Indignation was especially directed against the King and his mistresses, and the flood of scurrilous pamphlets and abusive ballads grew greater and greater. So hostile became the crowd that a society, called “Ye Guild of Ye Loyall Mug Houses,” was formed to protect the King from personal violence and insult. It was composed mostly of young bloods from the coffee-houses who used to fight the Jacobites when they used expressions detrimental to the Royal Family, and as both sides were spoiling for a fight, street rows were frequent. Even women were not safe from violence, and it is noteworthy that nearly all the women who took part in politics were on the side of the exiled James. Addison was hired to write against these “she-Jacobites,” as he called them in the _Freeholder_--poor stuff most of it was, too, and justified Swift’s sneer about Addison “fair-sexing” it. “A man,” writes Addison, “is startled when he sees a pretty bosom heaving with such party rage as is disagreeable even in that sex which is of a more coarse and rugged make. And yet, such is our misfortune, that we sometimes see a pair of stays ready to burst with sedition, and hear the most masculine passions expressed in the sweetest voices.” It will hardly be believed that these effusions were highly inflammatory. Yet on one occasion, while the _Freeholder_ was running its brief-lived course, a Whig, seeing a young lady walking down St. James’s Street with a bunch of white roses on her bosom, sprang out of his coach, tore off the roses and trampled them in the mud, and lashed the young lady with his whip. She was rescued by the timely appearance of some Jacobite gentry, who carried her home in safety, but a street fight, assuming almost the proportions of a riot, was the consequence.