self-congratulation, as having been effected "upon conditions honorable
to the crown and beneficial to the people." Wilkes at once caught at
this panegyric, as affording him just such an opportunity as he had been
seeking of renewing his attacks on the government, which he regarded as
changed in nothing but the name of the Prime-minister.[4] And, four days
after the prorogation,[5] he accordingly issued a new number of _The
North Briton_ (No. 45), in which he heaped unmeasured sarcasm and
invective on the peace itself, on the royal speech, and on the minister
who had composed it. As if conscious that Mr. Grenville was less
inclined by temper than Lord Bute to suffer such attacks without
endeavoring to retaliate, he took especial pains to keep within the law
in his strictures, and, accordingly, carefully avoided saying a
disrespectful word of the King himself, whom he described as "a prince
of many great and amiable qualities," "ever renowned for truth, honor,
and unsullied virtue." But he claimed a right to canvass the speech
"with the utmost freedom," since "it had always been considered by the
Legislature and by the public at large as the speech of the minister."
And he kept this distinction carefully in view through the whole number.
The speech he denounced with bitter vehemence, as "an abandoned instance
of ministerial effrontery," as containing "the most unjustifiable public
declarations" and "infamous fallacies." The peace he affirmed to be
"such as had drawn down the contempt of mankind on our wretched
negotiators." And he described the present minister as a mere tool of
"the favorite," by whom "he still meditated to rule the kingdom with a
rod of iron." But in the whole number there was but one sentence which
could be represented as implying the very slightest censure on the King
himself, and even that was qualified by a personal eulogy. "The King of
England," it said, "is not only the first magistrate of the 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