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WILLIAM, EARL OF SHELBURNE
CH. XIV

the country, and his party gradually became more and more restricted to the City alone.[1] The violent scenes which had accompanied the election of Townshend were repeated in 1773, when the Court of Aldermen again rejected Wilkes, though only by the casting vote of Townshend himself, nor was it till 1774 that Wilkes obtained the object of his ambition.

While, however, this struggle was being carried on events had happened on the other side of the Atlantic which threw the quarrels of the City factions, and the jealousies of the Whigs, into comparative obscurity.

  1. Lord Albemarle says that from the period of the above struggle "the Whigs and what are now called 'Radicals' became two distinct sections of the liberal party."—Memoirs of Rockingham, ii. 209.