On this particular day the people were mad with triumph. They had set fire to chapels and meeting-houses; they had made bonfires of Bibles and other books and materials in Lincoln’s Inn Fields without let or hindrance, and while these were blazing the mob, which had been joined by persons of the very lowest class, began to entertain the thought of attacking me in Grocers’ Hall and relieving me of my wealth. So on they came, as you know mobs will when they think themselves masters, and there stood I and my whole household, determined to guard our home and its treasures with our lives. Thanks to the Earl of Sunderland, who rushed into the Queen’s presence with an account of the mob’s proceedings, help was sent before harm could reach us. The Queen, on hearing of the danger which threatened me, turned pale from fear, but quickly regaining her courage, bade her secretary “send her foot and horse guards forthwith and disperse the rioters.” Thus peril was once again warded off from me and my home. I know that you will think I had enough to do without dabbling in politics, but in all your criticisms of me and my doings you must take into consideration my education, my position, and my responsibilities. Of course, I had daily dealings with every class of politicians, and became acquainted with every shade of politics. There is no knowing on which side I should have ranged myself—whether among the Whigs or among the Tories—had I been allowed a choice; but circumstances decided for me, and made me, and kept me for several generations, a determined Whig. My friend Joseph Addison[1] fully realised my position, and in a pretty allegory set forth the calamity which would fall upon me should I by chance favour the Tories. It is very elegantly written, and, as it is not long, I will relate it to you. You will see that he speaks of me as a queen—by name “Public Credit.” “I saw Public Credit on her throne in Grocers’ Hall, the Great Charter overhead, the Act of Settlement full in her view. Her touch turned everything to gold. “Behind her seat bags filled with coin were piled up to the ceiling. On her right and on her left the floor was hidden by pyramids of guineas. “On a sudden the door flies open, the Pretender rushes in, a sponge in one hand, in the other a sword, which he shakes at the Act of Settlement. “The beautiful queen sinks down fainting; the spell by which she has turned all things around her into treasure is broken; the money-bags shrink like pricked bladders; the piles of gold pieces are turned into bundles of rags, or faggots of wooden tallies.”[2] The truth which this picture was meant to convey was never absent from my mind or from my governors’. We were perfectly aware of how very closely our interest was bound up with that of the Government, and the greater the public danger the more ready were we—that is, I and my people—to go to their rescue.