North regarded the Green Ribbon Club as the focus of disaffection and sedition, but his mere opinions are not to be depended on. Walpole calls him "the voluminous squabbler in behalf of the most unjustifiable excesses of Charles the Second's Administration." Nevertheless, his relation of facts is very curious, and there is no reason to discredit his account of those popular "routs," to use his own phrase, to which he was an eyewitness.
The conversation and ordinary discourse of the Club, he informs us, "was chiefly upon the subject of _Braveur_, in defending the cause of Liberty and Property; what every true Protestant and Englishman ought to venture to do, rather than be overpowered with Popery and Slavery." They were provided with silk armour for defence, "against the time that Protestants were to be massacred," and, in order "to be assailants upon fair occasion," they had recommended to them, "a certain pocket weapon which, for its design and efficacy, had the honour to be called a _Protestant Flail_. The handles resembled a farrier's blood-stick, and the fall was joined to the end by a strong nervous ligature, that, in its swing, fell just short of the hand, and was made of _Lignum Vitæ_, or rather, as the Poets termed it, _Mortis_." This engine was "for street and crowd-work, and lurking perdue in a coat-pocket, might readily sally out to execution; and so, by clearing a great Hall or Piazza, or so, carry an Election by choice of Polling, called _knocking down_!" The _armour_ of the _hogs_ is further described as "silken back, breast, and potts, that were pretended to be pistol-proof, in which any man dressed up was as safe as in a house, for it was impossible any one would go to strike him for laughing, so ridiculous was the figure, as they say, of _hogs in armour_."
In describing the Pope-burning procession of the 17th of November, 1680, Roger North says, that "the Rabble first changed their title, and were called _the Mob_ in the assemblies of this Club. It was their Beast of Burthen, and called first, _mobile vulgus_, but fell naturally into the contraction of one syllable, and ever since is become proper English."
We shall not describe these Processions: the grand object was the burning of figures, prepared for the occasion, and brought by the Mob in procession, from the further end of London with "staffiers and link-boys, sounding," and "coming up near to the Club-Quality in the balconies, against which was provided a huge bonfire;" "and then, after numerous platoons and volleys of squibs discharged, these _Bamboches_ were, with redoubled noise, committed to the flames." These outrageous celebrations were suppressed in 1683.