[Sidenote: _FRENCH NEWS OF LONDON._] As correct news of the condition of London in the latter half of the year, it was stated in the French papers that insurrectionary undertakings prevailed; that the principal shops were closed; that suspected peers were under arrest; that an attempt had been made to murder the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that the Tower had been captured by a Jacobite mob, who had liberated nearly three hundred prisoners! Every _quidnunc_ in Paris turned to the article ‘London’ in the ‘Gazette de France,’ to read with avidity of the closing of great firms, the breaking of the chief banks, and the bewilderment of the king on his reaching the capital from Hanover. The ‘Gazette’ had no doubt of the crowning of James Stuart in Westminster Abbey during the Christmas holidays; and, perhaps, hoped for the appearance of ‘the Elector of Hanover’ on Tower Hill! [Sidenote: _ANXIETY AND CONFIDENCE._] On Friday, the 5th December 1745, it is undeniable that London was shaken into terror and consternation by the news of the arrival of Charles Edward on the Wednesday at Derby. It was long remembered as ‘Black Friday.’ ‘Many of the inhabitants,’ says the Chevalier de Johnstone, in his ‘Memoirs of the Rebellion,’ ‘fled to the country with their most precious effects, and all the shops were shut. People thronged to the Bank to get payment of its notes; and it only escaped bankruptcy by a stratagem. Payment was not indeed refused; but as they who came first were entitled to priority of payment, the bank took care to be continually surrounded by agents with notes, who were paid in sixpences in order to gain time. Those agents went out at one door with the specie they had received, and brought it back by another; so that the _bonâ fide_ holders of notes could never get near enough to present them, and the bank by this artifice preserved its credit, and literally faced its creditors.’