On the 6th of April, 1810, Sir Francis Burdett was, by a majority of 38 Members of the House of Commons, sentenced to be committed to the Tower, for a breach of privilege committed by him against the house, in an address written by him in _Cobbett's Weekly Political Register_ of March 24, 1810: "SIR FRANCIS BURDETT TO HIS CONSTITUENTS, DENYING THE POWER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS TO IMPRISON THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND." After some trouble, and a great deal of rodomontade on his part, he was safely lodged in the fortress--after which a slight affray took place between the mob and the troops in which one of the former was killed, and eight wounded."[5] [Footnote 5: See _The Dawn of the Nineteenth Century_, by John Ashton, 1 vol. edit., pp. 166 to 176.] The demagogue did not like the position in which he found himself, and breathed fire and fury. He would bring actions against the Speaker, the Sergeant-at-Arms, and the Earl of Moira, who was then Governor of the Tower. He was released, on the prorogation of Parliament, 21st of June, 1810, and on March 8, 1811, he brought an action against the Speaker (Abbott) for a trespass and assault in breaking open his house on the 6th of April, 1810. The Speaker pleaded justification, and the case was tried on the 19th of June, when the jury found a verdict for the defendant, thereby admitting and enforcing the right of the House of Commons to commit for breach of privilege. Mention has already been made of a fund started by a number of Merchants, Bankers, and others of the City of London, at Lloyd's, for the "Relief of British prisoners in France," which, on the 29th of June, reached about £54,000. But their practical charity did not end here, for there was also another fund begun "for Relief of Portuguese sufferers during the French Invasion," which, on the 21st of June, amounted to nearly £52,000. The West End, evidently tried to emulate the City, and at Willis's Rooms, under the presidency of the Duke of York, there was a "Fund for the Relief of the Unfortunate Sufferers in Portugal--who have been plundered and treated by the French Armies with the most unexampled barbarity." By June 29th this had reached £15,000.