I do not know a syllable but what relates to these disturbances.  The newspapers have neglected few truths.  Lies, without their natural propensity to falsehoods, they could not avoid, for every minute produces some, at least exaggerations.  We were threatened with swarms of good Protestants `a br`uler from all quarters, and report sent various detachments on similar errands; but thank God they have been but reports!  Oh! when shall we have peace and tranquility?  I hope your lordship and Lady Strafford will at least enjoy the latter in your charming woods.  I have long doubted which of our passions is the strongest—­perhaps every one of them is equally strong in some person or other-but I have no doubt but ambition is the most detestable, and the most inexcusable; for its mischiefs are by far the most extensive, and its enjoyments by no means proportioned to its anxieties.  The latter, I believe, is the case of most passions—­but then all but ambition cost little pain to any but the possessor.  An ambitious man must be divested of all feeling but for himself.  The torment of others is his high-road to happiness.  Were the transmigration of souls true, and accompanied by consciousness, how delighted would Alexander or Croesus be to find themselves on four legs, and divested of a wish to conquer new worlds, or to heap up all the wealth of this!  Adieu, my dear lord!

(391) The riots of 1780, when Lord George Gordon raised a no-popery cry, and assembled many thousand persons in St. George’s Fields, to accompany him to the House of Commons, with a petition for the repeal of the act passed for the relief of the Roman Catholics in the preceding session.  The petition was, of course, rejected; which being communicated to the mob by Lord George, they dispersed for a while, but on that evening commenced their work of mischief, destroying two Catholic chapels in Duke-street and Warwick-street:  Newgate and all the other prisons were likewise fired; the Bank was attempted; and the riot was not quelled until 210 persons were killed and 248 wounded, of whom seventy-five died in the hospitals.  Lord George was committed to the Tower; and many of the ringleaders, after being tried by special commissioners, suffered the extreme penalty of the law.-E.

(392) Lord George Gordon was brother of Alexander Duke of Gordon.  He was considered not to be at all times of sound mind.  Some years after his acquittal, on the indictment preferred against him in the Court of King’s Bench as instigator of the riots, he was convicted of a libel on Marie Antoinette and Count d’Ademar, one of the French ministry.  To avoid punishment, he fled the country; but shortly afterwards was discovered at Birmingham in the garb of a Jew, and committed to Newgate, pursuant to his sentence, where he lived some time, professing the Jewish religion, having undergone the extreme rites of it, and where he died, in November 1793.-E.

(393) In her reply to a letter from Walpole, giving an account of these riots, Madame du Deffand says—­“Rien n’est plus affreux que tout ce qui arrive chez vous.  Votre libert`e ne me s`eduit point; cette libert`e tant vant`ee me paroit bien plus on`ereuse que notre esclavage; mais il ne m’appartient pas de traitor de telles mati`eres:  permettez-moi de bl`amer votre indiscr`etion, de vous aller promener dans les rues pendant ce vacarme."-E.