desperate, and looked out for some opportunity of giving effect to his
discontent. He found it in the dissolution of Parliament, which took
place in the spring of 1768. In spite of his outlawry, he instantly
returned to England, and offered himself as a candidate for London.
There, indeed, he did not succeed, though the populace was uproarious in
his support, and drew his carriage through the streets as if in triumph.
But, before the end of the month, he was returned at the head of the
poll for Middlesex, when the mob celebrated his victory by great riot
and outrages, breaking the windows of Lord Bute, as his old enemy, and
of the Lord Mayor, as the representative of the City of London, which
had rejected him, and insulting, and even in some instances beating,
passers-by who refused to join in their cheers for "Wilkes and Liberty."

He had already pledged himself to take the necessary steps to procure
the reversal of his outlawry; and, in pursuance of his promise, he
surrendered in the Court of King's Bench. But his removal to prison
caused a renewal of the tumults with greater violence than before. The
mob even rescued him from the officers who had him in custody; and when,
having escaped from his deliverers, he, with a parade of obedience to
the law, again surrendered himself voluntarily at the gate of the King's
Bench Prison, they threatened to attack the jail itself, kindled a fire
under its walls, which was not extinguished without some danger, and day
after day assembled in such tumultuous and menacing crowds, that at last
Lord Weymouth, the Secretary of State, wrote a letter to the Surrey
magistrates, enjoining them to abstain from no measures which might seem
necessary for the preservation of peace, even if that could only be
effected by the employment of the soldiery. The riots grew more and more
formidable, till at last the magistrates had no resource but to call out
the troops, who, on one occasion, after they had been pelted with large
stones, and in many instances severely injured, fired, killing or