[103] Walpole’s statement of the decided view taken by the King of Wilkes’s case from the very first is perfectly correct. In a letter to Lord North of the 25th of April, the King says, “Though entirely relying on your attachment to my person as well as in your hatred of any lawless proceeding, yet I think it highly expedient to apprise you that the expulsion of Mr. Wilkes appears to be very essential and must be effected. The case of Mr. Ward, in the reign of my great-grandfather, seems to point out the proper mode of proceeding. If any man were capable of forgetting his criminal writings, his speech in court last Wednesday, &c.”--(This extract was made by the editor from the King’s letters to Lord North,--a very curious and interesting collection, of which the friendship of Lord Brougham obtained him the perusal from Lady Charlotte Lindsay.)--E. [104] His daughter returning from France at the time of the Dauphin’s wedding, when all post-horses were stopped for the service and relays of the Dauphiness, who was expected from Vienna, Miss Wilkes was regularly furnished with post-horses to Calais. [There is no confirmation of this statement in Wilkes’s correspondence, nor is it reconcilable with the fact that he was at that period in great distress for even small sums. The suspicion, however, was very general. Lacretelle says, “Wilkes, en agitant sa patrie, servit si bien les desseins du Duc de Choiseul que quelques Anglais le regardèrent comme son agent secret.”--Histoire de France, vol iv. p. 175.--E.] [105] See infra, p. 211.--E. [106] Lord Mansfield, sitting by the Duke of Bedford in the House of Lords, said, if something vigorous was not done immediately, there would be a revolution in ten days, and the Government overturned,--yet when a motion was made against the riot, that dastardly magistrate sat still and did not utter a syllable. [107] The Duke of Grafton states in his MS. Memoirs, on the authority of Mr. Bradshaw, who was present at the meeting, that with one exception the company “were for expelling Wilkes on the double ground of outlawry and conviction. Mr. Conway declared as much before he came away. The single exception was Mr. Hussey, who expressed himself strongly against a second expulsion for the same offence in being the author of a political libel, for he said that Wilkes’s conviction for the poem could not be thought of in the House of Commons without coupling it with the means used to obtain evidence against him.”--E.