The New Hampshire Gazette And Historical Chronicle

To the Gentlemen, Clergy, and Freeholders of the County of Middlesex.

GENTLEMEN,

Obey the strong impulse of a lively Gratitude, when I thus employ the first Moments of my Liberty to thank you for the many Favours you have conferred on me during a long, cruel, and unmerited Imprisonment. My Sufferings the two last Years were endeared to me, as well as rendered truly honorable, by the Support and Protection of the Friends of Freedom. The Trial was, indeed, long and severe, but the most happy Consequences have followed.

The favourable Opinion you were pleased at first to entertain of my Integrity and Fortitude, has been confirmed on a variety of occasions, and I have experienced as frequent proofs of your unwearied zeal for your Country, and steady regard to me. I will go on with the same spirit in the cause of a brave and free people. To their service, to the defence of the law, and to the preservation of the religious and civil Liberties of the whole British empire, the remainder of my life shall be dedicated. I rely solely and entirely on your protection, and I will form no connection which may in the smallest degree, warp me from my duty to you, either as the dependant of a Minister, or even as the servant of the Crown; for I think a Representative of the people ought to be perfectly free and unbiased, in order more effectually to keep every minister in awe, and to oppose every encroachment of the prerogative, against which the House of Commons was established as a firm barrier. I will therefore know no influence in Parliament but that created by the constitution, that of the constituents over their Representatives, and I do not mean to acknowledge any other constituents than those patriotic friends, by whose favor I am the legal Member for the County of Middlesex.

I reflect, Gentlemen, with great satisfaction, that the many tedious months of my harsh confinement were not uselessly employed in the common cause of public Freedom. I have enjoyed in prison the fruits of my long labors, the glory of destroying that dreaded Engine of arbitrary power, so cruelly employed of late, and so often fatal to our countrymen, a General Warrant. After every delay of privilege and chicane from May 1763, an upright jury in last Nov. declared a Secretary of State guilty. No punishment, however, has reached that first and great Offender. The treasury paid the fine, and the whole expence of the prosecution, & he has been even rewarded with the custody of the Privy Seal. The very superior abilities of my worthy colleague, Mr. Serjeant Glynn, were exerted through the whole of this important cause. To his indefatigable zeal, and love of legal Liberty, every subject of this empire owes the most essential obligations. I have taken care that all the proceedings of this great struggle of the people against the usurped power of ministers, shall be entered in the proper court, and I hope the Record will remain unaltered to our latest posterity, as a compleat Triumph of LIBERTY over Despotism.

I feel with indignant sorrow that I have not been equally successful in another national concern which I had at heart, I mean a strict parliamentary enquiry into the horrid Massacre of our countrymen in St. George's Fields, on the fatal 10th day of May, 1768. I gave to the public all the original papers respecting that wicked shedding of innocent blood, by which the land is defiled, and I offered to bring the evidence to the bar of the House of Commons.

The only hope which now remains to us, is, that the virtue of a future parliament, faithful to the trust reposed in them by the people, will soon pursue the murderers, that justice will at length overtake them, and that the most shocking of all crimes will not be left unpunished. The horror of the Action is still fresh in the mind of every man of humanity, and I hold it to be the greatest reproach of our age and nation, that so many of our fellow-subjects have been basely murdered by an inhuman soldiery in St. George's fields, and other hired ruffians at Brentford, without a single victim to the public justice of our country, to the future security of our lives, or the violated laws of God and man.

The state of this country, Gentlemen, is truly alarming. The House of Commons have not only rejected a Member chosen by a majority of Freeholders, but likewise obtruded upon you a Person whom you never elected. They have openly assumed the whole legislative power. By their vote they have declared an incapacity, where the law of the land and common right rendered the party eligible to Parliament. This proceeding is a direct attack both on the form and essence of the constitution, a flagrant violation of the fundamental privileges of Englishmen, and a robbery committed upon every elector of the kingdom, even in the most invaluable of his possessions, the right of representation in the House of Commons. You have petitioned, you have remonstrated, in the spirit of the true Sons of Liberty, but in vain. The reason is most manifest. The measure of my expulsion & incapacity was previously settled in the Cabinet, & only brought to Parliament by the Minister in order to go through the common forms, as other business in the usual course of the session. The nation, however, are not the dupes of this artifice, & they regard the present House of Commons as no longer a just & fair representative of the collective body of all the electors of this united kingdom, and therefore they do not hold that the power and authority of a legal House of Parliament is inherent in the Assembly now sitting at Westminster.

I am happy, Gentlemen, to leave a baneful prison without the least spark of anger or resentment against the authors of all my sufferings. I have no malice nor revenge to gratify. I feel no passion but that of gratitude to my friends, and my only enemies shall be those of my country, those who still manifest a rooted, unrelenting malice against the liberties of this kingdom, and who endeavour to entail slavery on us and our posterity. If my persecutions are not ended. I will continue to bear up as a man, firm and determined in the best of causes, nor for your sakes will I scruple to dare all the vengeance of those wretched Ministers, who are now the rulers over us, but possess neither the confidence, nor esteem of the people. If his Majesty be graciously pleased to listen to the cries of a loyal, but injured nation, and to remove a most corrupt and despotic Administration who are every day basely and desperately stabbing the very vitals of the constitution, I shall then hope to live among you in the enjoyment of the first blessing and most sovereign good, Liberty, both personal and political, and when I can no longer be useful to my country, to die happy in the applause of the friends to freedom and of England.

I am, with deference and regard, Gentlemen,

Your faithful and obedient humble Servant,

April 18th, 1770.

JOHN WILKES.

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