The question at once came before both Houses. In the House of Lords it assumed a personal form. Lord Sandwich, a former friend of Wilkes, and his associate in his greatest debauchery, but now Secretary of State, did not think it unbecoming to produce an obscene parody on Pope's "Essay on Man," of which Wilkes was the author, and demand his punishment. The book had never been published; fourteen copies had been privately printed; it had come into Sandwich's possession when Wilkes's house was ransacked, and afterwards by tampering with Wilkes's printer. Sandwich complained of it as a breach of privilege, for it was addressed to him. "Awake, my Sandwich!" it began, instead of "Awake, my St. John!" of Pope's Essay, and ridiculous notes were added, attributed to Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester, who had annotated Pope's work. In the House of Commons Wilkes rose and complained of his imprisonment as a breach of privilege, but he met with little sympathy. By a large majority No. 45 was voted to be a seditious libel, and ordered to be burnt by the common hangman. A dangerous riot was the consequence, nor was the operation completed till a jackboot and petticoat, the popular emblems of the Princess of Wales and Lord Bute, were committed to the flames to share the fate of the obnoxious publication. Further proceedings against Wilkes were postponed by a duel in which he was engaged with a Mr. Martin, who had grossly insulted him, and in which he was wounded; but he was eventually expelled from his place in the House. On the two constitutional questions which were involved in this quarrel--the construction to be given to the privilege of members and the legality of general warrants--the popular party was defeated, in spite of the powerful support of Pitt. In opposition to the Courts of Law, Parliament held that privilege could not cover a seditious libel; and Grenville and his majority contrived to shelve a resolution which was introduced declaring the illegality of general warrants. The whole question excited the intensest interest; the House is said to have once sat for seventeen hours. Wilkes, unable to withstand all the assaults upon him, had, in spite of his popularity, been obliged to withdraw to France. Grenville and his ministry had hardly completed this quarrel, in which they had wantonly embroiled Parliament and people, when they took a fresh step which, though well intentioned, was destined, from the way in which it was carried out, to lose England the best of her colonies. [Sidenote: Origin of the American provinces.]