‘The departure of this bully was a great relief to everyone present, for the restraint caused by his vapouring and insolent behaviour was intolerable. The conversation immediately became general, and it was unanimously agreed that half-a-dozen stout constables should be in waiting the next evening to lay him by the heels and bear him off to the watch-house if he attempted again to intrude. Of some such measure Fitzgerald seemed to be aware, for he never showed himself at “Brookes’s” again, though he boasted everywhere that he had been unanimously chosen a member of the club.’ He lived the life of a man about town, and not a very reputable one, either a bully whom everyone feared and no one liked, until the summer of 1773, when he appeared before the public in a dispute of which there is a long account in a contemporary pamphlet, ‘The Vauxhall Affray, or Macaronies defeated.’ The Rev. Henry Bate (afterwards Sir H. B. Dudley), the proprietor and editor of the _Morning Post_, was at Vauxhall in company with Mrs. Hartley, the actress, her husband, Mr. Colman, and a friend, when Fitzgerald, accompanied by the Hon. Thomas Lyttleton, Captain Croftes, and some others, all more or less intoxicated, behaved so rudely to Mrs. Hartley that she could stand it no longer, and complained. Parson Bate was a notable ‘bruiser,’ and he took her part, and struck Croftes a blow. Cards were exchanged, and next morning an interview was arranged, at which the clergyman and officer were reconciled, when in bounced Fitzgerald, and declared, in a most insolent manner, that Mr. Bate should give immediate satisfaction to his friend, Captain Miles, whom, he said, the former had grossly insulted the evening before. Miles was introduced, and declared that he had been affronted by the clergyman, and if he did not immediately strip and fight with him, he (Miles) would post him as a coward, and cane him wherever he met him. Mindful of his cloth, Mr. Bate hesitated; but Miles, saying something about cowardice, the parson threw all consideration of his calling to the winds, a ring was formed, and Captain Miles received the handsomest thrashing he ever had. Soon afterwards it transpired that Captain Miles was Fitzgerald’s own servant, who had been compelled by his master so to behave. Mr. Bate very properly exposed the affair in the _Morning Post_. We next hear of him engaged in a duel with Captain Scawen of the Guards, which was fought at Lille, and twice he fired before his adversary. Luckily he missed him, and the second time the captain, having fired in the air, the affair ended.