forms and practice."[654] In spite of the opposition of Addington, Sheridan, and Fox, the Bill eventually passed the Commons by a majority of forty-two, and was carried up to the Lords. There it was again strongly opposed and was only carried by a majority of thirty-four. The City took the advice offered and introduced a separate Bill on its own account, and this also passed.[655] [Sidenote: Artillery practice in Finsbury.] Nothing could exceed the energy of the prime minister in superintending personally the defences of the country, and although some of his measures (as for instance the erection of martello towers along the south coast and the cutting a canal from Hythe to Rye) could have done little to check the advance of the French army had a landing been once effected, the real value of such measures lay in the confidence and energy which they excited in the people. Nor were the citizens less energetic. The Artillery Company and the London militia, instead of marching out to the suburbs for practice took to discharging their field pieces in their own grounds in Finsbury, causing the houses in the vicinity to shake and windows to be broken by the concussion. The noise of their discharge frightened the horses of the frequenters of the City Road--the Rotten Row of the East end--and disturbed those who had sought ease and quiet, in what was in those days a respectable if not an aristocratic suburb of the city. In July (1804) the annoyance became so great that a formal complaint was made to the Common Council, who agreed that the practice complained of should not be continued.[656] [Sidenote: The French camp at Boulogne.] Whilst the City and the country were for the most part inspired with Pitt's enthusiasm, there were not wanting some who ridiculed the prime minister for intermeddling in military matters, and for the anxiety he displayed at the prospect of an invasion which they thought to be in the highest degree improbable. "Can he possibly be serious in expecting Bonaparte now!"--wrote Grenville to Lord Buckingham on the 25th August--although it was well known that Napoleon had himself gone recently to Boulogne to view the army that had long been encamped on its heights. He had even gone so far as to order a medal to be prepared, bearing the words _Frappée a Londres_, in commemoration of his expected conquest. Circumstances eventually led him to postpone his descent on the English coast, but the project was far from abandoned. [Sidenote: Disgrace of Lord Melville, April, 1805.]