Of virtue's false, but glaring light,
My youngest born, my dearest joy,
Most like myself, my darling boy:
He, never touch'd with vile remorse,
Resolved and crafty in his course,

Shall work our ends, complete our schemes,
Most mine, when most he Honour's seems;
Nor can be found, at home, abroad,

455

460

So firm and full a slave of Fraud."

She said, and from each envious son

A discontented murmur run

Around the table; all in place

Thought his full praise their own disgrace,
Wondering what stranger she had got,
Who had one vice that they had not;
When straight the portals open flew,
And, clad in armour, to their view
Martin, the Duellist, came forth;
All knew, and all confess'd his worth;
All justified, with smiles array'd,
The happy choice their dam had made.

465

470

474

SUPPLEMENTAL NOTE.

Taken by churchill in the conduct of the North Briton,

HE share, if not of composition, at all events of revision,

and the historical celebrity attaching to No. XLV. (April 23, 1763) of that periodical, by the parliamentary censure and legal visitations it incurred, and the great constitutional question arising out of it, of the illegality of general warrants, confer an enduring interest on the publication, which will prove our apology for giving at length that once popular number.

The arrest and imprisonment of Wilkes and the printers, and the seizure of the manuscript in their possession, so disturbed the publication as to occasion its discontinuance with its next number only, which followed, at the long interval of upwards of six months, on Nov. 12, 1763.

A new series, commencing with No. XLVII. was, after a period of five years, attempted by some of the subordinate associates of Wilkes in a very inferior style of composition, but in an equally offensive tone of scurrility and abuse: it languished for nearly a twelvemonth, and expired with its hundredth number, April 10, 1769.

It is not easy now to credit the extraordinary popularity which the early numbers of the North Briton acquired and which in a particular manner attached to No. XLV.; a designation which was adopted by patriotic tradesmen to lure equally patriotic customers to the purchase of various kinds of merchandize distinguished by that all-availing number, and, until within a recent period, the favourite article of a snuff shop in Fleet Street was extracted from a canister marked 45, and the mixture known by no other name.

On the other hand, so obnoxious were these numerals to royalty itself, as well as its retainers, that the young Prince of Wales, in 1772, thought he could not exhibit his resentment for some privation or chastisement he had undergone more provokingly towards his Royal father than by roaring out repeatedly," Wilkes and No. XLV. for ever!"

THE NORTH BRITON.

NO. XLV.* SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 1763.

The following Advertisement appeared in all the Papers on the 13th of April.

THE North Briton makes his appeal to the good sense and to the candour of the English nation. In the present unsettled and fluctuating state of the administration, he is really fearful of falling into involuntary errors, and he does not wish to mislead. All his reasonings have been built on the strong foundation of facts; and he is not yet informed of the whole interior state of government with such minute precision as now to venture the submitting his crude ideas of the present political crisis to the discerning and impartial public. The Scottish minister has, indeed, retired. Is his influence at an end? or does he still govern by the three wretched tools of his power, who, to their indelible infamy, have supported the most odious of his measures, the late ignominious peace, and the wicked extension of the arbitrary mode of excise? The North Briton has been steady in his opposition to a single, insolent, incapable, despotic minister; and is equally ready, in the service of his country, to combat the tripleheaded, Cerberean administration, if the Scot is to assume that motley form. By him every arrangement to this hour has been made, and the notification has been as regularly sent by letter under his hand. It therefore seems clear to a demonstration that he intends only to retire into that situation which he held before he first took the seals; I mean the dictating to every part of the king's administration. The North Briton desires to be understood as having pledged himself a firm and intrepid assertor of the rights of his fellow subjects, and of the liberties of Whigs and Englishmen.

The passages included within the inverted commas are the only passages to which any objection is made in the information filed in the King's Bench by the attorney-general against the publisher, Mr. George Kearsly.

The Earls of Egremont and Halifax, and G. Grenville, Esq.

Genus orationis atrox, et vehemens, cui opponitur lenitatis et mansuetudinis. CICERO.

"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 Sove

Anno 14 George II. 1740. Duke of Argyle: The king's speech is always in this house considered as the speech of the ministers.-Lords' Debates, vol. vii. p. 413.

Lord Carteret: When we take his majesty's speech into consideration, though we have heard it from his own mouth, yet we do not consider it as his majesty's speech, but as the speech of his ministers, p. 425.

7 George II. 1733. Mr. Shippen: I believe it has always been granted that the speeches from the throne are the compositions of ministers of state; upon that supposition we have always thought ourselves at liberty to examine every proposition contained in them; even without doors people are pretty free in their remarks upon them. I believe no gentleman here is ignorant of the reception the speech from the throne, at the close of last session, met with from the nation in general.-Commons' Debates, vol. viii. P. 5.

13 George II. 1739. Mr. Pulteney, now Earl of Bath: His majesty mentions heats and animosities. Sir, I don't know who drew up this speech; but whoever he was, he should have spared that expression. I wish he had drawn a veil over the heats and animosities that must be owned once subsisted upon this head, for I am sure none now subsist. Vol. ii. p. 96.

reign 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." I am sure all foreigners, especially the King of Prussia, will hold the minister in contempt and abhorrence. He has made our sovereign declare, My expectations have been fully answered by the happy effects which the several allies of my crown have derived from this salutary measure of the Definitive Treaty. The powers at war with my good brother the King of Prussia have been induced to agree to such terms of accommodation as that great prince has approved; and the success which has attended my negociation has necessarily and im

* The House of Commons in 1715 exhibited articles of impeachment of high treason and other high crimes and misdemeanors against Robert, Earl of Oxford and Mortimer. Article 15 is for having corrupted the sacred fountain of truth, and put falsehoods into the mouth of majesty, in several speeches made to parliament.-Vide vol. iii. and Journals of the House of Commons, vol. xviii. p. 214.