The first violent effervescence of party after the year 1700 originated from the intemperance of certain Sectaries, who omitted no opportunity of attacking the Established Church; one of the members of which, Sacheverell, equally intemperate, contrived to raise the Demon of Discord throughout the Nation by Sermons calculated to make all good Churchmen detest him. In these half religious, half political contests, the populace uniformly arrange themselves on the side of Liberty--that Liberty which prompts them to assume the reins of Justice, and to dispense it according to the best of their shallow judgments; but their whips are firebrands, and indiscriminate destruction is substituted for the terrors of the Law; _their_ Culprits are seized at the instigation of some infamous leader, and punishment is inflicted before passion subsides. While Sacheverell's trial was depending in 1709-10, the many-headed monster of this monstrous Metropolis thought proper to pronounce sentence on the harmless wainscot, pews, and other woodwork of Mr. Burgess's Meeting, near Lincoln's-inn-fields, whither they were conveyed and burnt. When this wicked exploit was accomplished, and they had contrived to kill a young man in their undistinguishing fury, they proceeded to Fetter and Leather lanes, and several other places in which Meetings were situated; and would probably have committed incredible mischief, had not the Queen's guards dispersed them, and seized several of the ringleaders; one of whom was tried and condemned, but afterwards reprieved. Some of those infatuated men stopped coaches in the streets, to demand money of the passengers, to drink Sacheverell's health; which occasioned an official communication from the Queen to the Lord Mayor. Her Majesty declared her knowledge of the riots, bonfires, illuminations, the assaults and stoppage of coaches to demand money, in opposition to her Proclamation, and in contempt of the proceedings of the High Court of Parliament; and that she was credibly informed that great part of those lawless proceedings were committed through the culpable inactivity of 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.