;
and she had already appointed a Committee of the Privy Council to
inquire into the cause of the late misfortune, and to consider of the
best means of preventing similar misfortunes in time to come. [455] This
answer gave so much satisfaction that the Lord Mayor soon came to the
palace to thank the Queen for her goodness, to assure her that, through
all vicissitudes, London would be true to her and her consort, and to
inform her that, severely as the late calamity had been felt by many
great commercial houses, the Common Council had unanimously resolved to
advance whatever might be necessary for the support of the government.
[456]

The ill humour which the public calamities naturally produced was
inflamed by every factious artifice. Never had the Jacobite pamphleteers
been so savagely scurrilous as during this unfortunate summer. The
police was consequently more active than ever in seeking for the dens
from which so much treason proceeded. With great difficulty and after
long search the most important of all the unlicensed presses was
discovered. This press belonged to a Jacobite named William Anderton,
whose intrepidity and fanaticism marked him out as fit to be employed
on services from which prudent men and scrupulous men shrink. During two
years he had been watched by the agents of the government; but where
he exercised his craft was an impenetrable mystery. At length he was
tracked to a house near Saint James's Street, where he was known by a
feigned name, and where he passed for a working jeweller. A messenger
of the press went thither with several assistants, and found Anderton's
wife and mother posted as sentinels at the door. The women knew the
messenger, rushed on him, tore his hair, and cried out "Thieves"
and "Murder." The alarm was thus given to Anderton. He concealed the
instruments of his calling, came forth with an assured air, and bade
defiance to the messenger, the Censor, the Secretary, and Little
Hooknose himself. After a struggle he was secured. His room was
searched; and at first sight no evidence of his guilt appeared. But
behind the bed was soon found a door which opened into a dark closet.
The closet contained a press, types and heaps of newly printed papers.
One of these papers, entitled Remarks on the Present Confederacy and the
Late Revolution, is perhaps the most frantic of all the Jacobite libels.
In this tract the Prince of Orange is gravely accused of having ordered
fifty of his wounde