“I beg thus to throw myself at your Majesty’s feet, and supplicate the mercy and clemency which shine with such lustre among your princely virtues. Some former ministers, whom your Majesty, in condescension to the wishes of your people, thought proper to remove, employed every wicked and deceitful act to oppress your subject, and to avenge their own personal cause on him, whom they imagined to be the principal author of bringing to public view their ignorance, insufficiency, and treachery to your Majesty and the nation. “I have been the innocent and unhappy victim of revenge. I was forced by their injustice and violence into exile, which I have never ceased to consider, for many years, as the most cruel oppression; because I could not longer be under the benign influence of your Majesty in this land of liberty. “With a heart full of zeal for the service of your Majesty and my country, I implore, Sire, your clemency. My only hopes of pardon are founded in the great goodness and benevolence of your Majesty; and every day of freedom you may be graciously pleased to permit me the enjoyment of, in my dear native land, shall give proofs of my zeal and attachment to your service.” This letter was judiciously ignored, but meanwhile fresh publicity was awaiting Wilkes--on the 27th, he was carried by a writ of _capias ut legatum_ to the King’s Bench. The return of Wilkes from Paris, his failure for the city, and election for Middlesex are figuratively shadowed forth in “The Flight of Liberty,” a broadside consisting of two engraved designs, “The Return of Liberty,” and “Liberty Revived,” with verses in praise of Wilkes and reflecting adversely upon his antagonists. In the upper compartment is shown the Court, or administrative faction, destroying the Temple of Liberty (an allusion to Earl Temple), raised above the statue of Wilkes, with the cap of liberty, as usual, elevated on the staff of maintenance. Lord Bute trampling on Magna Charta, is foremost of the destroyers who are wrecking the whole edifice, the very foundations of which are being razed; the “Laird of Boot” is exclaiming, “Well said, guid friends, down with the mighty _Temple_,” in allusion to the protection and patronage that nobleman had already extended to Wilkes; the Duke of Bedford, Lord North, and other ministers are aiding. The second design shows “the Temple of Liberty built by John Wilkes, A.D. 1762,” reinstated, “never to fall again.” Nothing daunted by his defeat for the city of London, Wilkes at once offered himself for the county of Middlesex. In his “Memoirs of the Reign of George III.,” Walpole gives certain glimpses of the election proceedings, which are as descriptive as a more detailed account:--