half through his pamphlet, in a manner equally indecent and unjust to a fick and abfent friend, whom he bafely wounded; but after the long harveft, which you, fir, and your brother authors and printers have made of Mr. Wilkes, I fhall venture to offer you a few tolerable gleanings.

The public, fir, have a right to ask why Mr. Wilkes did not perfonally attend the trials for the re-publication of the 7North Briton, No. 45, and the Effay on Woman, as he did all the actions brought by the printers apprehended under the general warrant. We ought likewife to be told why he was not prefent in the house of commons, when the charge against him was heard on the 19th of january 1764. The juftice of the nation, and his own personal honour, demanded his appearance. He had made an appeal to his country, and the cause of liberty had a particular claim on a man, who had pledged himfelf in its defence. He was prevented, not by fear, to which I believe him a ftranger, but by a prohibition from the highest of all powers, by a dangerous illness. Towards the end of december 1763, he went during the recefs of parliament to pass the holidays with an only daughter, who was at Paris for a part of her education. That journey being generally made in four days, often in three, the distance was of no confequence, fince in fo fhort a time he could hear from his friends. He was feized at Paris with a violent fever. A confiderable inflammation, with other bad fymptoms, attended the dangerous wound he received in a duel with Mr. Martin. In this condition he transmitted to the speaker on the 11th of january 1764, an original certificate of his ill health, figned by the French king's phyfician and a furgeon of his army. He requested in the letter a more diftant day, that he might have it in his power to attend · the difcuffion of points, fa very important in themselves, and in · which he was fo very materially concerned; but the decree of expulfion had paffed the lips of the Scottish minifter to his flaves,' the minifters of the day, to whom for a fhort time he had delegated his omnipotence, They were empowered in a

I

proper

proper manner to perfuade the fame famous majority in the lower Houfe, which had been induced to approve the peace of Paris, and in the first year of it to establish the late detefted excife on cyder and perry, not only to expel Mr. Wilkes, but likewife to vote him 'the author of the North Briton, No. 45, without the oath of any witnefs, or the fhadow of legal proof. According to the conftitution of England this being a fact ought to have been tried by a jury of twelve men, and not enquired into by witnesses at the bar, who were not fworn. This direct attack on the rights of their countrymen in so important a point as the trial by jury, would have furprized the world in any other body of men, but thefe had before voted away their own privileges, or rather the privileges of the nation, for they are strictly the rights of the conftituents, who confer them on their reprefentatives in parliament. The conftitution gives privilege of parliament as one of the best barriers against the violence of the crown, which might otherwife in an important moment, in the last noble struggle of expiring liberty, feize not five, as a former Stuart would have done, but five hundred, deputies of the people. They had done this in fo intricate and doubtful a case, as that of a real or pretended libel. They even went fo far as to thank the crown for the tender regard expreffed for the privileges of the house in the cafe of Mr. Wilkes, although the Court of Common Pleas had unanimously released him, because his imprisonment was a violation of the privileges of the fame house, and those judges on oath were obliged to confider the privileges of

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*« It was not made to screen criminals, but to preserve the very life and being "of Parliament, for when our ancestors confidered, that the law had lodged the great powers of arreft, indictment and information in the crown, they faw the Parliament would be undone, if during the time of privilege the royal procefs should be admitted in any misdemeanour whatsoever, therefore they excepted none. Where the abuse of power would be fatal, the power *ought never to be given, because redrefs comes too late.

"A Parliament under perpetual terror of imprisonment, can neither be free, nor bold, nor honeft, and if this privilege was once removed, the most imFportant question might be irrecoverably loft, or carried by a fudden irruption of meffengers, let loofe against the members half an hour before the ❝ debate"

Lords Proteft, 29 Nov. 1763

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