The Virginia Gazette

From The GAZETTEER.
To the PRINTER.

Could a man entirely divest himself of all regard for his country, it would be matter of amusement to him to observe the different effect which the approach of Mr. Wilkes's enlargement out of prison has upon different people. The needy and the desperate, who have nothing to fear, and every thing to hope for, from a civil commotion, wait with impatience for the happy moment, and expect that he will put himself at the head of the mob, as Nicholas Rienzo (a man of the same popular talents, and enterprising ambition) did at Rome, and drive all the Nobility out of the city, establish a democratical form of government, and cause himself to be elected Tribune of the people. Others, who have made use of Mr. Wilkes merely as a puppet, and played him off occasionally, to promote their own views of interest and ambition, are afraid when they get him home that he will lose all his entertaining qualities; and prove like Punch, which an honest Irishman purchased at a puppet show for his wit and humour, a mere piece of lumber, ficilis, et inutile lignum. There are others, who are zealous and envious of his popularity, and afraid that he will make too triumphant an entry into the city, on the shoulders of the greasy rabble. Of this temper is Taycho, the very Quixote of modern politicians, who eyes him askance, with all the anxiety of a suspicious rival, engaged in the same enterprise, and devoted to the same mistress. All his speeches breathe the genuine spirit of daring, and prove what dangers and difficulties he is ready to undergo, to vindicate his claim to the churlish fair one. The other day, in a large assembly, he flung down his gauntlet; and thus, in the true language of romance, proclaimed the praises of his mistress, and his own attachment and loyalty to her:

"I Don Taycho Furpso del Pンフento am ready to maintain, against all opposers, that popularity, whom I profess myself the true and faithful Knight is the only idol worthy to be adored; for whose sake I am ready to revile the King, misinstruct the legislature, spit up the people to rebellion, and strike the dagger to the heart of my mother country. For her sake too I will encounter more perils than John Wilkes, or any other valiant Knight has hitherto done; I shall glory to have my ears nailed to the pillory, to be shut up in an enchanted castle, or to have my head severed from my body. I am—" Here his brother Gowkee pulled him down, and so put an end to a speech which filled the whole house with astonishment, merriment and indignation. Some persons thought him stark staring mad, fitter for a strait waistcoat and a dark room than the proudest assembly which he wasted with his wild, seditious, delirious nonsense. Others were of opinion that pride, passion, and poverty, had driven him to desperation; and that he was resolved to push matters to the last extremity, in hopes of repairing his shattered finances. There is undoubtedly much truth in this conjecture, and it accounts in some measure for his conduct, which must otherwise appear as absurd and preposterous as it is contemptible, base and wicked. He has no means of forcing himself into place but by raising a popular cry in his favour, which cannot be done any way so certainly as by following the direction of the Roman satirist, Fac aliquid brevibus Gyaris, vel carcere dignum.

Accordingly we hear him maintaining doctrines of the most dangerous nature to Society, and destructive of all order and government, in hopes of provoking the Ministry to send him to prison. He seems to court persecution with as much zeal as Jack in the Tale of a Tub, who ran up and down beseeching every person he met to treat him ill: "Pray, good Christians, tweak me by the nose; for God's sake, lay a comfortable thwack upon these poor shoulders." And when he had thus got himself soundly beaten, away he ran to his party, snivelling and complaining what he was forced to endure for the good of the cause.

It is impossible for the ingenuity of the Devil himself to contrive any thing more distressing to Administration than this unfair and iniquitous behaviour of Taycho. If they resent the insolence and acrimony of his language, which borders upon treason itself, and send him to the Tower, it is the very thing in the world that he wishes: He has no other way of tripping up Wilkes's heels, and outstripping him in the favour of the mob. May I add too, that he had no other chance of getting his debts paid, and of being once more in an easy and comfortable situation. On the other hand, if they take no notice of his factious and turbulent humour, it will encourage him to proceed from bad to worse; and, like a hardened malefactor, who has been unexpectedly reprieved from the gallows, he will become more eager to commit the same, and perhaps greater enormities. In short, I look upon Taycho in the same light with a desperate gambler, who has lost every shilling he was worth in the world; and with a rashness unknown to the most barbarous nations, who only eat their wives and children, he is ready to stake his very skin, and to set his head and four quarters to the bauble, if he should happen to throw out once more.

OLD SLYBOOTS.