_Mr. T. Townsend._ Thomas Townshend (1733-1800), nephew of the third Viscount Townshend; M.P. for Whitchurch, 1754-83; cr. Baron Sydney of Chislehurst, 1783, and Viscount Sydney, 1789, the city in Australia being named for him. He was one of the most voluble and pertinacious speakers in debates. His contemptuous reference in the House of Commons to Johnson’s pension earned Townshend a passing glance in Goldsmith’s _Retaliation_, where Burke is said to be, Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote. PAGE 36 _the blunders of Administration, with respect to Falkland’s Islands, &c._ Townshend views with alarm an assortment of the events, momentous and trivial, that had agitated the public mind in the preceding decade. As to _Falkland’s Islands_, west of the southern tip of South America, a dispute over their possession nearly brought on war between Great Britain and Spain in 1770-71. After a display of force by Spain and a demand for restitution by the British government, diplomatic exchanges resulted in a conciliation that was unpopular in England (_The Annual Register_ for 1771, “History of Europe,” chs. i-v). At the request of the ministers, Dr. Johnson wrote a spirited defence of their conduct, _Thoughts on the Late Transactions respecting Falkland’s Islands_, 1771. The _Middlesex Election_ was a remarkable exploit in the career of John Wilkes, who in 1768 returned from France still an outlaw for his offence in _North Briton_ No. 45, and was elected to Parliament for the county of Middlesex. Expelled before he could take his seat, he was thrice re-elected and as many times expelled. After his fourth victory at the polls Parliament declared his opponent, the ministerial candidate, duly elected. This breach of electoral rights led to street-rioting, protracted debates in and out of Parliament, and, eventually, the formation of a Radical party. See Horace Bleackley, _Life of John Wilkes_, 1917, chs. xii-xiii. The revolt of _Corsica_ under Pasquale Paoli against the French, who had purchased the island from Genoa in 1768, won wide public sympathy in England. The leading advocate of British intervention in favor of the Corsicans was James Boswell. See Chauncey Brewster Tinker, _Nature’s Simple Plan_, Princeton, 1922, ch. ii. The _massacre in St. George’s Fields_, 10 May 1768, occurred when a crowd of London citizens waiting for Wilkes to attend the opening of Parliament taunted a detachment of foot-guards into firing on them. Several persons were killed and about a dozen wounded. This “massacre” was the forerunner and partly the inspiration of that in King Street, Boston, two years later.