He republished the libel--fought a duel on the subject--was severely wounded--and fled to France. A second prosecution was commenced, and, on his non-appearance, he was expelled from the House of Commons. A third prosecution was commenced against him for language in a publication which was pronounced flagitious; and not returning to meet it, he was _outlawed_. On the change of ministry he returned to England, and was imprisoned; and yet, during his imprisonment, was elected for Middlesex. He was tried, and condemned to remain in jail twenty-two months, or be fined £1000. In 1769, in consequence of a pamphlet censuring the ministry for the employment of troops to suppress the riots at his election, he was again expelled, and again elected. He was now declared incapable of sitting in Parliament, and Colonel Luttrel was returned as the sitting member, though with but a fourth of the votes. This act roused the popular indignation once more. Wilkes, driven from Parliament, now turned to the city, and was elected alderman; and on some printers being brought before him, apprehended by a Royal proclamation, he discharged them all, on the ground of maintaining the privileges of the city. The Lord Mayor, Oliver, and Crosby, an alderman, followed Wilkes's example, and being members of the House, were sent to the Tower. Wilkes, on being ordered to attend at the bar, claimed his seat. Ministers now dreading further involvement, adjourned the House over the day appointed for his attendance, and, in 1774, he took his seat in triumph as member for Middlesex! But his fortune was now decayed; old age was coming on, and he was glad to be chosen Chamberlain for London, (with a salary of nearly £4000 a-year.) On the fall of the North Cabinet, 1782, he moved that the resolution against him on the Journals should be expunged. The motion was carried; his victory was complete, and the remainder of his life was opulent and calm. That remainder, however, was brief, for he died in 1797, at the age of seventy. Wilkes was a man of education, a man of wit, and a man of intrepidity. But his education had begun under an English sectary, and was finished in a foreign college--the first accounting for his republicanism, the next for his dissoluteness. But, though the man himself was worthless, his struggles were not unprofitable to the country. They fixed the popular attention on the principles of national liberty; they brought all the great constitutional questions into perpetual study. They rendered the public mind so sensitive to the possible encroachments of the Crown, or even of the Commons, that the future tyranny of any branch of the Legislature would be next to impossible. Let the merit of Wilkes be, that he drew a _fence_ round the Constitution.