| Citation |
PC.768.078
6-13 Jun 1768:1581, 1582 (74)
Extract of a letter from a merchant in London, dated April
16, 1768. Since my last nothing has been talked or thought
of here but elections. There have been amazing contests all
over the Kingdom; L.20, or 30, 000 of a side expended in
several places, and inconceivable mischief done, by
debauching the people, and making them idle, besides the
immediate actual mischief done by drunken mad mobs to
houses, windows, &c. The scenes have been horrible! --Would
you believe it? --London was illuminated two nights running,
at the command of the mob, for the success of Mr. Wilkes in
the Middlesex election! The second night exceeding any thing
of the King ever seen here on the greatest occasion of
rejoicing; as even the small cross streets, lanes, courts,
and other out of the way places were all in a blaze with
lights; and the principal streets all night long, as the mob
went round again after two o'clock, and obliged people who
has extinguished their candles to light them again. Those
who refused had all their windows destroyed. The damage
gone, and expence of candles, has been computed at L. 50,
000. It must have been great, though probably not so much--
The ferment is not yet over; for he has promised to
surrender himself to the court next Wednesday, and another
tumult is expected; and what the upshot will be, no one can
yet foresee. --'Tis really an extraordinary event to see an
out-law and exile, of bad personal character, not worth a
farthing, come over from France, set himself up as candidate
for the Capital of the Kingdom, miss his election only by
being too late in his application, and immediately carrying
it for the principal county. The mob (spirited up by
numbers of different ballads sung and roared in every
street) requiring gentlemen and ladies of all ranks as they
passed in their coaches, to shout for Wilkes and Liberty;
marking the same words on all their coaches with chalk, and
No. 45 on every door, which extends a vast way along the
roads into the country. I went last week to Winchester, and
observed, that for fifteen miles out of town, there was
scarce a door or window shutter next the door unmarked; and
this continued here and there quite to Winchester, which is
sixty-four miles.
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