John Wilkes (1725 – 1797) was an English radical, journalist, and politician. In 1762, Wilkes started a weekly publication, The North Briton, in which he criticised and satirised the government of John Stuart, Earl of Bute. The title was a satirical take on the Earl's own newspaper, The Briton.
In the 45th edition of The North Briton, Wilkes expressed his outrage at what he regarded as Bute's betrayal in agreeing to overly generous peace terms with France to end the Seven Years war. He was as a result accused of seditious libel of the king, George III. The legal processes which followed, and in which Wilkes and his supporters secured considerable success, secured basic rights and liberties in English law and provided a foundation for the expression of individual liberties and freedoms in the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.
This is an abridged version of the offending article which appeared in The North Briton 45 -
“The King’s Speech has always
been considered by the legislature, and by the public at large, as the Speech
of the Minister. It has regularly, at the beginning of every session of
parliament, been referred by both houses to the consideration of a committee,
and has been generally canvassed with the utmost freedom, when the minister of
the crown has been obnoxious to the nation. The ministers of this free country,
conscious of the undoubted privileges of so spirited a people, and with the
terrors of parliament before their eyes, have ever been cautious, no less with
regard to the matter, than to the expressions of speeches, which they have
advised the sovereign to make from the throne, at the opening of each session.
They well knew that an honest house of parliament, true to their trust, could
not fail to detect the fallacious arts, or to remonstrate against the daring
acts of violence committed by any minister.
The speech at the close of the
session has ever been considered as the most secure method of promulgating the
favourite court-creed among the vulgar; because the parliament, which is the
constitutional guardian of the liberties of the people, has in this case no
opportunity of remonstrating, or of impeaching any wicked servant of the crown.
“This week has given the public
the-most abandoned instance of ministerial effrontery ever attempted to be
imposed on mankind. The minister’s speech of last Tuesday is not to be
paralleled in the annals of this country. I am in doubt, whether the imposition
is greater on the sovereign or on the nation. Every friend of his country must
lament that a prince of so many great and amiable qualities, whom England truly
reveres, can be brought to give the sanction of his sacred name to the most
odious measures, and to the most unjustifiable public declarations, from a
throne ever renowned for truth, honour, and unsullied virtue.”
“In vain will such a minister, or
the foul dregs of his power, the tools of corruption and despotism, preach up
in the speech that spirit of concord, and that obedience to the laws, which is
essential to good order. They have sent the spirit of discord through the land,
and I will prophecy that it will never be extinguished but by the extinction of
their power. Is the spirit of concord to go hand in hand with the Peace and
Excise, through this nation? Is it to be expected between an insolent
Exciseman, and a peer, gentleman, freeholder, or farmer, whose private houses
are now made liable to be entered and searched at pleasure? Gloucestershire,
Herefordshire, and in general all the cyder counties, are not surely the
several counties which are alluded to in the speech. The spirit of concord hath
not gone forth among them, but the
spirit of liberty has, and a noble opposition has been given to the wicked
instruments of oppression. A nation as sensible as the English, will see that a
spirit of concord when they are oppressed, means a tame submission to injury,
and that a spirit of liberty ought then to arise, and I am sure ever will, in
proportion to the weight of the grievance they feel. Every legal attempt of a
contrary tendency to the spirit of concord will be deemed a justifiable
resistance, warranted by the spirit of the English constitution....
The Stuart line has ever been
intoxicated with the slavish doctrines of the absolute, independent, unlimited
power of the crown. Some of that line were so weakly advised, as to endeavour
to reduce them into practice: but the English nation was too spirited to suffer
the least encroachment on the ancient
liberties of this kingdom. “The King of England is only the first magistrate of
this country; but is invested by the law with the whole executive power. He is,
however, responsible to his people for the due execution of the royal
functions, in the choice of ministers, &c. equal with the meanest of his
subjects in his particular duty.” The personal character of our present amiable
sovereign makes us easy and happy that so great a power is lodged in such
hands; but the Prerogative of the crown is to exert the constitutional powers
entrusted to it in a way not of blind favour or partiality, but of wisdom and
judgment. This is the spirit of our constitution. The people too have their
prerogative, and I hope the fine words of Dryden will be engraven on our
hearts: Freedom is the
English Subject’s Prerogative.
That then is where this blog begins ....
