"High mounted on the gibbet view The _Boot_ and _Bonnet's_ fate; But where's the _Petticoat_, my lads? The _Boot_ should have its mate. Then to New Palace Yard let us go, let us go. * * * * * "In vain the galling _Scottish yoke_ Shall strive to make us bend; _Our_ monarch is a Briton born, And will our rights defend. Then to New Palace Yard let us go, let us go. "For ages still might England stand, In spite of Stuart arts, Would Heaven send us men to rule With better heads and hearts. Then to New Palace Yard let us go, let us go." For a while, engaged in an amorous adventure, Wilkes remained at Paris, but in 1767 he issued a pamphlet explaining his position, and just before the general election of March, 1768, he reappeared in London[263] and offered himself as a candidate for the parliamentary representation of the City, thus presenting the very strange spectacle, as Lecky puts it, "of a penniless adventurer of notoriously infamous character, and lying at this very time under a sentence of outlawry, and under a condemnation for blasphemy and libel, standing against a popular alderman in the metropolis of England."[264] In spite of his late appearance upon the scene, Wilkes polled 1,200 votes; and, thus encouraged, and supported by Lord Temple, who furnished the necessary freehold qualification, the Duke of Portland, and Horne Tooke, he stood for the county of Middlesex, and was elected by 1,290 votes against 827 of the Tory George Cooke and 807 of the Whig, Sir William Procter. [263] It has been said that Wilkes had to leave Paris hastily, a _letter de cachet_ having been signed to lodge him in the Bastille, probably as the supposed author of "The Origin of Despotism." This supposition is, however, a direct contradiction of a statement in _Walpoliana_ attributed to Horace Walpole. "Depend upon it that Wilkes was in the pay of France, during the Wilkes and Liberty days. Calling one day on the French minister, I observed a book on his table, with Wilkes's name in the first page. This led to a conversation, which convinced me. Other circumstances, too long and minute to be repeated, strengthened, if necessary, that conviction. I am as sure of it, as of any fact I know. Wilkes at first cringed to Lord Bute. The embassy to Constantinople was the object of his ambition. It was refused, and you know what followed." [264] _History of England in the Eighteenth Century._