This period of involvement in national politics really began with the accession of George III in 1760 and the resignation in 1761 of William Pitt, who as secretary of State had been the architect of the astonishing successes of the Seven Years War, the resignation being followed by the inclusion in the cabinet of the King’s protégé, Lord Bute, who shortly became the Prime Minister. The King, Pitt and Bute all attended Fludyer’s munificent inaugural banquet in 1761, Pitt being acclaimed by the crowd while their reception of the King was less enthusiastic and that of Bute openly hostile. A print depicts the scene inside the Guildhall on the occasion appeared in “The Gentleman’s Magazine” for December 1761. Fludyer was a Tory and a supporter of the new King and Bute’s subsequent Tory administration.

While the Court of Aldermen remained largely Tory during his period, there was an influential minority of Radicals who took more of less the Whig line who included Beckford and Crosby and later John Wilkes all of whom became Lord Mayor. Then the City was much involved in the controversies which arose over the matter of Wilkes and the General Warrants, Wilkes’ candidature as M.P. for London and later Middlesex and the riots which attended these. Beckford who succeeded Fludyer as Lord Mayor in 1762 became Lord Mayor again in 1769 and made his celebrated protest to the King against Wilkes’ imprisonment. Brass Crosbey became Lord Mayor in 1770 and at once began his campaign against the issue of Press warrants enabling naval Press Gangs to operate within the City, and the City Biography gives Plomer, who had been a Common Councillor since 1765 credit for his support of the Radical line on this issue. Wilkes, by now a joiner, became an Alderman in 1769 the year after the death of his opponent Fludyer and Lord Mayor in 1774 by which time Plomer had been an aldermen for two years, and having been Sheriff in 1774-5 when Wiles was Lord Mayor must have had a lively year to put it mildly, for Wilkes may fairly be described as the best known holder of that office save for Whittington.

No sooner had the Seven Years War been concluded by the Treaty of Paris in 1763 than the trouble over the American Colonies began with disputes as to how the cost of the French and Indian Wars was to be borne, continuing through the American War of Independence beginning in 1775 and ending with the Treaty of Versailles in 1783. Throughout this period of twenty years the City Radicals were supporters of the colonials against the policies of the King and Lord North, and Fludyer remained an Alderman until his death in 1763, Plomer being an Alderman from 1772 until his death in 1801, and Hammerton (of whom more in a moment) was a Common Councillor from 1779.

Beckford as Mayor had claimed the right to compel the Livery to attend Common Hall for political reasons. In 1773 Alderman Plumbe was disenfranchised for protesting, but two years later was reinstated when it was decided that the Lord Mayor had no such right. This was the Alderman Plumbe who became Lord Mayor himself in 1778 and whose “eyes were said to have been blacked” by Plomer in a dispute over a tavern bill during the latter’s year of office of Lord Mayor, an incident which became the subject of a humorous caricature.

That the office of the Lord Mayor was no sinecure is apparent from the fact that Bradley Kennet who succeeded Plomer as Lord Mayor in 1789-90 was prosecuted for failure to bring under control the Gordon Riots which resulted in three hundred deaths and much destruction of property and specifically for his failure to “read the Riot Act”; he died after being found guilty but before sentence.