'A generation ago,' says a writer in one of the earlier numbers of the _Quarterly Review_, 'men were still living who could tell of the flame of indignation which ran through the country when it was known that the new Whig Government had recalled Admiral Rodney, because the expedition which he commanded had been planned by the Tories.' No doubt that was so. But the flame burned itself out quickly. The Whigs in Parliament and outside it were able to counter the Tory reproaches by retorting that whatever was the case then, when the recall of Rodney was first notified, three weeks before the despatches came, not a voice had been raised against it. All over the country at the same time, Whigs and Tories made common cause in heaping adulation on the victor, and expressing their general feelings in exuberant rejoicings. In London, after the Park and Tower guns and the pealing of the church bells had confirmed the breakfast-table rumour, 'the whole town was in an uproar,' we are told, everybody making the day a holiday and hanging out flags. All London was illuminated that night, the very poorest finding a candle to stick in every pane in their windows. Wraxall, writing in 1816 (the year after Waterloo) his recollections of how London received the news of Rodney's victory, says: 'When I reflect on the emotions to which it gave rise in London, I cannot compare them with any other occurrence of the same kind that we have since witnessed in this country.'[57] Dr. Blane writing some years afterwards from what he was told, says that even the cripples and invalids in hospital 'demonstrated their joy on hearing of this victory, by hoisting shreds of coloured cloth on their crutches.' Lady Rodney and her daughters went to the theatre that evening. 'When we went in,' wrote Miss Jane Rodney to her father, 'the whole house testified by their claps and huzzas, the joy they felt at the news, and their love for you, and their acclamations lasted for, I am sure, five minutes.'[58] The versifiers of course seized on the occasion, and they found editors ready to take their 'copy.' The Grass in Paris streets so long had grown That farmer Rodney thought it should be mown, So up his Formidable scythe he took And cut the Grass of Paris at one stroke-- was one effusion that is among the best. Throughout the country, as the laurel-bedecked stage-coaches passed the news along, there was hardly a village that did not ring its bells and have its bonfire. Half the taverns, we are told, painted out their 'Markis o' Granby' signboards for 'The Admiral Rodney,' and Rodney's is to this day the most common of naval names on inn signboards. There are, as a fact, more 'Lord Rodneys' up and down the country than 'Lord Nelsons.'