Such is the reasoning of an eye-witness. One thing is certain, contemporary writers appear to have generally acquiesced in the propriety of the retreat; and that circumstance constitutes the strongest evidence in favour of the step. Yet, viewing events at this distance of time, and taking into account the panic which seized, not only the public mind, but which affected the heads of the Government on hearing of the bold and rapid march of the insurgents, our faith in the wisdom of a retreat is weakened. In the night when it was announced in the fashionable circles of St. James's that the Prince had reached Derby, a general consternation was diffused throughout society. A lady of the highest rank, who was in one of the assemblies of the day, related to one of her descendants that upon the intelligence reaching the party where she was, the rooms were instantly cleared, and on the following morning there was not a carriage to be seen in London. Nor were these apprehensions confined to any particular sphere.[135] The arrival of the troops at Derby was known in London on the ninth of December, henceforth called by the English "Black Monday." Many of the inhabitants fled in terror from the metropolis, taking their treasures with them; the shops were closed: people thronged to the bank to obtain payment of its notes, and it only escaped bankruptcy by the following stratagem. Those who came first being entitled to priority of payment, the managers of the bank took care to be surrounded by agents with notes, to whom their pretended claims were paid in sixpences to gain time. These agents went out by one door and came back by another, so that the _bona fide_ holders of notes could never get near enough to present them; and the bank stood out by these means until the panic had died away. King George even embarked all his most precious effects on his yachts, which were stationed in the Tower-quay, in readiness to convey him away, should the dreaded Highlanders, as it now began to be generally expected, march to London in a few days. The "moneyed corporations," according to Smollett, were all in the deepest dejection; they reflected that the Highlanders, of whom they had conceived a most terrible idea, were within four days' march of the capital; they anticipated a revolution ruinous to their own prosperity, and were overwhelmed with dismay.