the Magistracy; at which she expressed great displeasure; and concluded by charging the Mayor and City Officers, at their peril, to apprehend all persons exciting tumults and hawking seditious papers through the streets for sale. To the above letter the Corporation addressed an humble answer, observing that the insolent attacks on the Constitution and Her Majesty's Prerogative, by the publication of books and pamphlets intended to infuse Republican tenets in the minds of her subjects, had roused them to a consideration of their fatal tendency; they therefore declared their detestation of such doctrines, their determination to support the Protestant succession, and, in obedience to her commands, to suppress all riotous assemblies, and to oppose with undaunted vigour all attempts to disturb the peace of her reign, or the serenity of her Royal mind, at home and abroad.
The Queen addressed a similar complaint to the Magistrates of Middlesex; and received assurances of support from them, those of Westminster, and the Lieutenancy of London.
After these professions of prevention, riots occurred on the 14th of October, 1710, with the watch-word of "Sacheverell and High Church;" and the mob beat off the Constables with brands from the numerous bonfires they had lighted.
The month of November teemed with the seeds of riot; but the vigilance of Government was
then excited, and secret means employed to discover those preparatives by which the mob were to be set in motion. Some of the emissaries employed on this occasion gave information that a house near Drury-lane contained certain effigies, intended to represent the Pope, the Pretender, and the Devil; this trio were accompanied by four Cardinals, four Jesuits, and four Monks, who were to have been exhibited in due state on the evening of November 17, the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's accession, and then burnt, in testimony of the abhorrence entertained against the Head of the Roman Catholic faith, his engine for establishing it again in England, and his Majesty of the Infernal regions, together with the inferior instruments of the dissemination of his doctrines. Thus informed, Government preferred opposing such public support of their cause, and wisely intimated by their conduct that they were willing to rest it on the conscience of each individual of the community, rather than terrify wavering Protestants into their measures: in consequence, they issued orders to seize the figures; which being promptly obeyed, the Messengers and guards conveyed them in safety to the Earl of Dartmouth's office, by whose means the sentence of the mob was probably more privately performed, and the evening passed away without any particular occurrence. This event was eagerly seized upon by the partizans of the day; those of
Government discovering in it the stamina of a thousand horrors intended to involve the Roman Catholicks and the Established Church in one grand ruin; those of the Antimonarchical side deeming the intended procession a mere common occurrence, occasionally resorted to by the populace with the best motives. By us , who have known the infernal proceedings accompanying the cry of "No Popery," riots of any kind must be dreaded; and we cannot but approve the vigilance of the then Government in terminating the existence of an expiring habit, whose vigorous movements were marked in the following disgusting "Account of the burning the Pope at Temple-bar in London, the 17th of November 1679;" an account that compels us to hail with ten-fold reverence the auspicious Revolution of 1688, that defined the boundaries of the Sovereign's and the People's right. At the present period, praised be Heaven! a Jury of twelve men would make the instigators of such a procession tremble: and every Protestant in the City would fly from it with indignation; and yet with all our modern mildness the faith in question gains no proselytes:—a memorable memento of the liberality of the age[15:A]!
"Upon the 17th of November the bells began to ring about three o'clock in the morning in the City of London; and several honourable and worthy gentlemen belonging to the Temple as well as the City, (remembering the burning both of London and the Temple, which was apparently executed by Popish villainy[16:A]) were pleased to be at the charge of an extraordinary triumph, in commemoration of that blessed Protestant Queen, which was as follows: In the evening of the said day, all things being prepared, the solemn procession began from Moorgate, and so to Bishopsgate-street, and down Hounsditch to Aldgate, through Leadenhall-street, Cornhill, by the Royal Exchange, through Cheapside, to Temple-bar, in order following.
1st. Marched six whifflers, in pioneers' caps and red waistcoats.
2. A bellman, ringing his bell, and with a dolesome voice crying all the way "Remember Justice Godfrey."
3. A dead body , representing Justice Godfrey in the habit he usually wore, and the cravat wherewith he was murdered about his neck, with spots of blood on his wrists, breast, and shirt, and white gloves on his hands, his face pale and wan, riding upon a white horse, and one of his murderers behind him to keep him from falling, in the same manner as he was carried to Primrose-hill.