After a lengthened account of Struensee's elevation and fall, not more incorrect than the majority of the fables current at the time, Atticus takes up the common but generally successful radical trick of imputing motives to political opponents. "The day was fixed, _a favourite fell_. Methinks I hear the Earl of Bute whisper to his poor affrighted soul, and every corner of his hiding-places murmur with these expressions: God bless us! a known and established favourite ruined in a single night, by a near neighbour--the frenzy may reach this country and I am undone. Englishmen, too, are haters of favourites and Scotchmen; these old, rascally, Whig families, whose power and virtue seem almost lost, may reunite. In the meantime I must do something--a lucky thought occurs to me: I'll fill the minds of the people with prejudices against those haughty Danes. Bradshaw and Dyson shall bribe the printers to suppress any contradictory reports; Englishmen are always ready to vindicate injured virtue at any expense. Therefore, nothing shall be heard _but the honour of the king's sister_. I know the queen-mother was ignorant of the matter till the deed was done; but I will have her represented as an intriguing old Brimstone. It will go down, because the late dowager here must have prejudiced them against all queen-mothers. By the ghost of Charles, I'll make war against those rascally burghers, which will completely answer my purpose. I will divert the ministers of the two people, weaken the two Protestant states, make room for my namesake, and restore favouritism." Such were the arguments of a member of the peace-at-any-price-party in 1772. They certainly display a coarse cleverness befitting a demagogue, and doubtless represented the feelings of a considerable section of deluded Englishmen at the time. Let us hope that none of his readers, however, shared the sentiments expressed in the following odious passage:-- "Be assured, my dear countrymen, the queen's supposed inconstancy was in no part the cause of the late revolution in Denmark. Had she committed adultery in the streets, but preserved decency in matters of state, she might now be at liberty, and in that round of amusements. The patriots of Denmark do not make adultery an article of grievances; and if they did, she has been the betrothed of a sovereign prince; she is his lawful wife, subject to the laws of that country. Her brother made no settlement of exclusive power--either for her as a wife or a queen; at least, his pious nature must have forbidden the declared right of ----dom. I wish George III. had entertained the same ideas as did his grandfather, with respect to the slippery tricks of his family; who, in his letter to the Prince Ferdinand, near the close of the late war, concludes with these words: 'Let me advise you to be more careful of your person--your reputation is established, for though our family has produced many ----s, it never produced a poltroon.'"[60]