DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

( 28 ) mons decreed that as he had in this Session been expelled from the House, he was incapable of being elected a Member to serve in that Parliament. For the third time he was expelled. At once the electors of Middlesex re-elected him for the third time as their representative ; but the House then pronounced his election null and void, and proceeded to set up an official candidate against him in the person of Colonel Luttrell. Nevertheless Wilkes was re-elected for the fourth time, defeating the Government candidate by an immense majority. But the Government and the House of Commons, in the teeth of all legality and justice, declared that Colonel Luttrell ought to have been returned, and resolved, ‘That Colonel Luttrell is duly elected to serve in the present Parliament for the County of Middlesex.’ The right of Parliament to expel an offending member was indisputable, but to disqualify a duly elected member from taking his seat on no other ground than that he had libelled the Government was quite another matter. The first power was inherent in the House of Commons, the second was an invention of the Ministry of that day. Wilkes, owing to his imprisonment, was unable to defend himself and his rights, which were those of the people of England. But the illegality of his treatment raised, both within the House and without,