Some little insight into London manners is afforded by one of their works, published this year, entitled ‘The Necessity of a Plot; or, Reasons for a Standing Army. By a Friend to K.G.’ It is, of course, a satirical pamphlet. Among the good or bad reasons for having a permanent force is the one noticed in the following paragraph: ‘I do not conceive where our youth of spirit could be so well educated as in a Military School. The laudable accomplishments of a Fine Gentleman are there so suddenly acquired that a Fellow who but just throws off a private person’s Livery, to wear that of the King’s, commences immediately a most accomplished Beau. He can swear with as good a grace, talk as rationally against Jesus Christ, the Church, and Parsons, as if he had served an Apprenticeship at the Grecian.’ [Sidenote: _LOVAT ALREADY SUSPECTED._] This pamphlet, provoking in both style and subject, affected a reverence for the king, so finely expressed that the satire beneath it was ungraspable by the law. There were some members of the House of Commons, it remarks, who were bold enough to assert that there was disaffection in this country. The writer suggests that it was only disaffection to the German language, morals, custom, and ladies. The king himself might be called ‘the Delight of Mankind,’ if people chose――as Titus had been called by an earlier people. Was not the king the darling of those who welcomed him with shouts, plays, balls, and bacchanals? How disloyal it was to oppose his wish for a standing army! Did the thinking people of London reflect on the danger which Russia was becoming to us? Russia was said to be far off. Not at all; she was next door to us. She was near to Sweden, which was next to Norway, which was only a few days’ sail from Scotland, which _might yet prove to be but a week’s march from London_. Therefore, let a standing army be raised, and the people be made to pay for it. Dull people! Why, there was already peril looming from Scotland. Brigadier Mackintosh’s ghost had been seen in the Highlands, and Rob Roy (whose name was thus familiar to the Londoners of 1718) was moving about uncontrolled, as if he were undisputed lord of Scotland. The pamphlet-writer suggests that a standing army should not only be raised, but be kept standing in daily array, as if Mackintosh and Rob Roy were at the gates of St. James’s! Then, as for Scotland, why not let Lord Lovat have 30,300 men to keep it safe? The character of Simon Fraser was thoroughly understood by the Paternoster-row pamphleteer, although Lovat had been thorough Whig and Hanoverian in the late rebellion. Let him have the men, says the ‘Friend to K.G.’ ‘From Lovat’s principles and dexterity, I think him almost capable of everything. Besides,’ the laughing coffee-house readers were told, ‘a Gentleman is coming from France who will give you reasons enough for keeping up a standing army.’ This was the first intimation to the Londoners that Bolingbroke might possibly be recalled.