Exultation over the victory at Culloden was still prevailing. In other respects, it may be asserted that apprehensions of domestic disturbances had now pretty well ceased. Walpole felt that if the French attempted an invasion, it would be for themselves, and not for the Chevalier. ‘They need not be at the trouble,’ he wrote in January, ‘of sending us Stuarts; that ingenious House could not have done the work of France more effectually than the Pelhams and the patriots have.’ The London Whigs maintained the memory of the triumph of Cumberland. For years they kept the anniversary of the Jacobite overthrow at Culloden by dining, or drinking, or doing both, together. Here is a sample of what they thought of the triumph, taken from the advertisement columns of ‘The General Advertiser:’―― ‘HALF-MOON TAVERN, CHEAPSIDE. Saturday next, the 16th April, being the anniversary of the Glorious Battle of Culloden, the Stars will assemble in the Moon, at six in the evening. Therefore, the choice spirits are desired to make their appearance and fill up the joy.’ [Sidenote: _THE GOVERNMENT AND THE JACOBITES._] Within a month, however, the Government were referring to the Jacobites, as if the rebellion had not been stamped out at Culloden. The special occasion on which the Jacobites were ill-spoken of in Parliament this year was in the House of Lords. The Peers were discussing the Scottish episcopal question, and the Highland dress. Lord Hardwicke, the Chancellor, with other Lords, denounced the Scottish bishops as Nonjurors, whose _congé d’élire_, if there was one, came from the Pretender; and whose ‘orders,’ conferred on others, could only be a farce. Jacobitism had by no means lost its vitality. In some cases it had been bribed into a deceitful calm, which might be followed by a storm at any opportunity. Lord Hardwicke thought the condemned Jacobites had been too leniently dealt with, and that they would have had no cause to complain had the most rigorous penalties been exacted. In short, his lordship went far to authorise Lord Campbell’s judgment, that if the Duke of Cumberland was responsible for the way in which he stamped out rebellion in Scotland, Lord Hardwicke, at Westminster, was responsible for the judicial murders committed on rebels. The following is from the speech, which aroused some surprise in the House of Lords:―― [Sidenote: _ENLARGEMENT OF PRISONERS._]