his North Briton began to be much noticed, probably when the first fifteen or twenty numbers had appeared, dined one day with Mr. Rigby, and after dinner honestly confessed that he was a ruined man, not worth a shilling; that his principal object in writing was to procure himself some place, and that he should be particularly pleased with one that should remove him from the clamour and importunity of his creditors. He mentioned the office of Governor of Canada, and requested Mr. Rigby’s good offices with the Duke of Bedford, so as to prevail on that nobleman to apply to Lord Bute for that place. Mr. Rigby said, the duke had not much intercourse with Lord Bute; neither could it be supposed that his lordship would purchase Mr. Wilkes’ silence by giving him a good employment. Besides, he could have no security that the same hostile attacks would not be still made against him by Mr. Wilkes’ coadjutors, Lloyd and Churchill, after he had left England. Wilkes solemnly assured him there need not be the least apprehension of that; for that he would make Churchill his chaplain, and Lloyd his secretary, and take them both with him to Canada.
The duke, at Rigby’s request, made the application. Lord Bute would not listen to it, and even treated the affair with contempt. When this was told to Mr. Wilkes, he observed to Mr. Rigby that Lord B. had acted very foolishly, and that he might live to lament that he and his colleagues had not quitted England, as much as King Charles did that Hampden and Cromwell had not gone to America, after the famous representation of the state of the
