There are two camps, one in St. James’s, and the other in Hyde Park, which together with the military law, makes almost every one here think he is safe again.  I expect we shall all have “a passion for a scarlet coat” now.

I hardly know what to tell you that won’t be stale news.  They say that duplicates of the handbill that I have enclosed were distributed all over the town on Wednesday and Thurs;

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day last; however, thank heaven, everybody says now that Mr. Thrale’s house and brewery are as safe as we can wish them.  There was a brewer in Turnstile that had his house gutted and burnt, because, the mob said, “he was a papish, and sold popish beer.”  Did you ever hear of such diabolical ruffians?

To add to the pleasantness of our situation, there have been gangs of women going about to rob and plunder.  Miss Kirwans went on Friday afternoon to walk in the Museum gardens, and were stopped by a set of women, and robbed of all the money they had.  The mob had proscribed the mews, for they said, “the king should not have a horse to ride upon!” They besieged the new Somerset House, with intention to destroy it, but were repulsed by some soldiers placed there for that purpose.

Mr. Sleepe has been here a day or two, and says the folks at Watford, where he comes from, “approve very Much Of having the Catholic chapels destroyed, for they say it’s a shame the pope should come here!” There is a house hereabouts that they had chalked upon last week, “Empty, and No Popery!”

I am heartily rejoiced, my dearest Fanny, that you have got away from Bath, and hope and trust that at Brighthelmstone you will be as safe as we are here.

It sounds almost incredible, but they say, that on Wednesday night last, when the mob were more powerful, more numerous, and outrageous than ever, there was, nevertheless, a number of exceeding genteel people at Ranelagh, though they knew not but their houses might be on fire at the time!

A suggested visit To grub-street.

(Fanny Burney to Mrs. Thrale.)

Since I wrote last I have drunk tea with Dr. Johnson.  My father took me to Bolt-court, and we found him, most fortunately, with only one brass-headed cane gentleman.  Since that I have had the pleasure to meet him again at Mrs. Reynolds’s, when he offered to take me with him to Grub-street, to see the ruins of the house demolished there in the late riots, by a mob that, as he observed, could be no friend to the Muses!  He inquired if I had ever yet visited Grub-street ? but was obliged to restrain his anger when I answered “No,” because he acknowledged he had never paid his respects to it 200

himself.  “However,” says he, “you and I, Burney, will go together; we have a very good right to go, so we’ll visit the mansions of our progenitors, and take up our own freedon, together.”  There’s for you, madam!  What can be grander?