At the very time when the democratic idea was the theme of philosophers, and was to be seen expressed in the constitution of the revolted American colonies, and in the French Revolution, England remained under an aristocracy, governed first by Whigs, and then by Tories.

It is true democracy was not without its spokesmen in England in the eighteenth century, but there was no popular movement in politics to stir the masses of the people, as the preaching of the Methodists stirred their hearts for religion.

Democratic ideas were as remote from popular discussion in the eighteenth century as they had been made familiar by Lilburne for a brief season in the seventeenth century.
"WILKES AND LIBERTY" A word must be said about John Wilkes, a man of disreputable character and considerable ability, who for some ten years--1763-73--contended for the rights of electors against the Whig Government.

The battle began when George Grenville, the Whig Prime Minister, had Wilkes arrested on a general warrant for an article attacking the King's Speech in No.

45 of the _North Briton_, a scurrilous newspaper which belonged to Wilkes.