The Odyssey of Ebenezer Smith Platt

On 17 February 1777 John Wilkes, the controversial politician, pamphleteer, and propagandist, rose to address the House of Commons. Wilkes, renowned for his opposition to King George III and his followers, was equally regarded by Americans as a long-standing champion of their colonial rights. And it was in both of these contexts that he marshaled his oratorical skills on this occasion. The specific target of his speech was the third reading of a bill, proposed by Lord North's government, which would suspend the habeas corpus act through the remainder of the year for persons accused of high treason for actions within the American colonies, or on the high seas, or for alleged acts of piracy. Wilkes began by declaring emphatically: “I cannot continue silent while so important a Bill is pending before this house.” He then attacked the proposed act as “tyrannical, arbitrary, ambiguous, unconstitutional,” and forecast that it would lead to expansion of the American war that had been raging for almost two years. Wilkes illustrated the oppressive, unwarrantable and alienating effects of the proposed act on Americans by citing the case of a young colonial named Ebenezer Smith Platt, then confined in London's infamous Newgate prison.