USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Wilkes-Barre > A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania : from its first beginnings to the present time, including chapters of newly-discovered early Wyoming Valley history, together with many biographical sketches and much genealogical material. Volume I > Part 89
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CHAPTER IX.
THE RIGHT HON. JOHN WILKES, PATRIOT, STATESMAN, AND A FRIEND TO LIBERTY.
"Sure, WILKES' character is hard to know, Or whether he is Britain's friend or foe. How can we judge him either good or evil, Since one a patriot calls him, one a devil ! And yet, while this bedaubs and that belabors, WILKES shares of vice and virtue with his neighbors." -From "Liberty is the Pillar that Supports the Glory of Man" (1801).
"Says JOHN WILKES to a lady-'Pray name, if you can, Of all your acquaintance the handsomest man.' The lady replied-'If you'd have me speak true, He's the handsomest man who's the most unlike you.'" -The Wilkesbarre Gazette (1798).
A well-known English writer, in "an anniversary study" of John Wilkes made some seven years ago, said : "Mankind has always wondered, and will no doubt continue to wonder, without much profit, at the apparent unworthiness of the instruments which are selected to achieve great ends ; and the supposed lack of high qualities appropriate to the part in history he was called upon to play has always been the feature dwelt upon in considering the career of the senior partner in the firm of 'Wilkes & Liberty,' who admitted that he at least was never a Wilkesite, but did more for the success of the joint business than if he had been."
"We write the biographies of nobody, and celebrate the centenaries of nothing"; but John Wilkes, in spite of his moral reputation, stands for a good deal more than nothing in the constitutional history of Eng- land. He was not, as King William IV said of a well-known naval officer, when proposing his health, "sprung from the dregs of the people." His father, Israel Wilkes, was a malt-distiller of Clerkenwell, London, who throve by his distillery and lived in the style of a city magnate, keeping his coach-and-six. He was hospitable and fond of the society of men of letters and culture, and, though a Churchman, tolerant of dissent in his wife. He was a grandson of Edward Wilkes of Leigh- ton Buzzard in Bedfordshire (of the time of Charles I), who had four children oddly named Matthew, Mark, Luke and Joane.
Luke Wilkes, abovementioned, was Chief Yeoman of the Wardrobe to King Charles II, and his son Israel-previously mentioned-was born in 1695 and about 1720 was married to Sarah, daughter of John Heaton
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of Hoxton, London. Through his wife Israel Wilkes came into posses- sion of Hoxton Square. Israel Wilkes (who died in London January 31, 1761) was the father of four children-two sons and two daughters. Israel Wilkes, the eldest son, was placed as a partner in the business house of a Mr. De Ponthieu, and ultimately was married to the latter's daughter Elizabeth. The business of De Ponthieu and Wilkes not prospering, the latter removed to America with his family shortly after the Revolutionary War, and settled in the city of New York, where he died November 25, 1805. About that time, or earlier, his son, Charles Wilkes, became a cashier in the New York branch of the United States Bank. The latter's son, Charles Wilkes, Jr., born at New York in 1801, became noted as an American admiral, explorer and scientist. He entered the United States Navy in 1818; became Lieutenant in 1826, and com- manded in 1838-'42 an exploring expedition which visited South Amer- ica, the Hawaiian Islands and other little-known regions. Of this expe- dition Lieutenant Wilkes wrote a six-volume "Narrative." In 1855 he was promoted Captain in the Navy, and in November, 1861-in the early days of the Civil War-being in command of the U. S. S. San Jacinto, he intercepted the British steamer Trent on the high-seas and took off as prisoners the Confederate Commissioners Mason and Slidell. In 1862 Captain Wilkes was promoted Commodore, and in 1866 Admiral. Besides the "Narrative" previously mentioned he was the author of "Theory of the Winds" and other works. He died at Washington, District of Columbia, February 8, 1877. The elder sister of Admiral Charles Wilkes became the second wife of Lord Francis Jeffrey (born 1773 ; died 1850), the noted Scottish critic, essayist and jurist, who spent six months in the United States in 1813.
Heaton Wilkes, the youngest son of Israel and Sarah (Heaton) Wilkes, succeeded to his father's distillery business, but mismanaged it and died December 19, 1803, impoverished and without issue. The daughters of Israel and Sarah Wilkes seem to have had a tinge of oddity, or of something worse. Sarah Wilkes, the elder of the two, was an eccentric recluse-the prototype, indeed, of Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations." She lived for many years in Bloomsbury, London, secluded from the world. She had apartments up two flights of stairs, with thick blinds before the windows to exclude the day-light; and she kept either lamps or candles burning in her rooms continually. She died unmarried.
Mary Wilkes, the second daughter, was the most singular of the Wilkes family, and exhibited a remarkable career of combined adventure and eccentricity. She was thrice married, her first husband being an opulent merchant, Samuel Stork, who, on his death, was succeeded in business by his head clerk Hayley-afterwards a city Alderman-whose fortune was made by marrying the widow Stork. She was exceedingly well informed and had unusual conversational talents, and she sought with avidity the society of men who were distinguished in the world by their talents and their writings. She had a contemptuous opinion of her own sex, which she took no pains to conceal. Her disregard of propriety was conspicuously manifested on many occasions. She in- variably attended all the more remarkable criminal trials at the Old Bailey, where she regularly had a certain place reserved for her. When the testimony of witnesses or the arguments of counsel became such that
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decorum, and even the judges themselves, called for the withdrawal of all women from the court-room, she never stirred from her place, but persisted in remaining to hear the whole case, with the most unmoved and unblushing earnestness of attention.
Some years after the close of the Revolutionary War, her husband being dead, Mrs. Hayley made a voyage to this country with her most intimate counselor, confidant and friend, a certain American, to look after some of her business affairs here. Shortly thereafter the gentle- man was summoned to return to England on important business. He and Mrs. Hayley were expecting to be married, but he responded to the business summons, intending to come back to America after only a short absence. Within a week following his departure, however, Mrs. Hayley was married to a young man named Jeffrey, who, in the temporary absence of Mrs. Hayley's confidant and fiancé, was looking after her affairs. But, after a very short honeymoon, Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey arrived at the conclusion that a mutual separation was expedient. Mrs. Jeffrey took an early opportunity to recross the Atlantic, and after a short resi- dence in London removed to Bath, where she spent her remaining years.
JOHN WILKES, the second son of Israel and Sarah (Heaton) Wilkes, was born in St. John's Square, Clerkenwell, London, October 17, 1727. Without wasting his time-like some other young men of his period- amid the "prejudice and port" of Oxford University, he went to Leiden in the Netherlands, where he entered the University in September, 1744. Among his friends and contemporaries at that then famous and much-frequented seat of learning were Alexander Carlyle, William Dowdeswell and Charles Townshend (the last two subsequently Chancel- ors of the British Exchequer); but his especial friends during his resi- dence at Leiden were Andrew Baxter (a noted Scottish metaphysician, then at Utrecht, some thirty miles from Leiden) and Baron d'Holbach.
Wilkes acquired at Leiden a useful working knowledge of Latin, and the capacity to converse with elegance and freedom in the French tongue ; and he also seems to have picked up more than a bowing acquaintance with Greek. Even then he was a pushing, enterprising fellow, amusing, and excellent company, and eagerly desirous of making a mark in the world, and disposed to adopt extravagant profligacy as the easiest and most agreeable method of doing it. He was afflicted with a tutor whose views were not those of Wilkes. He was a Dissenting minister of Unitarian proclivities, who passionately desired to convert his brilliant pupil to his way of thinking, and so worried Wilkes that, from conviction or expediency, the latter expressed his entire disbelief in the Scriptures-which led to a rupture between the old man and the youth. After finishing his course at Leiden Wilkes spent some time in travel in the Rhine-lands, and then returned home, having been abroad less than two years.
In October, 1748, just before his twenty-first birth-day, Wilkes was married, in deference to his father's wishes, to a woman ten years his senior. She was Miss Mary Mead, daughter of a Mrs. Mead of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, widow of John Mead, a dry-salter who had carried on business on London Bridge and had made money. Mrs. Mead was the daughter of a gentleman named Sherbrooke, a resident of Buckinghamshire and a man of considerable property. All Mrs. Mead's brothers and sisters dying this property became hers, and her daughter
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Mary was an heiress. The Meads were strict Dissenters, in an age when it meant something more than a reputation for greater austerity than other folks; and a more incongruous match than that into which John Wilkes entered has seldom been known. It combined the disadvantages which flow from marriage at an immature age, and those which are usually supposed to result from an alliance founded on business prin- ciples. The lady was well off, but possessed no other recommendation in the eyes of her husband, for she liked to retain and hoard her money, while he was anxious to spend it. "It was a sacrifice to Plutus, not to Venus; I stumbled at the very threshold of the temple of Hymen"- wrote Wilkes thirty years later.
This marriage placed Wilkes in possession of an estate at Aylesbury worth £700 a year ; while his wife had a handsome jointure and greater expectations. But in the course of a short time Wilkes found life at Aylesbury distasteful, whereupon he took a handsome house in Great George Street, Westminster, London. There a variety of company and splendid dinners almost every day required an expensive establishment. But, what was infinitely worse, was the introduction by Wilkes into his house of a number of juvenile bacchanalians of audacious manners and vulgar language. There is nothing to commend in Wilkes' choice of associates at that time. The leading spirits of the vicious band were Lord Sandwich, later First Lord of the Admiralty, and the most notor- ious of debauchees (if Wilkes was bad, there can be no doubt that Sand- wich was a hundred times worse); Sir Francis Dashwood, afterwards Chancelor of the Exchequer, and later Lord Le Despencer; Thomas Pot- ter, son of the then Archbishop of Canterbury, a barrister-at-law and, although a depraved sensualist, the intimate friend of the Hon. William Pitt, later the Earl of Chatham; Lord Orford; Paul Whitehead and John Hall Stevenson.
Not content with the ordinary indulgences of depraved tastes these associates and others founded the well-known companionship of the "Medmenham Monks," or "The Franciscan Club," a profane and profli- gate confraternity which had its headquarters in an old Cistercian abbey at Medmenham on the Thames, in Buckinghamshire. Sir Francis Dash- wood had purchased this abbey and converted it into a temple to a name- less pagan deity. Over the grand entrance was a copy of the famous inscription on Rabelais' Abbey of Thelème-"Fay ce que voudras." The inscriptions, pictures and sculptures in and about this building were certainly prurient enough (unless the "Monks" were very much belied) to warrant all the gossip of the times-which surely were the strangest times through which the Anglo-Saxon people ever passed. One of the pictures in the "abbey" portrayed Sir Francis Dashwood (the head of the Order) in the habit of a Franciscan friar, kneeling before a nude Venus and holding a goblet in his hand. These "Monks of Thelème"-as they were sometimes called-were twelve in number, and they practised what the gossip of the day alleged to be a blasphemous burlesque upon the monastic system and the rites of the Church of Rome. The "abbey" was fitted up with cells, and the "Monks," assum- ing the habit of the Order of St. Francis, performed with grave mockery the ceremonies and observances of the conventual service. It is needless to describe the quality of the nuns who were admitted to a participation in those services, nor of the choruses which were chanted, nor of the
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images which represented the Virgin and the Saints. "The Franciscan Club" was for some time the wonder and the scandal of London; and it is said that none of the "Monks" surrendered himself to the orgies of the confraternity with more of the true Rabelaisian abandon than Wilkes, although he despised their puerile mummeries. Many of the prime carouses of the band were held at Wilkes' house in Great George Street.
In April, 1749, Wilkes was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1754 he served in the office of High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire, and in. April of that year contested the Parliamentary representation of Berwick-on-Tweed, spending £4,000 over it. The Delaval family swayed that borough, and engaged a vessel to bring some of their sup- porters from London; but Wilkes bribed the Captain to steer for the coast of Norway, where, in time, he duly landed the free and independ- ent electors. Wilkes, however, lost the election, and had the audacity to present a petition against his opponent's return. Young Delaval, who had been returned, on being thus attacked made a speech which was full of wit, humor and buffoonery, and kept the House in a continued roar of laughter. "Mr. Pitt came down from the gallery and took up the matter in his highest tone of dignity. He was astonished when he heard what had been the occasion of their mirth. Was the dignity of the House of Commons on so sure foundations that they might venture themselves to shake it ?"
In politics as in vice Wilkes was thorough. He was clever, im- pudent, agreeable, and possessed influential friends ; and when we con- sider his career as a whole it would seem that his early excesses were rather the result of a desire for notoriety than of pure viciousness. This is no excuse for him, but it affords an explanation of his conduct as a young man, for during the rest of his life he was certainly no worse than most of his contemporaries in society.
Wilkes' habits were far from giving pleasure to his wife and her mother, and they soon saw that Mrs. Wilkes' fortune could not hold out for long against the inroads made upon it, especially if her husband was determined to adopt a political career for which, indeed, he possessed almost every qualification. In consequence, about 1756 or 1757, a separation between Wilkes and his wife was arranged by mutual con- sent. Wilkes retained the Aylesbury estate and the custody of his only legitimate child, Mary, who was born August 5, 1750. Wilkes and his wife never lived together again, and she died in 1784.
In July, 1757, by an arrangement with Pitt and Potter, Wilkes succeeded the latter as Member of Parliament from Aylesbury. Wilkes' share of the expenses of the canvass amounted to about £7,000. By further judicious outlay he secured his seat at the general election held in March, 1761. In the meantime he had become Lieutenant Colonel of the Bucks regiment of inilitia, of which Sir Francis Dashwood was Colonel. Wilkes entered Parliament a loyal supporter of Pitt. With the latter's brother-in-law, Lord Temple,* he was closely associated in
* RICHARD GRENVILLE, Earl TEMPLE, was born September 26, 1711. In 1734 he was chosen, through the influence of his uncle Lord Cobham, to represent in Parliament the borough of Buckingham, and in subsequent Parliaments he sat as one of the Knights of the Shire of the county of Buckingham. He suc- ceeded to the Earldom of Temple in October, 1752, and inherited the large estates of Stowe and Wotton. Lord Temple became First Lord of the Admiralty in the administration formed by Mr. Pitt in Novem- ber, 1756, and in June, 1757, was made Lord Privy Seal. In 1758 he was constituted Lord Lieutenant of the county of Bucks, and in February, 1760, was made a Knight of the Garter. At the accession of George III (October 25, 1760) he continued to be Lord Privy Seal until Mr. Pitt went out of office in October, 1761, upon the question of war with Spain, when he also resigned ; and at that period began the unhappy
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the organization of the Bucks militia, and through the influence of Pitt and Lord Temple Wilkes hoped to obtain either the embassy at Constan- tinople or the Governorship of Quebec. He was disappointed, however, and attributed his want of success partly to Pitt's indifference, but much more to the malign influence of Lord Bute .* He seriously disapproved of Bute's foreign policy, and also of his system of government; but mortification probably added vigor and venom to the attacks with which, in the violent pamphlet warfare into which he immediately plunged, he harassed the favorites of the King.
Wilkes began with a pamphlet published in March, 1762, which caught the public ear and damaged the Government. He followed up his advantage in The Monitor in May and June, and was answered in The Briton by its editor, Dr. Tobias Smollett .; About that time Wilkes was enabled to make amends to Dr. Samuel Johnson for a piece of super- cilious criticism, for which the Doctor had a grudge against him. It seems that in the "Grammar" prefixed to the first edition (1755) of his "Dictionary" Johnson had stated concerning the letter "H" this strange dictum : "It seldom, perhaps never, begins any but the first syllable." Whereon Wilkes gave in the Public Advertiser several examples of the contrary, and then closed with this comment: "The author of this observation must be a man of quick appre-hension and of a most com- pre-hensive genius." Though Johnson took no notice of the sneer, it rankled. But a few years later, after Wilkes had made amends to the Doctor, and the two were brought together through Boswell's interven- tion, Johnson, although he detested Wilkes' principles, was charmed with his wit, and said: "Jack has a great variety of talk, Jack is a scholar and Jack has the manners of a gentleman."
In the Spring of 1762, in connection with Charles Churchill (the "poor poet and poorer divine," who, from 1760 to 1764, was a prominent figure in London) Wilkes founded The North Briton, the first number of which appeared on the 5th of June. Just about that time Wilkes became Colonel of the Bucks regiment, succeeding Sir Francis Dash- wood, who, upon his elevation to the peerage as Lord Le Despencer, had resigned the command of the regiment.
Wilkes established The North Briton in order that, through its columns, he might answer the Government hacks, and so effectually did
estrangement from his brother, George Grenville (mentioned on page 532 and in the notes on page 441, ante), who remained in office as Treasurer of the Navy, and adhered to the policy and influence of Lord Bute. Lord Temple now became one of the most active and zealous leaders of opposition to the administra- tion of Lord Bute, and, in consequence of his open encouragement and patronage of John Wilkes, he was dismissed from his office of Lord Lieutenant of Bucks in May, 1763, and was succeeded by that model (?) nobleman, Lord Le Despencer-previously mentioned-the decorations of whose country-house were so indelicate as to shock Wilkes himself. Lord Temple became reconciled with his brother George in May, 1765, and in regard to the taxation of America-the Stamp Act, etc .- he invariably supported the policy of his brother. Lord Temple died September 11, 1779.
* JOHN STUART, third Earl of BUTE, was born in 1713. In 1760, at the time of the accession of George III, Bute was, and had been for several years, an officer of the young Prince's household. In March, 1761, he was appointed by the King one of the Principal Secretaries of State, and May 29, 1762, he became Prime Minister. His Government is memorable only as one of the most unpopular that ever held office in Great Britain, its fundamental principle being the supremacy of the royal prerogative. Bute was not only incapable, but, worse than that, was deemed, by the popular verdict, unfit to be Prime Minister be- cause (1) he was a Scot, (2) he was the King's friend and (3) he was a dishonest man. The disgraceful intrigue which placed Bute in power half sacrificed the conquests of the Seven Year's War, and com- menced the long struggle between the King and the Opposition. The fact that Bute was a Scot, and that he had overthrown by underhand means Pitt, the popular idol, was the most tangible charge against him. Just then Scots were very unpopular in London.
Bute resigned his office of Prime Minister April 8, 1763. For the next few years he retained his in- fluence over the King, but thereafter his life was spent in retirement. He died March 10, 1792.
+ SMOLLETT, some six years older than Wilkes, was a native of Scotland. From 1744 to 1767 he lived in England and on the Continent, devoting himself to novel, historical and miscellaneous writing. In addition to editing The Briton he was the editor for awhile of The Critical Review. He was the author of "The Adventures of Roderick Random," "The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle," "The Adventures of Count Fathom," and a number of other works.
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he catch the public taste that he made the Government a laughing stock. Nor did he disdain to fly at lower game. He lampooned William Hogarth, the noted painter and etcher, he satirized his quondam friend Dashwood and quizzed Lord Talbot, the Steward of the royal house- hold. Early in October, 1762, Wilkes was with his regiment in camp on Bagshot Heath near Winchester. Lord Talbot was also there. Col. Norborne Berkeley (afterwards Lord Botetourt, and Governor of Vir- ginia in 1768-'70), writing from Bagshot Heath to Earl Temple under date of October 7, 1762, said* :
"Lord Talbot having questioned Colonel Wilkes upon the subject of The North Briton in which he was mentioned, and received for answer that his Lordship had no right to question him, and that he would not tell him whether he did or no, Colonel Wilkes was desired by me to meet Lord Talbot Tuesday evening [October 5th], and met him accordingly. Before they walked out the inclosedt was given to me to deliver to your Lordship in case Mr. Wilkes fell. The matter between them was decided by pistols to both their satisfactions, and without hurt to either. When we returned I offered to give back Colonel Wilkes' letter, but was desired to inclose it to your Lordship as a proof of the regard and affection he bore you at a minute which might have been very near his last."
Wilkes subsequently wrote a full account of this affair, saying among other things :
"I found Lord Talbot in an agony of passion. He said that I had injured, that I had insulted him, that he was not used to be injured or insulted. What did I mean ? Did I or did I not write The North Briton ? He would know ; he insisted on a direct answer ; here were his pistols. I replied that he would soon use them, that I desired to know by what right his Lordship catechised me about a paper which did not bear my name. His Lordship insisted on finishing the affair immediately. I told him that I should very soon be ready, that I did not mean to quit him, but would absolutely first settle some important business. After the waiter had brought pen, ink and paper I proposed that the door of the room might be locked, and not opened until our business was decided. Lord Talbot, on this proposition, became quite outrageous, declared that this was mere butchery, and that I was a wretch who sought his life. I reminded him that I came here on a point of honour, to give his Lordship satisfaction, and that I men- tioned the circumstance of locking the door only to prevent all possibility of interruption. He then said he admired me exceedingly-really loved me-but I was an unaccountable animal ! But would I kill him, who had never offended me? He soon after flamed out again, and said to me : 'You are a murderer ; you want to kill me. But I am sure that I shall kill you. If you will fight-if you kill me-I hope you will be hanged ! I know you will !' I asked if I was first to be killed and afterwards hanged ; that I knew his Lordship fought me with the King's pardon in his pocket, and I fought him with a halter about my neck.
"When I had sealed my letter I told Lord Talbot that I was entirely at his service, and I again desired that we might decide the affair in the room, because there could not be a possibility of interruption ; but he was quite inexorable. He then asked me how many times we should fire. I said that I left it to his choice ; I had brought a flask of powder and a bag of bullets. Our seconds then charged the pistols which my Lord had brought. We then left the inn and walked to a garden at some distance from the house. It was near seven, and the moon shone very bright. We stood about eight yards distant, and agreed not to turn round before we fired, but to continue facing each other. Harris gave the word. Both our fires were in very exact time, but neither took effect. I walked up immediately to Lord Talbot and told him that now I avowed the paper. His Lord- ship paid me the highest encomiums on my courage, and said he would declare every- where that I was the noblest fellow God had ever made !"
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