he people with
the weapons of Scotch mercenaries. Pamphlets, speeches, sermons, all
were employed to stimulate the general agitation and to brand with
atrocity the conduct of the Ministry. The tombstone erected over the
murdered man Allan chronicled his inhuman murder "by Scottish
detachments from the Army," and quoted from Proverbs the words, "Take
away the wicked from before the King."

[Sidenote: 1768--The Ministry on its defence]

The ministers, on their side, were not slow to defend themselves.
Burke, with his usual fairness, has stated their case for them when he
tells how they painted in the strongest colors the licentiousness of
the rabble and that contempt of all government which makes it necessary
to oppose to a violent distemper remedies not less violent. This is,
of course, the excuse of every overbearing authority, which, having
aroused irritation by its own mismanagement, can conceive of no better
way of allaying that irritation than the bayonet and the bullet. The
Ministry and the advocates of the Ministry maintained that the unhappy
disposition of the people was such that juries under the influence of
the general infatuation could hardly be got to do justice to soldiers
under prosecution, unless Government interposed in the most effectual
manner for the protection of those who had acted under their orders.
They further urged that, in view of the danger of the insolence of the
populace becoming contagious with the very soldiery, it was necessary
for them to keep those servants firm to their duty by new and unusual
rewards. "Whatever weight," says Burke, dryly, "might have been in
these reasons, they were but little prevalent, and the Ministry became
by this affair and its concomitant circumstances still more unpopular
than by almost any other event." But it must in fairness be admitted
that, foolish, stubborn, and even brutal as the King's ministers showed
themselves to be, their position was a very difficult one.

{122}

It was well open to the Government to urge, and to urge with truth, the
peculiar lawlessness of the hour. It is an effective example of the
ineffectiveness of a mere policy of coercion that, at a time when the
penal laws of Great Britain were ferocious to a degree that would have
disgraced Dahomey, the laws were so frequently defied, and defied with
impunity. The laws might be merciless, even murderous, but the
Executive had not always the power to compel respect or to enforc