From the ‘Letters of the First Earl of Malmesbury, his Family and Friends,’ it is to be gathered that the Londoners were kept in ignorance of Sir John Cope’s defeat, till private letters arrived by which the whole disgrace was revealed. Lord Shaftesbury writes that Pitt’s respectful motion to advise the king to recall the troops (chiefly cavalry) from Flanders, and use them in suppressing the rebellion, was lost, or ‘eluded,’ by putting the previous question――ayes 136, noes 148; in which division young Horace Walpole was in the minority, and old Horace Walpole on the other side; ‘not a Tory on either side speaking. I leave you to reflect on this proceeding, though I think a very little reflection will suffice.’ People who had letters from the north ran with them from house to house, some, even, to St. James’s, to impart their contents, and small regard was had to any of the newspapers. But individuals could be as untrustworthy as the papers. Old Lord Aylesbury was conspicuous as a ‘terror-raiser.’ He says ‘the Papists poisoned his grandfather, and made a fool of his father, and that he believed all the Jacobites would turn to Popery very easily, if it was to prevail.’ The old lord was to be seen daily going to Court, ‘to show his public attachment to the Revolution of 1688.’ [Sidenote: _THE LONDON TRAINBANDS._] With respect to the king reviewing the Trainbands from the garden wall of St. James’s, recorded in a preceding page, Lord Shaftesbury writes, Oct. 26th, 1745: ‘This morning the Trainbands were reviewed by his Majesty. By what I saw of them myself, I can venture to affirm that, notwithstanding their deficiency in smartness, from want of an uniform, which may possibly expose them to the ridicule of some of our very fine gentlemen, they would make an honourable and effective stand, if needful, for their religion and liberties. They are really, upon the whole, good troops.’ The Rev. William Harris gives a fuller account of the same incident to his brother: ‘I was to-day accidentally in St. James’s Park, when the City Militia were reviewed by the King, who stood on the terrace in his own garden, attended by the Duke, Lord Stair, Dukes of Dorset, Newcastle, Bolton, and several others of the nobility. It was a most tedious affair, I make no doubt, to his Majesty; for the London men made but a shabby appearance, and there could be no great entertainment in seeing them. Their officers were well enough, and to these, as they made their salute, passing by under the terrace, his Majesty returned everyone the compliment by pulling off his hat. There were no less than six regiments, and I suppose it might be near two hours before they all had gone in review before his Majesty.’ [Sidenote: _SCENES AT COURT._]