Still would not Wilkes obey their summons, nor did they dare to force him before them. Sir Joseph Mawbey again pressed it, but Lord North shuffled it off by saying Wilkes was so desperate that what would be punishment to others, would be an advantage to him. The courtiers repeated this, but it only displayed their timidity; and happy was it for the constitution that so much pusillanimity reigned in their conduct. Yet the Scotch wanted to come to blows, and were at least not sorry to see the House of Commons so contemptible. But the victory which the Court did not dare to push over Wilkes, his rash and abandoned conduct threw into their hands. Shelburne’s faction, covertly under Townshend, and undisguisedly under Horne, was warring with him in the midst of their common attack in the House of Commons. The Society of the Bill of Rights happened to be adjourned; Horne and his partisans summoned a special meeting to reward the persecuted printers, and voted a sum of money to them. Wilkes, as if he grudged that any money should be expended but on himself, advertised against this step, as the measure of an irregular meeting. His antagonist replied, and published the names on each side, which proved not to be twenty on either, and all men most inconsiderable. This not only brought disgrace and ridicule on the Society, but fell more fatally on the credit of Wilkes than all his persecutions, all his follies, or all his vices, and was the destruction of his popularity itself, which became confined to the very dregs of the people. His old patron, Lord Temple, retaining his constancy to faction, though broken with all factions, immediately visited Alderman Oliver in the Tower.