George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 6, 10th edition.

[148] indulged once every seven years with the privilege

Chap. Xxxiii} 1768. April.

of an election, had been enticed.

The first incident in the history of this Parliament, was an unexampled interference of the Court. Wilkes represented Westminster. ‘I think it highly proper to apprise you that the expulsion of Wilkes appears to be very essential, and must be effected,’ wrote the King to Lord North,¹ who stood ready to obey the peremptory and unconstitutional mandate.

At the opening, the great question was raised,

May.

if strangers should be excluded from the debates. ‘It has always been my opinion,’ said Barrington, ‘that strangers should not be allowed to hear them.’ ‘Strangers are entitled to hear them,’ replied Seymour. ‘I ever wished,’ said Grenville, ‘to have what is done here, well known.’ The people no longer acquiesced in the secrecy of the proceedings of their professed representatives. The decision was postponed; but this is the last Parliament of which the debates are not reported.

The new House was not more just to the Colonies than its predecessor. Out of doors, America was not without those who listened to her complaints. The aged Oglethorpe,² founder of the Colony of Georgia, busied himself with distributing pamphlets in her behalf among the most considerable public men. Franklin, in London, collected and printed the Farmer's Letters. ‘They are very wild,’³ said Hillsborough of them; many called them treasonable and seditious; yet Burke approved their principle. Trans