Fog's Weekly Journal contains a well-written and whimsical explanation of the motives which produced the above extraordinary letter--the production, doubtless, of a Committee of aggrieved footmen, remarkable then, and certainly at present, for _propriety of behaviour_ and _modesty_ of demeanour. March 12, 1737: "The footmen and other livery servants attending the nobility and gentry frequenting the Theatre Royal in Drury-lane, having (on account of their vociferations during the acts, as well as the intervals) been expelled the uppermost gallery of the house, in which they and their _ancestors_ had _sat_ and _voted_, in all affairs that came upon the _Stage_, time immemorial; thus, conceiving themselves to have an indefeasible hereditary right to the said gallery, and this expulsion to be a high infringement on their liberties, and to the end that posterity might see they were not wanting to vindicate the honour of their cloth, and maintain the whole body of the _livery_ in the full and free enjoyment of all their antient rights and privileges; on Saturday night last a great number of them, provided with staves and _truncheons_, and well-fortified with _three threads_ and _twopenny_, assembled at the doors of the said Theatre, when their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales, others of the Royal Family, and many of the Nobility, were in the house; and having made a practicable breach, entered at the same, and carried the stage-door by mere dint of _oak_, bearing down all the _box-keepers, candle-snuffers, supernumeraries, and pippin-women_, that stood in their way, in which assault 25 or 26 persons were said to be desperately wounded. Justice De Veil, _luckily chancing_ to be present in the house (as he was once before when a disturbance of the like kind happened), immediately interposed his Magisterial authority, commanding the proclamation against riots to be read; but so great was the confusion, they might as well have read _Cæsar's Commentaries_. At length the disorder boding very bad consequences, the Justice, supported by the foot-guards, prudently seized some of the principal rioters, and ordered them to be reposited in Newgate, till their claims can be inquired into in a more regular and judicial way, and the whole matter set in a true light.