The proclamation further charges the lord mayor, and justices of the peace for the cities of London and Westminster, borough of Southwark, and counties of Middlesex and Surrey, to prevent and suppress all riots, tumults, and unlawful assemblies, etc.
Another engraving on the same topic—as described by Mr. Edward Hawkins, from whose collection, bequeathed to the British Museum, many of these early illustrations are selected—was entitled:—
“THE GOTHAM ADDRESSERS; OR, A PEEP AT THE HEARSE.”
“Sing the Addressers who lately set out
To flatter the great and honesty rout,
Where Frenchmen, and Swiss, and Hollanders shy
United their forces with Charley Dingley,” etc.
The procession and hearse (the driver is exclaiming “Wilkes and Liberty”) are again shown at St. James’s Palace. The chief promoter, Charles Dingley, is made the principal butt of this satire, and, as the address began with him, it is appropriately so terminated. The hearse with the placards is succeeded by a coach bearing on the roof a windmill, an allusion to Dingley’s too famous saw-mills at Limehouse, which were dismantled by the sawyers out of work and other rioters. The coachman of this equipage is endeavouring to pacify the mob: “Wilkes and Liberty, Gentlemen; I had no hand in the d——d Address.” The chief offender, seen inside the coach, is also appealing to the incensed crowd: “For God’s sake, Gentlemen, spare me; I wish the Address had been in Hell before I meddled with it.” His bemired footman is declaring, “My livery’s like my master, d——d Dirty.” The next coach has on it a zany with cap and bells, seated “on the Massacre of Aboyna;” this figure of folly is exclaiming, “I give Mr. Dingle the lead;” the rider, one of the loan-contractors and bidders for ministerial favour, cries, “Ayez pitié de moi!” “Dingle’s Downfall, a new Song,” is chanted by a female ballad-singer. Dead cats and mud are thrown at the procession, which is followed by the groans and hisses of the spectators.
The foregoing events are further elucidated in “A Dialogue between the Two Heads on Temple Bar.” The narrator professes to have overheard the following conversation upon politics between the decapitated heads of the 1745 rebels stuck over Temple Bar:—
“But soon more surpris’d, and I’ll tell you the cause, sir,
The heads on Temple Bar were in a deep discourse, sir.
‘Why, Fletcher,[55] your head and mine has been fixed hither
These full twenty years, expos’d to all weather
For being concerned in a Scottish rebellion:
Not like Bute, the nation to rob of three million.’
‘Ay, Townsend, but Bute play’d the jockey so fair, sir,
Got the money for riding the old Georgian mare, sir,
But his tricks at St. James’s Wilkes soon did disclose, sir,
Tho’ squint-ey’d, saw how Bute led the King by the nose, sir.’
‘Why, Fletcher, that’s worse than open rebellion!
And here’s room on the Bar if they would but behead him;
In St. George’s Fields there’s room for a gibbet,
But justice of late, they don’t choose to exhibit.
If justice took place, ’twould cause Jack some trouble,
Lord Mansfield himself, might, by chance, mount the scaffold.
No more alt’ring records; but this joke might be said,
As blind with the scales, he appears without head.
And half a score more, tuck’d up in a halter;
But don’t forget to hang Luttrell and Proctor,
For ’tis such rogues as these that corrupted the nation,
And caus’d these disturbances, strife, and vexation.
Then the King would be freed from all of roguish party,
And let those fill their places who are loyal and hearty.’”