The Lord Mayor went for a few hours to the Mansion House. The mob meditated hanging Clementson, the Deputy Serjeant-at-arms, who conducted him, on a sign-post, and the poor man heard them debating on it; but the Lord Mayor with difficulty obtained his safety by representing that he was not a principal, but acting in quality of servant to the House. At four in the morning the Mayor went to the Tower, where the Common Council voted that tables should be kept for him and Alderman Oliver. Brass Crosby, the Lord Mayor, was originally a low attorney, and had married his master’s widow, and afterwards the widow of a carcass-butcher. With their fortunes he trafficked in seamen’s tickets,--a mean and disreputable kind of usury. Nor were his manners more creditable than his professions. When he entered the Tower he was half drunk, swore, and behaved with a jollity ill-becoming the gravity of his office or cause. Had his behaviour been solemn or dignified, the novelty of the City’s chief magistrate imprisoned in defence of the City’s pretended franchises, might have made a very serious sensation.[176] Oliver, though decent, was a young fellow unknown; nor had any of their associates character or conduct sufficient to manage a machine so important, which soon split into squabbles, and fell to pieces without noise. The House of Commons again ordered that Wilkes should attend them on the Monday seven-night after the holidays, not desiring he should attend, but as if they meant to leave a precedent which men of more spirit might follow hereafter. Yet did they not adjourn till the Thursday in Passion week, when they might have sent for him; but they ordered their new committee to sit during the recess. On the 29th the King went to the House, was violently hissed, and had an apple thrown at him, which passed over his coach. Wedderburne was severely abused by Colonel Barré, and made a wretched defence, pleading that he had not deserted the Opposition but on the death of Grenville, to whom alone he had been attached; but having asserted that he knew taverns had been opened in Westminster for the mob, and that he could prove there had been men hired to make a riot, a committee was appointed to inquire into the late disturbances, of which Wedderburne was named chairman. T. Townshend, jun., observed, that while the Members were raging with such severity against printers, a crown-living of 800_l._ a-year was conferred on Scott, an abandoned priest attached to Lord Sandwich, and author of “Anti-Sejanus,” “Panurge,” “Cinna,” and many other most scurrilous libels.[177]