On Sunday evening I went to compliment the Duke and Duchess, as most of their acquaintance did, on their escape. I found the square crowded, but chiefly with persons led by curiosity. As my chariot had no coronets, I was received with huzzas; but when the horses turned to enter the court, dirt and stones were thrown at it. When the gates opened, I was surprised with the most martial appearance. The horse-guards were drawn up in the court, and many officers and gentlemen were walking about as on the platform of a regular citadel. The whole house was open, and knots of the same kind were in every room. When I came to the Duchess, and lamented the insult they had suffered, she replied, with warmth and acrimony, that the mob had been set on by Lord Bute. I was not much inclined to believe _that_, nor thought a mob a tool with which Lord Bute would choose to amuse himself. Immediately after, came in the Earl and Countess of Northumberland. Words cannot describe the disdainful manner in which they were received.[127] The Duke of Bedford left the room; the Earl was not asked to sit, nor spoken to; but was treated with such visible marks of neglect and aversion, that Lord Waldegrave said to another of the family, “Faith! this is too much.” In my own opinion, the mob was blown up by Humphrey Cotes,[128] and the friends of Wilkes. Almond, the friend and printer of the latter, owned to me, that they were directed by four or five gentlemen in disguise, who were not suspected; and seemed willing to disclose the secret to me. I said, “Name no names to me, I will not hear them.” He gave me a print published by Cotes against Lord Bute and Lord Holland; and talked of risings that would be all over England. I said, “I should be sorry to have the mob rise: it would occasion the army being quartered in London, and then we should be enslaved.”
Perhaps I have dwelt too minutely on this episode; perhaps I have done so on many other points equally unimportant. But it must be remembered that I am painting a portrait of the times, rather than writing history. The events, too, of this time were so linked together, that trifles gave birth to serious eras; and unless it be detailed with the circumstantial exactness which I shall use, and which I stood in a situation to know more thoroughly than most men, from my intimacy or connection with many of the actors, the history of this reign will be very imperfectly understood; and posterity would see sudden and extraordinary changes; without being able to account for them from the public appearances of things. When it is known, it will be easy to compose a more compendious account; and my narrative, that may serve for the scaffolding, may be thrown by as no longer of use.