_The Gentlemen trading to the East-Indies, &c._ The publisher’s advertisement burlesques a practice of the bookseller John Almon (1737-1805), friend and biographer of John Wilkes, and between the years 1761-81 publisher-in-ordinary to the Whig Opposition. Almon had extensive connections in the American colonies and was the compiler of _The Remembrancer_, 1775-84, a valuable collection of materials relating to the Revolution. In his satire on the French ministry, _The Green Box of Monsieur de Sartine_, 1779, Tickell represents a French spy in London reporting ruefully: News-papers, pamphlets, parliamentary debates, remembrancers, and all the infinite variety of periodical libels, under the conduct of our good friend Mr. Almon, leave but a scanty and beaten field of politics for private discovery (pp. 12-13). PAGE 23 _Sir Francis Molyneux._ Sir Francis Molyneux (d. 1812), Knt.; succeeded his father as seventh Baronet, 1781. _the Speaker._ Sir Fletcher Norton (1716-1789), Knt.; M.P. for Guildford; Speaker of the House of Commons, 1770-80; cr. Baron Grantley of Markenfield, 1782. _the merit of those speeches._ Since the speech from the throne rarely contains more than generalities, Tickell was able to approximate its substance fairly closely. In the debate on the opening day John Wilkes had the temerity to say that there were only two particulars in the King’s speech to which he could assent: “They are, that we are called together in a conjuncture, which demands our most serious attention, and that a restoration of the blessings of peace ought to be our first wish” (_Parliamentary History_, XIX, 1334). _the new Attorney General._ Alexander Wedderburn (1733-1805), M.P. for Bishop’s Castle; succeeded Edward Thurlow as Attorney-General, June 1778; elevated to the Chief Justiceship of the Common Pleas as Baron Loughborough of Loughborough, 1780; cr. Earl of Rosslyn, 1801. In the spring of 1778 Sir Fletcher Norton, by a threat of impeachment, had blocked Wedderburn’s intrigue to obtain the Chief Justiceship; see Walpole to Mason, 31 May 1778 (_Letters_, ed. Toynbee, X, 254). PAGE 25 _Lord Granby._ Charles Manners (1754-1787), second son of the Marquis of Granby famous as a military hero; M.P. for Cambridge University; succeeded his grandfather as fourth Duke of Rutland, 1779. _Pulteny._ Sir William Pulteney (1684-1764), Earl of Bath; long the leader of the “patriot” opposition during Sir Robert Walpole’s administration, but politically ruined by his acceptance, upon Walpole’s fall, of an earldom. _Cavendish ... Meredith ... Young._ Three supporters of the Whig Opposition: John Cavendish (1732-1796), fourth son of the third Duke of Devonshire, M.P. for York, friend and correspondent of Burke; Sir William Meredith (1725?-1790), third Baronet, M.P. for Liverpool; Sir George Yonge (1731-1812), fifth Baronet, M.P. for Honiton. PAGE 26