DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

( 38 ) morality of his character. But profligacy and im- morality were the order of the day, and, as we have seen, were no bar to advancement. It must not be forgotten that Wilkes ventured to attack the highest and the mightiest personages in the State. Many of these who had been his friends, notably Sir Francis Dashwood, Lord Sandwich, the Duke of Grafton, turned from and betrayed him when it served their purpose. They revenged themselves by bringing the weak and objectionable traits of his character into prominence, and casting mud on his fame, leaving a stain that was never obliterated. One of the most illustrious strangers who was staying in England when Wilkes’ star was in the ascendant—Dr. Franklin, the great American patriot —wrote of him, perhaps not without a touch of irony, that if George III. had had a bad character and John Wilkes a good one, the latter ‘might have turned the former out of his kingdom.’ These words are the more significant as coming from a man whose private and political sympathies were all against him. His humanity and toleration were nobly exempli- fied during the later days of his parliamentary career. That he should have advocated the claims of the British Museum to an augmented grant, and urged the reform of Parliament, proved the broader view he took of national questions—views which then