It was on the 15th of February, 1744, after there had been some difficulty to persuade people of the impending danger, that the king informed Parliament and the nation, that this kingdom was about to be invaded by the French, with the design of overthrowing the present happy establishment, and the Protestant succession, and of restoring the Stuarts and the Romish religion. In the debates which ensued in both Houses, all the occasional references to Jacobites seemed to have come together in one heap. Lord Orford (Walpole) reminded the peers how he had been calumniated and ridiculed for repeating that the Jacobites had never ceased to plot, and that they would one day renew their attempt to destroy the present dynasty. ◆[Sidenote: _PREPARATIONS._]◆ If England was not ready to meet this attempt, the fault would be with those who were now in power. Lord Chesterfield still maintained that the Jacobites in the metropolis were few, and that hostility to the Government was chiefly maintained there by the malicious and contemptible sect of Nonjurors. One Jacobite member in the Commons, Sir Francis Dashwood, was audacious, at least by inuendoes. Alluding to the harsh epithets flung at the Chevalier, he remarked that James II. had branded as an invader and usurper that William of Orange, who was afterwards hailed by the country as its glorious deliverer. He referred also to the incident in Roman history of the Roman soldiers refusing to march against foreign invaders till they had destroyed the tyranny which reigned at Rome. The application of these remarks was easy enough. They showed the spirit of the Jacobite party, particularly in London. The natural result ensued, namely, a proclamation to the justices to put in force the laws which had been framed against Papists and Nonjurors. The former were ordered to remove to a distance of at least ten miles from the metropolis, or to keep close within their habitations. Those persons who refused to take the oaths of allegiance and abjuration were to be deprived of their arms and horses; and every attempt at rioting was to be put down by armed force. Further, every person found corresponding with the Pretender or his sons were pronounced to be guilty of High Treason,――which involved forfeiture of life, title, and estates. If this seems stringent, it must be remembered that already had there been caught and caged in Newgate a Popish priest, who, putting in action the teaching of his Church that it only interfered with religion,――and with morals, which means everything else,――had, in the disguise of an imaginary captainship, been trying to enlist men into the service of the enemy. [Sidenote: _DECLARATION OF WAR._]