Some time after, upon returning to the same spot, I saw a number of soldiers running from the wicker gate, and pursuing the people on the causeway. Finding an affray actually commenced, I sprung my horse upon the causeway, interposed between the parties, and succeeded in separating them. While thus engaged, a soldier, with whom I had before been expostulating, and who was, therefore, acquainted with my official situation, started forward at a man, and knocked him down. At the same time, while using my utmost endeavours to prevail on the soldiers to retire into the barracks, and the people to desist and keep the peace, the bridle of my horse was violently seized, on the one side by a young officer in undress, and on the other by the soldier whose violence I had just noticed, and who, together, endeavoured to throw my horse over the causeway; and I only succeeded in extricating myself by striking the soldier with my stick, and making my horse plunge. Immediately several of the soldiers rushed at me with their swords drawn, and one actually loaded his carbine, and directed it towards me, but was, I am informed, knocked down by one of the constables. Further mischief was prevented by the interposition of some military officers of higher authority, and the soldiers at length retired into their barracks. My Lord, these circumstances require no comment. At a critical juncture the soldiers were left to their own exasperated feeling, and manifested a lawless spirit. The civil power under my direction was fully adequate for the preservation of the peace among the people, but not to encounter an armed soldiery. I had no communication from his Majesty’s Government, nor could I obtain an interview with any of the officers of the regiment. . . . I feel assured that had I not interposed with the civil power and even risked my own life, a frightful slaughter must have ensued. Of subordination to civil authority the soldiers appeared to be wholly unconscious, and that authority, in my person, was repeatedly insulted, and grossly outraged. It would, my Lord, be as needless as presumptuous in me to attempt to instruct your Lordship and his Majesty’s Government in the nature of the constitutional authority under which I attended yesterday, or the right I possessed in my official character to have claimed the aid and assistance of these very military to suppress tumult, who have, upon this occasion, in open defiance of the civil authority, been the promoters of it; nor need I add one word in aggravation of the enormity of the offences committed: the offenders can some of them be identified, and I trust your Lordship will cause immediate and effectual means to be adopted to bring them to justice, as a salutary example to others.