'The Cozeners' appeared in 1774, with a prologue written by Garrick, to whom Foote was again reconciled, after a quarrel caused by Garrick's refusing to lend his successful but impecunious friend the sum of £500. 'The Cozeners' fairly enough caricatured Mrs. Grieve as Mrs. Fleecem--a woman who extorted money from her victims by promising to procure for them Government appointments. Now, Foote himself was generally thought to have obtained an annuity from Sir Francis Delaval, by bringing about a marriage between him and Lady Nassau Powlett, with whom Foote had been very intimate. It was, however, too bad of Foote to caricature, under the name of Mrs. Simony, the widow of the Rev. Dr. Dodd, then only recently hanged. But Foote's aims were really not lofty; he sought, as Dr. Doran says, less to reform vice and folly than to produce amusement (sometimes unscrupulously enough), by holding them up to ridicule. And here it must be observed that, although he was thin-skinned, and not over-courageous, yet Davies wrote of him: 'There is hardly a public man in England who has not entered Mr. Foote's theatre with an aching heart, under the apprehension of seeing himself laughed at.' The following year saw Foote involved in one of the most disastrous and disagreeable events of his life--namely, his prosecution at the instance of the profligate Duchess of Kingston, whom Foote had prepared to lampoon in a little piece called 'A Trip to Calais,' in respect of her then approaching trial for bigamy, when she was found guilty by the House of Peers. The Duchess's influence, however, prevailed to prevent the appearance of the piece, and the Lord Chamberlain's license was withheld; and correspondence of a most virulent nature between Foote and the Duchess ensued. It was on this occasion that Foote penned the following defence of his writings: 'During my continuance in the service of the public I never profited by flattering their passions, or falling in with their humours. In exposing follies I never lost my credit with the public, because they knew I proceeded _upon principle_.' The Duchess tried to _buy_ off her persecutor, but in vain; attacks on each side, of the grossest and most virulent nature, now appeared in the papers; and an expensive prosecution of Foote on a foul but imaginary charge, by one Jackson,[143] was instituted; but Lord Mansfield summed up in Foote's favour, and the result was his immediate and honourable acquittal (the jury not even turning round in the box to consider their verdict). The worry and anxiety attendant upon so abominable a persecution shattered Foote's health and spirits, and unfitted him for awhile for appearing again on the stage. He accordingly sold his patent, including the theatrical wardrobe and leave to perform any of Foote's unpublished plays, to George Coleman, for £1,600 a year; and he only went on the stage thrice afterwards.