_WILKES IS RETURNED M.P. FOR MIDDLESEX--RIOTS IN LONDON--VIOLENCE OF
THE MOB._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _Thursday, March_ 31, 1768.

I have received your letter, with the extract of that from Mr.
Mackenzie. I do not think any honours will be bestowed yet. The Peerages
are all postponed to an indefinite time. If you are in a violent hurry,
you may petition the ghosts of your neighbours--Masaniello and the
Gracchi. The spirit of one of them walks here; nay, I saw it go by my
window yesterday, at noon, in a hackney chair.

_Friday._

I was interrupted yesterday. The ghost is laid for a time in a red sea
of port and claret. The spectre is the famous Wilkes. He appeared the
moment the Parliament was dissolved. The Ministry despise him. He stood
for the City of London, and was the last on the poll of seven
candidates, none but the mob, and most of them without votes, favouring
him. He then offered himself to the county of Middlesex. The election
came on last Monday. By five in the morning a very large body of
Weavers, &c., took possession of Piccadilly, and the roads and turnpikes
leading to Brentford, and would suffer nobody to pass without blue
cockades, and papers inscribed "_No. 45, Wilkes and Liberty_." They tore
to pieces the coaches of Sir W. Beauchamp Proctor, and Mr. Cooke, the
other candidates, though the latter was not there, but in bed with the