ression;
and, when some of the ministers seemed to waver, he put the question
himself to the Attorney-general whether the interpretation put on the
Riot Act, which seemed to him inconsistent with common-sense, were
justified by the law. Wedderburn unhesitatingly replied that it was not;
that "if a mob were committing a felony, as by burning dwelling-houses,
and could not be prevented by other means, the military, according to
the law of England, might and ought to be immediately ordered to fire
upon them, the reading of the Riot Act being wholly unnecessary under
such circumstances."[71] The King insisted on this opinion being
instantly acted on; a proclamation was issued, and orders were sent from
the Adjutant-general's office that the soldiers were to act at once
without waiting for directions from the civil magistrates. A few hours
now sufficed to restore tranquillity. The Chief-justice, in his place in
the House of Lords, subsequently declared Wedderburn's opinion, and the
orders given in reliance upon it, to be in strict conformity with the
common law, laying down, as the principle on which such an
interpretation of the law rested, the doctrine that in such a case the
military were acting, "not as soldiers, but as citizens; no matter
whether their coats were red or brown, they were legally employed in
preserving the laws and the constitution;"[72] and Wedderburn, who
before the end of the year became Chief-justice of the Common Pleas,
repeated the doctrine more elaborately in a charge from the Bench. It
was a lesson of value to the whole community. It was quite true that the
constitution placed the army in a state of dependence on the civil
power. But, when that doctrine was so misunderstood as to be supposed to
give temporary immunity to outrage, it was most important that such a
misconstruction should be corrected, and that it should be universally
known that military discipline does not require the soldier to abstain
from the performance of the duty incumbent on every citizen, the
prevention of crime.

Notes:

[Footnote 33: It is worth while to preserve the amount, if for no other
reason, for the contrast that the expenditure and resources of the
kingdom a hundred years ago present to those of the present day. The
supply required in 1764 was in round numbers L7,712,000; in 1755, before
the war broke out, L4,073,000, and even that included a million for the
augmentation of the army and navy. In 1761, when the w