On the very day I wrote to you last, my dear lord, an extraordinary event happened, which I did not then know.  A motion was made in the common council, to thank the sheriffs for their behaviour at the riot, and to prosecute the man who was apprehended for it.  This was opposed, and the previous question being put, the numbers were equal; but the casting vote of the Lord Mayor(411) was given against putting the first question—­pretty strong proceeding; for though, in consequence and in resentment of the Duke of Bedford’s speech, it seemed to justify his grace, who had accused the mayor and magistracy of not trying to suppress the tumult; if they will not prosecute the rioters, it is not very unfair to surmise that they did not dislike the riot.  Indeed, the city is so inflamed, and the ministry so obnoxious, that I am very apprehensive of some violent commotion.  The court have lost the Essex election(412) merely from Lord Sandwich interfering in it, and from the Duke of Bedford’s speech; a great number of votes going from the city on that account to vote for Luther.  Sir John Griffin,(413) who was disobliged by Sandwich’s espousing Conyers, went to Chelmsford, at the head of five hundred voters.

One of the latest acts of the ministry will not please my Lady Hertford:  they have turned out her brother, Colonel Fitzroy:(414 Fitzherbert,(415) too, is removed; and, they say, Sir Joseph Yorke recalled.(416) I must do Lord Halifax and Mr. Grenville the justice to say that these violences are not imputed to them.  It is certain that the former was the warmest opposer of the measure for breaking the officers; and Mr. Grenville’s friends take every opportunity of throwing the blame on the Duke of Bedford and Lord Sandwich.  The Duchess of Bedford, who is too fond a Wife not to partake in all her husband’s fortunes, has contributed her portion of indiscretion.  At a great dinner, lately, at Lord Halifax’s, all the servants present, mention being made of the Archbishop of Canterbury,(417) M. de Guerchy asked the Duchess, “Est-il de famille?” She replied, “Oh! mon Dieu, non, il a `et`e sage-femme.”  The mistake of sage-femme for accoucheur, and the strangeness of the proposition, confounded Guerchy so much, that it was necessary to explain it:  but think of a minister’s wife telling a foreigner, and a Catholic, that the primate of her own church had been bred a man-midwife!

The day after my last, another verdict was given in the common Pleas, of four hundred pounds to the printers; and another episode happened, relating to Wilkes; one Dunn, a mad Scotchman, was seized in Wilkes’s house, whither he had gone intending to assassinate him.  This was complained of in the House of Commons, but the man’s phrensy was verified; it was even proved that he had notified his design in a coffee-house, some days before.  The mob, however, who are determined that Lord Sandwich shall answer for every body’s faults, as well as his own, believe that he employed Dunn.  I wish the recess, which begins next Monday, may cool matters a little, for indeed it grows very serious.