members in Parliament, little unanimity prevailed, "much clamor arose," a protest was entered against the proposed resolutions, and only one of the sheriffs consented to sign them all. London, as the country well knew, sympathized largely with America, but in a manner which nullified her influence elsewhere. Her populace was noisy and threatening; Wilkes, her Lord Mayor, was hated at court; her solid men kept to business. "Are the London merchants," wrote the king to Lord North,[2] "so thoroughly absorbed in their private interests not to feel what they owe to the constitution which has enriched them, that they do not either show their willingness to support, either by an address, or, what I should like better, a subscription, to furnish many comforts to the army in America?" An address from this quarter, signed by "respectable names," he thought might have a good effect, and one was presented on October 11th, with 941 signatures; but it was entirely neutralized by the presentation, three days before, of another address more numerously signed by "gentlemen, merchants, and traders of London," in which the measures of government were condemned. When the point was made in the Commons that the war was a popular measure in England, Lutrell promptly replied that he had made many a journey through the interior of the country during the summer season, and had conversed with "a multitude of persons widely different in station and description," only to find that the masses were in sympathy with the colonists. The division of sentiment was probably correctly represented by Lord Camden early in the year, in his observation that the landed interest was almost wholly anti-American, while the merchants, tradesmen, and the common people were generally opposed to a war.[3] [Footnote 2: "Correspondence with Lord North." Donne.] [Footnote 3: Upon this point Dr. Price said: "Let it be granted, _though probably far from true_, that the _majority_ of the kingdom favor the present measures. No good argument could be drawn from thence against receding."]