“On the 23rd of March the Election began at Brentford; and while the irresolution of the Court and the carelessness of the Prime Minister, Grafton, caused a neglect of all precautions, the zeal of the populace had heated itself to a pitch of fury.” The other candidates were Sir W. Beauchamp Proctor and Mr. Cooke, the former members. Cooke, who had sat from 1750, was confined with the gout; a relation, who appeared for him, was roughly handled. Amidst the wrecking of carriages which ensued, that of Proctor did not escape the attention of the roughs; it “was demolished by the mob.” The coach-glasses of such as did not huzza for “Wilkes” and “Liberty” were broken, the paint and varnish of chariots and coaches, met and stopped for miles round, were spoiled by the mob--scratching them with the favourite “45.” Lord Bute, generally the object of popular disfavour, was denounced by an attack made on his residence, where the mob broke his windows, as usual, but failed to effect an entrance; the same unwelcome attention was paid to Lord Egremont’s, in Pall Mall, as the chief signatory to the warrant for Wilkes’s committal. The Duke of Northumberland had the honour of appearing, whether he would or no, of being forced to supply the mob with liquor, and to drink with them to Wilkes’s success. The demonstration assumed formidable proportions; all the windows from West to East were illuminated to please the mob, otherwise they were broken by the riotous “true loyal Britons and friends of Liberty,” who performed some curious feats; some of the regimental drummers, not the Scotch regiments it may be premised, beating their drums for Wilkes. This astute diplomatist, finding his election secure, very prudently dismissed his enthusiastic partisans, such as the weavers, back to town, the polling[50] was ended, and by the next morning quietude was resumed in the vicinity of Brentford. Some of the incidents were particularly ludicrous, the mob going out of the way to perpetuate the number of the _North Briton_ so objectionable to the Court. The Austrian Ambassador, the Count de Seilern, described by Horace Walpole in a letter to the Earl of Hertford as the most stately and ceremonious of men, was obliged to get out of his coach, and ignominiously held with his legs in the air while the figures “45” were chalked on the soles of his shoes. This insult formed the grounds of an official complaint. It was as difficult for the minister to help laughing at the gravity of his representations as to redress the slight offered to a friendly power in the person of its representative.