(Image from this website)
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Yet again, another seminal contemporary quote which connects the 1688 Glorious Revolution with the 1776 American Revolution.
John Wilkes was a notorious character, of Presbyterian parents, who had served time in prison for maligning King George III in print, and to whom there is a statue in Fetter Lane in London. In a famous speech in the House of Commons, Wilkes predicted that American independence would happen during the year in which he spoke - 1775 - but it eventually happened the year after.
“… This I know; a successful resistance is a revolution, not a rebellion. Rebellion indeed appears on the back of a flying enemy ; but revolution flames on the breast-plate of the victorious warrior.
Who can tell … whether in a few years the independent Americans may not celebrate the glorious era of the Revolution of 1775, as we do that of 1688?
The generous efforts of our forefathers for freedom, Heaven crowned with success – or their noble blood (would have) dyed our scaffolds … and the period of our history which does us the most honour, would have been deemed a rebellion against the lawful authority of the Prince – not a resistance authorised by all the laws of God and man, and the expulsion of a Tyrant…”
– John Wilkes, Mayor of London and MP for Aylesbury and later Middlesex. Speech in the House of Commons, Wednesday, February 8, 1775.
He also said this –
"... I call the war with our brethren in America an unjust, felonious war, because the primary cause and confessed origin of it is to attempt to take their money from them without their consent, contrary to the common rights of all mankind, and those great fundamental principles of the English constitution for which (John) Hampden bled ..."
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