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Earl of Camden.

Photo-etching after the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

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charged. This most arbitrary, though admittedly not unprecedented, procedure was unquestionably illegal, and accordingly as such was subsequently denounced in eloquent language by Chief Justice Pratt. "To enter," he said, "a man's house by virtue of a nameless warrant, in order to procure evidence, is worse than the Spanish inquisition; a law under which no Englishman would wish to live an hour. It is a daring public attack upon the liberty of the subject, and in violation of the 29th chapter of Magna Charta, which is directly pointed against that arbitrary power.". "If," were the chief justice's further words, "the other judges, and the highest tribunal in this kingdom, the House of Lords, shall prove my opinions erroneous, I submit, as will become me, and kiss the rod; but I must say that I shall always consider it as a rod of iron for the chastisement of the people of Great Britain."

It was by virtue of this infamous warrant that, on the night of the 29th of April, Wilkes's house in Great George Street, Westminster, had been suddenly entered, and his papers taken possession of by three messengers from the secretary of state's office, his own arrest being deferred till the following morning. He was conducted in the first instance into the formidable presence of the two secretaries of state, the Earls of Halifax and Egremont, of whom the former had signed the order for his arrest, and, after having been sub

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