“If a signal was given,--if _Proctor and Liberty_ appeared in the hats of the ruffians, how that might be contrived by the election arts of my adversaries need not now be mentioned. It was the opinion of my counsel, when a riot was artfully talked of by my opponents, _above an hour_ before it happened, that the sheriffs in that case should resort immediately to the protection of parliament.” Finally, he expressed hopes “to bring this dark transaction into open daylight, and to show the world who has been the man of blood;” moreover, the writer “has full confidence that on the last day of the poll lawless men will not again dare to invade the rights of the freeholders.” The disavowal, which “doth protest too much” as published by Proctor, goaded the virtuous indignation of the friends of freedom up to fever heat, and acted like a red rag on an infuriated bull in the instance of John Horne (Tooke), “the Brentford parson;” he addressed a scathing philippic to Proctor, declaring that Sir William’s refutations “subscribed his own guilt, and that the Court candidate had signed his name to a lie:”-- “I here declare in form, that you, Sir William Beauchamp Proctor, did both hire and cause to be hired, that mob which committed the outrages at Brentford; that mob, which immediately after the total interruption of the poll, demanded which was the house that belonged to the parson of Brentford; and to whose fury a neighbouring clergyman, who heard them ask after my house, was apprehensive of falling a sacrifice, by the mistake of a person who called himself by my name. Boast of your humanity, Sir William, to Captain Read; that gentleman, to save his own life, declared himself your friend. Persuade Mr. Allen they were not your mob; that gentleman brought you to the side of the hustings where they were, and heard them answer to his question, and to your face, that you, Sir W. Beauchamp Proctor, were the person that gave them orders for what they were about.” As to the “band of writers,” Parson Horne frankly avowed himself the author of most of the letters that appeared against Proctor in the papers, and concluded with a stinging reference to those “new-fashioned constables,” as Sir John Fielding termed the hireling bullies. “Where you endeavour to justify your proceedings by the usage of all contested popular elections, and where you affect to consider your hired ruffians, the Irish chairmen, as ‘assistants to the civil magistrates.’ The business of the approaching poll prevents my saying half what I have to tell you; but I promise you, you shall hear from me again and again, if you will please to issue out your orders to your ruffians to grant me a _Reprieve_ till after the election.”