MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.
During this year the public mind was in such an agitated state, arising chiefly from the dearness of bread and general scarcity of provision, and from the successes of the French, which made the war to some extent unpopular, that ministers convoked parliament for an unusually early day. It met on the 29th of October; and as the king was going down to the house of lords to open the session, he was surrounded by a numerous mob, who with loud voices demanded peace, cheap bread, and Pitt’s dismissal. Some voices assumed a menacing tone; and when the state-coach came opposite to the ordnance-office, then in St. Margaret-street, a bullet, supposed to have been discharged from an air-gun, passed through the window. His majesty behaved on this occasion with all his natural coolness and intrepidity; on arriving at the house of lords he merely said to the chancellor, “My lord, I have been shot at.” A number of persons were immediately arrested, and carried for examination into the Duke of Portland’s office; and, waiting the result of these examinations, no business was done for some hours. At length, having previously moved that strangers should withdraw, Lord Westmoreland related in a formal manner the insult and outrage with which the king had been treated; adding that his majesty, and those who were with him, were of opinion that the bullet had been discharged from an air-gun, from a bow-window of a house adjoining the ordnance-office, with a view to assassinate the king. The rage of the populace was not yet exhausted. On his return his majesty was again assaulted and insulted; stones were thrown at him, and there was a good deal of hooting and shouting, and loud cries of “Bread,” “Peace,” and “No Pitt!” But while one part of the mob thus assailed him, another part cheered and applauded him, and a detachment of horse-guards, which arrived as he was passing through the park, presently dispersed them all. So gross an outrage as this had not been offered to any other monarch of Great Britain since the days of Charles the First. A reward of £ 1,000 was offered, to be paid on conviction of any person concerned in the assault; and one Kidd Wake, a journeyman printer, was convicted, and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in Gloucester goal. But his majesty received much consolation from the assurances of loyalty to his person contained in the numerous addresses which were presented to him from all parts of the kingdom.
His majesty’s speech on this occasion made the most of the check which the French had received from the Austrians on the Rhine. It said likewise, that the ruin of their commerce, the diminution of their maritime power, and the unparalleled embarrassments of the French, induced them to exhibit some desire for peace, and gave assurance that any disposition on their part to negociate for a general peace, on just and suitable terms, would be met, on the part of his majesty, with a full desire to give it speedy effect. At the same time the king recommended energy, in order to meet the possible continuance of the war, and the improvement of our naval superiority. An amendment, proposed by Fox, to the address was negatived.