This misrepresentation had too fatal effect. The peasants became refractory beyond measure; riots were raised in several counties, as Surrey, Kent, Leicester, Hertford, Bedford, Nottingham, and York shires. The lists were forced by violence from the magistrates; Lord Robert Sutton was in danger of his life at Nottingham; the Duke of Bedford’s house, near Bedford, was threatened to be demolished, as he had been the first to advertise for a meeting. The Blues were ordered down to his defence; and it was worth observation, that the standing Army was employed to impose upon the people a constitutional force. His Grace threatened to carry the act into execution with a high hand, but on the day of the meeting he adjourned it to December, when he knew he should be in Ireland. The Duke of Dorset was attacked at Knowle, but saved by a young officer, who sallied out, and seized two-and-twenty of the rioters. The Speaker himself was insulted at Guildford, and menaced in his own house at Ember-court, and could not disperse the insurrection but by promising no further steps should be taken till the next session of Parliament. But the greatest indecencies were committed by the family of Townshend. George, the author of the Militia, was on very ill terms with his father, who was as wrong-headed as his son, and more mad. They wrote abusive pamphlets against one another; and the father, attended by a parson and a few low people, began a mob on the day the meeting for the Militia was to be held, and pasted up one of his own libels on the doors of four churches nearest to his seat. Under these difficulties, Mr. Pitt began to exert his new-acquired power, and to give symptoms of more vigorous government. France, notwithstanding her imposing airs, and our feeble and spiritless conduct, had carried no great point against us. Her finances were in disorder, her marine not respectable, the flower of her armies transported to Germany. Their King threw a damp on all operations. Melancholic, apprehensive of assassination, desirous of resigning his Crown, averse to the war from principles of humanity, perplexed by factions, and still resigned to the influence of his mistress, every measure was confirmed by him with reluctance or obtained by intrigues; yet they had imprinted such terrors of invasion upon us, that Mr. Pitt, concluding their own coasts might be ill-provided, while they menaced ours, determined to strike a hardy stroke, that should at once invert the system of fear, and restore our reputation by carrying the war into the quarters of the enemy.