This triumph quite overset the little discretion of which Wilkes had been master. He seemed to put himself into the situation of a King, who, not content with the outworks with which the law has surrounded his person, attempts to employ the law as offensive artillery. Affecting to have been robbed of moveables when his papers were seized, Wilkes entered into a virulent controversy, by letter, with the Secretaries of State; and even endeavoured, though in vain, to obtain warrants for searching their houses. This wild conduct did not help his cause. His next step fell more perniciously on his own head. He erected a printing-press in his own house; and, against the remonstrances of Lord Temple, who never wanted fear where there was room for it, and who had no taste for anything that did not lead directly home to faction, indulged himself in realizing those sallies of his humour and intemperance, which are scarcely excusable when transient and confined to the jollity of intoxicated moments at table. The Court regarding Lord Temple as the instigator, not as the Socrates, of this Alcibiades, removed him from the lord-lieutenancy of the county of Buckingham. The printers, who had been vexed in their business by the orders of the Secretaries of State, and encouraged by the victory of Wilkes, prosecuted the messengers, and obtained damages to the value of 300_l._ The same spirit spread into the west. In the cider counties they dressed up a figure in Scotch plaid, with a blue riband, to represent the Favourite, and this figure seemed to lead by the nose an ass royally crowned. At the same time they voted instructions to their members to try to obtain a repeal of the act. The circumstance of the act being passed under so unpopular an administration was most unfortunate. It had taken thirty years to open the eyes of mankind to the benefits of excise: the only, at least the best, method of improving the revenue without imposing new burthens. Being started at so ungracious a moment, the old prejudices were industriously revived. The Court at the same time met with some mortifications in their pursuit of congratulatory addresses on the peace, which they sedulously promoted. One Judge Perrot[345] was so servile as to recommend it from the bench on the circuit. The Duke of Newcastle and Lord Hardwicke, the one Chancellor, the other High Steward of the University of Cambridge, refused to go to St. James’s with the address of that body. Allen,[346] the ostentatious patron of Pope and Warburton, the latter of whom had married his natural daughter, prevailed on the city of Bath to thank the King for the _adequate_[347] peace, and had himself the insolence or folly to send that address, so profligately worded, to Mr. Pitt, with whom he had maintained a mutual intercourse of flattery. Mr. Pitt disdained to present their compliment to the King, and even declared he would represent their city no more.