At the same time, many pamphlets were written and dispersed in the country, setting forth the dangerous consequences of extending the Excise Laws, and increasing the number of Excise-officers; showing the infringement of the one upon liberty, and the influence the other must necessarily give the Crown in elections. And so universally were these terrors scattered through the nation, and so artfully were they instilled into the minds of the people, that this project, which in reality was nothing more than a mutation of two taxes from Customs to Excises, with an addition of only one hundred and twenty-six officers in all England for the collection of it, was so represented to the country, and so understood by the multitude, that there was hardly a town in England, great or small, where nine parts in ten of the inhabitants did not believe that this project was to establish a general Excise, and that everything they ate or wore was to be taxed; that a colony of Excise-officers was to be settled in every village in the Kingdom, and that they were to have a power to enter all houses at all hours;[13] that every place and every person was to be liable to their search, and that such immense sums of monies were to be raised by this project, that the Crown would no longer be under the necessity of calling Parliament for annual grants to support the Government, but be able to provide for itself, for the most part; and whenever it wanted any extraordinary supplies, that the Excise officers, by their power, would be able at any time to choose just such a Parliament as the Crown should nominate and direct. [12] The attempted repeal of the Test Act. [13] This feeling found expression in various scurrilous ballads. The following verse may serve as a specimen: Who would think it a hardship that men so polite Should enter their houses by day or by night, To poke in each hole, and examine their stock, From the cask of right Nantz to their wives' Holland smock? He's as cross as the devil Who censures as evil A visit so courteous, so kind, and so civil; For to sleep in our beds without their _permit_, Were in a free country a thing most unfit. THE PORTEOUS RIOTS (1736). +Source.+--_Gentleman's Magazine_, 1736, p. 230. One Wilson was hang'd at Edinburgh for robbing Collector Stark. He having made an Attempt to break Prison, and his Comrade having actually got off, the Magistrates had the City Guards and the Welsh Fusiliers under Arms during the execution, which was perform'd without Disturbance; but on the Hangman's cutting down the Corpse (the Magistrates being withdrawn) the Boys threw, as usual, some Dust and Stones, which falling among the City Guard, Capt. Porteous fired, and order'd his Men to fire; whereupon above 20 Persons were wounded, 6 or 7 kill'd, one shot thro' the Head at a Window up two Pair of Stairs. The Capt. and several of his Men were after committed to Prison.