His argument was disputed by Recorder Stannard, and in the following year Lucas published his closely reasoned and temperate Divelina Libera: an Apology for the Civil Rights and Liberties of the Commons and Citizens of Dublin.

But after a hearing of two days, permission was refused by the judge to lodge information, and the victorious Aldermen struck out the names of Lucas and his supporters from the following triennial return of the Common Council.

Alderman Sir Samuel Cooke and James La Touche also came forward, and although the views of Lucas and Latouche were practically identical, neither would withdraw.

To advance his candidature, Lucas in 1748–49 published twenty political addresses to his fellow citizens, explaining his views on the constitution, reflecting severely on the corruption prevailing in the House of Commons, and advocating the principles expounded by William Molyneux in favour of parliamentary independence.

He continued "...it must now be confessed that there was no general rebellion in Ireland, since the first British invasion, that was not raised or fomented by the oppression, instigation, evil influence or connivance of the English."

Shortly afterwards, the corporation having resolved to farm the revenues of the city to a certain Alderman, Lucas denounced the affair as a job, and the council in which the resolution had been passed as packed.

The censure was confirmed at a subsequent meeting, and a vote of thanks passed to the author of a pamphlet entitled Lucas Detected, conjectured to have been Edmund Burke, at that time a student at Trinity College.

After his flight he was presented by the grand juries of the county and city of Dublin as a common libeller, following a ferocious charge demanding his indictment by Thomas Marlay, the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.

This treatise, reviewed by Dr. Johnson,[11] gave great offence to the faculty at Bath,[12] and having occasion to visit that place in 1757 he became involved in an acrimonious controversy with the heads of the profession there owing to their refusal to consult with him.

[15] Lucas was one of 49 physicians and chirurgeons who declared their public support for the construction of a Publick Bath in Dublin in May 1771 and named Achmet Borumborad as a well qualified individual for carrying such a scheme into existence.

His return was the occasion of great popular rejoicing; the order for his disfranchisement was annulled at the midsummer assembly of the corporation; and in July the degree of Doctor of Physic was conferred upon him by Trinity College, Dublin.

In parliament Lucas does not appear to have shone as an orator; but by assiduously bringing every question of importance before the public, he had the merit of reviving "that constitutional connection which ought to subsist between the constituents and their representative.

Small as were its literary merits, the paper enjoyed at first great popularity, owing to the gratuitous contributions of Lucas and its strenuous assertion of Irish Protestant privileges.

[24] In 1766 Lucas unsuccessfully opposed a bill to prevent the exportation of grain, on the ground that certain alterations made in it by the English privy council were detrimental to the rights of the Irish parliament.

His efforts in parliament proving unsuccessful, he published a pamphlet entitled A Mirror for Courts-Martial: in which the Complaints, Trial, Sentence, and Punishment of David Blakeney are examined.

It is probably to his conduct on this occasion that Lord Townshend referred in a letter to the Marquess of Granby, "Here is a Doctor Lucas, the Wilkes of Ireland, who has been playing the devil here and poisoning all the soldiery with his harangues and writings; but I have treated this nonsensical demagogue as he deserves, with his mob at his heels.

It was announced in the newspapers that an answer, "published by authority," entitled The Usage of holding Parliaments and of preparing Bills of Supply in Ireland, stated from Record, would shortly appear.

Nevertheless, says an eye-witness, "the gravity and uncommon neatness of his dress, his grey, venerable locks, blending with a pale but interesting countenance, in which an air of beauty was still visible, altogether excited attention, and I never saw a stranger come into the house without asking who he was.