This manly and righteous remonstrance was presented after many pettifogging slights and indignities, vexations, and subterfuges on the part of the Court and Crown; and there were made various attempts to bring into discredit the authenticity of this document as the expression of the Court of Aldermen. The Corporation of the city, in sixty carriages, proceeded with the various officers to the palace of St. James’s, and were received by the king on his throne. The remonstrance was read; and, in reply, His Majesty read an answer, drawn up in advance, condemning both the former petition and the present remonstrance in unmistakable terms, and ending with an assurance that “he had ever made the law of the land the rule of his conduct, esteeming it his chief glory to rule over a free people;” and then, descending into more palpable falsehoods, asserting, in the face of facts, with a power of dissimulation worthy of Charles II:-- “with this view I have always been careful, as well to execute faithfully the trust reposed in me, as to avoid even the appearance of invading any of those powers which the Constitution has placed in other hands.” The king was evidently the puppet of more vicious minds, being blessed with but a feeble reasoning faculty of his own. After reading his equivocative answer, and as the lord mayor and the city representatives were withdrawing, the vacuity of his intellect made itself manifest--for it is asserted in contemporaneous accounts, “His Majesty instantly turned round to his courtiers, and _burst out laughing_. NERO FIDDLED WHILE ROME WAS BURNING.” The reception accorded to these petitions being far from such as their gravity demanded, fresh agitations commenced in the metropolis and in the provinces, and, on March 30th, Horne Tooke delivered a remarkable address to the freeholders of the county of Middlesex, in which he graphically described both the murders he had seen committed and the conduct of the justices of the peace, who said the ministerial instructions were for the soldiers to fire, and referred to the partiality shown on the trials and the defences made at the expense of Government when it was endeavoured to bring the guilty to justice. At this meeting, “An Address, Remonstrance, and Petition of the Freeholders of Middlesex” was drawn up for presentation, in which it was urged on the king-- “that a secret and malignant influence had thwarted and defeated almost every measure which had been attempted for the benefit of his subjects, and had given rise to measures totally subversive of the Liberties and Constitution of these once flourishing and happy kingdoms.”