On the 2nd of June the Parliament met, and was again adjourned for three weeks. On the 8th Wilkes’s outlawry was debated in the King’s Bench. The Judges of that Court had agreed with their chief, Lord Mansfield, to reverse it; yet the latter now maintained it in a fine oration, but in the conclusion pronounced it void from a flaw; which, he said, had not been noticed by the prisoner’s counsel. This curious error was, that the proceedings were stated _at the County-court for the County of Middlesex_; when lo! the form ought to have been _at the County-court of Middlesex, for the County of Middlesex_--a form of words, said that oracle of law, absolutely necessary. It was said that Serjeant Glynn, Wilkes’s counsel, had made the same notable discovery two months before in his pleading; and thus the Chief Justice had not even the honour of the chicanery he boasted. It was still more ridiculously, and with as little truth, that he vapoured on his own firmness. He knew, he said, in what danger he held his life, but he was past sixty, and valued not the remnant of being. He would act boldly; _fiat justitia, et ruat cœlum_--prodigious danger when he was doing what was an act of popularity, and which probably he would not have done but from timidity![118] The reversion of the outlawry having an appearance of being favourable to the prisoner, the mob huzzaed, though he was remanded to prison till he should receive sentence. In the meantime a new calamity befel the Court. Cooke, the other member for Middlesex, died, and Serjeant Glynn, as the champion of Wilkes, was set up by the popular party for Middlesex. Cooke was Joint-Paymaster with the younger Thomas Townshend, a friend of the Duke of Grafton, who, to gratify Rigby with the whole employment, offered to make Townshend one of the Vice-Treasurers of Ireland. Townshend refused it with warmth, saying, he would not be turned backwards and forwards every six months; and resigning, joined the Opposition.[119] On the 10th, Rigby kissed the King’s hand as Paymaster. He was succeeded as Vice-Treasurer of Ireland by Lord Clare. Lord Hillsborough returned to the Board of Trade, with the superintendence of the Colonies, in which function his conduct will be long remembered.