A partial repeal, he added, will not do: the Americans would not rest
satisfied with any thing short of the renunciation by parliament of the
right to tax them in any way, either externally or internally. In this
General Pownall coincided, and he proposed as an amendment, that the
repeal should be extended to all articles, as the only way of quieting
the colonies. This amendment was supported by General Conway, Colonel
Barre, and Sir William Meredith, but it was rejected, and leave was
given to bring in North's bill. A subsequent motion to repeal the duty
on tea was also lost, and the act passed according to North's first
proposal.
RELEASE OF WILKES.
On the 12th of April, the term of Wilkes's imprisonment having expired,
he was set at liberty. He was no sooner freed from confinement than
he recommenced his system of agitation. Everywhere he harangued on
his sufferings, and declared that he was ready to die in the cause of
liberty. He was considered a martyr by the populace, and in both houses
he had his friends. On the 1st of May, the Earl of Chatham, after
arranging his plan of attack with Temple, Rockingham, Shelburn,
and others, stood up in the house of lords and presented a bill for
reversing the adjudications of the house of commons, whereby John
Wilkes, Esq. had been adjudged incapable of being elected a member to
serve in this present parliament, and the freeholders of the county of
Middlesex, had been deprived of one of their legal representatives.
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