en were required to adhere
to the more ancient and showy attire of knee-breeches; and it was said
that in consequence of one having attempted unsuccessfully to obtain
admission in trousers the tickets for the next ball were headed with a
notice that "gentlemen would not be admitted without breeches and
stockings."]

Williams, the reprinter of the _North Briton_, stood in the pillory
to-day in Palace Yard.[1] He went in a hackney-coach, the number of
which was 45. The mob erected a gallows opposite him, on which they hung
a boot[2] with a bonnet of straw. Then a collection was made for
Williams, which amounted to near L200. In short, every public event
informs the Administration how thoroughly they are detested, and that
they have not a friend whom they do not buy. Who can wonder, when every
man of virtue is proscribed, and they have neither parts nor characters
to impose even upon the mob! Think to what a government is sunk, when a
Secretary of State is called in Parliament to his face "the most
profligate sad dog in the kingdom," and not a man can open his lips in
his defence. Sure power must have some strange unknown charm, when it
can compensate for such contempt! I see many who triumph in these bitter
pills which the ministry are so often forced to swallow; I own I do not;
it is more mortifying to me to reflect how great and respectable we
were three years ago, than satisfactory to see those insulted who have
brought such shame upon us. 'Tis poor amends to national honour to know,
that if a printer is set in the pillory, his country wishes it was my
Lord This, or Mr. That. They will be gathered to the Oxfords, and
Bolingbrokes, and ignominious of former days; but the wound they have
inflicted is perhaps indelible. That goes to _my_ heart, who had felt
all the Roman pride of being one of the first nations upon earth!--Good
night!--I will go to bed, and dream of Kings drawn in triumph; and then
I will go to Paris, and dream I am pro-consul there: pray, take care not
to let me be awakened with an account of an invasion having taken place
from Dunkirk![3] Yours ever, H.W.

[Footnote 1: This was the last occasion on which the punishment of the
pillory was inflicted.]

[Footnote 2: A scandal, for which there was no foundation, imputed to
the Princess of Wales an undue intimacy with John Earl of Bute; and with
a practical pun on his name the mob in some of the riots which were
common in the first years of his reign show