In camp itself, there were continual quarrels and savage fights between brawlers of the horse and foot. The rioters there lost all respect for their officers. On one occasion, the Earl of Albemarle intervened, but with so little effect that he was soon seen issuing from the fray without his hat and wig! Nevertheless, these savage rioters could be subdued to the melting mood, and weep solemn showers like old Greek heroes. Detachments from the camp attended Marlborough’s funeral, in August. As they passed under their old commander’s garden wall in the Park, many officers and men are said to have burst into tears; a circumstance which the Whig papers were unanimous in describing as ‘very remarkable,’ and ‘well worth mentioning.’ A Jacobite hackney-coachman laid his whip to the shoulders of one of these honest fellows; and, strangely enough, for all punishment only lost his license. A fact more ‘remarkable’ than the genuine sympathy of the soldiers for Marlborough, was that there were Frenchmen in the ranks, in camp! One of them, named Leman, did, what might have been expected of him, drank the Pretender’s health, in liquor bought with money coming to him from King George. Monsieur Leman did not love the latter any the more for the terrible whipping he received in the Savoy. Other military offenders ‘ran the gauntlet,’ at the hands and scourges of their comrades in the Park. The place was not so pleasant as to make desertions unfrequent. But, deserters, when caught, were summarily treated. One Tompkins, ‘a jolly young fellow of about twenty,’ say the newsmongers, was shot for the crime; yet, the practice was not diminished by the penalty. When the camp was about to break up in October, the infantry, artillery, cavalry, and the gentlemen of his Majesty’s horse guards paraded, for the last time. The Earl of Cadogan inspected the line from right to left; and when it was announced that he had left a guinea to each troop and company, to drink the king’s health, cheers, as the news spread, burst forth along the line like a running fire. Soon after, there was not a soldier left in the Park, except the bodies of those who had been shot there, and were buried where they fell. On the day of the break-up, however, there were Jacobites on the ground who were contemplating how they could most easily seize the person of the king, murder the Earl of Cadogan, and restore the Chevalier de St. George to his rightful place. A few soldiers, having left their arms behind them, stealthily followed those men to aid them in their purpose. They went towards Chancery Lane, where however the civil authorities had long been on the watch before them. [Sidenote: _CHRISTOPHER LAYER._]