During the Provostship of George Browne, one of the worst riots took place in the College, fortunately unattended at the time by loss of life. [The Provost died of its effects!] College discipline had become disorganised in the unsettled period which succeeded the battle of the Boyne, and the Provost and Senior Fellows resolved to subdue the disorderly spirit which had manifested itself in the College. They determined to admonish publicly three or four of the Students who had been particularly disorderly, and the heads of the College proceeded in a body to the Hall for that purpose. A few determined Students advanced resolutely, tore the Admonition paper out of the hands of the Dean, and turned the Provost out of the Hall. It was probably on this occasion that Provost George Browne received the blow which has been mentioned in a previous page. A later instance of similar insubordination occurred about thirty years afterwards, when the Provost and Senior Fellows proceeded to the Hall for the like purpose of punishing some turbulent Students. They were met on their way with unseemly affronts and reproaches. The doors of the Hall were locked against them by the Students, and they were obliged to break open the doors in order to promulgate their sentence. In 1733 the rooms of one of the Fellows were attacked by six or eight of the Students, and they perpetrated there disgraceful mischief and outrage. The rebellious spirit of some of the Students went so far that, when they were expelled, or rusticated, they refused to leave the College, and the authorities could not put them out without violence. One of the Students so expelled actually assaulted a Senior Fellow in the Hall while the sentence of his expulsion was being read out. These violent proceedings on the part of a few reckless Students were aided by outsiders, who always came into College when riots were expected. Thus the unhappy disorders in the College had become widely known, and were fast bringing the institution to the lowest disrepute. A contemporary pamphlet complains that while there were in the College from five hundred to six hundred Students between seventeen and twenty-four years of age, there were only twenty Masters to control them. The Scholars objected to the statutable custom of capping the Fellows, and it states that--