grave question. Certainly,
while driving the discontent underground, they increased its explosive
force. General David Dundas, in his Report on National Defence of
November 1796, states that at no time were there so many people disposed
to help the invaders. Perhaps we may sum up by declaring the two Acts a
disagreeable but necessary expedient during the time of alarm, and
mischievous when it passed away.[424]

The insult to the King was but one symptom of a distemper widely
prevalent. Its causes were manifold. Chief among them was a feeling of
disgust at the many failures of the war. The defection of Prussia and
Spain, the fruitless waste of British troops in the West Indies, the
insane follies of the French _emigres_, the ghastly scenes at Quiberon,
and the tragi-comedy of Vendemiaire in the streets of Paris, sufficed to
daunt the stoutest hearts. By the middle of the month of October 1795,
Pitt decided to come to terms with France, if the Directory, newly
installed in power, should found a stable Government and exhibit
peaceful tendencies. His position in this autumn is pathetic. Reproached
by the _emigres_ for recalling the Comte d'Artois from Yeu, taunted by
Fox for not having sought peace from the Terrorists, and reviled by the
populace as the cause of the dearth, he held firmly on his way, shelving
the _emigres_, maintaining that this was the first opportunity of
gaining a lasting peace, and adjuring the people to behave manfully in
order the more speedily to win it.

This advice seemed but cold comfort to men and women whose hardships
were severe. Political discontent was greatly increased by dear food and
uncertainty of employment. The symptoms had long been threatening. At
midsummer of the year 1795 the men of Birmingham assembled in hundreds
opposite a mill and bakehouse on Snow Hill, crying out: "A large loaf.
Are we to be starved to death?" They were dispersed by armed force, but
not without bloodshed. At that time insubordination in the troops was
met by summary executions or repression at Horsham, Brighton, and
Dumfries. In July a drunken brawl at Charing Cross led to a riot, in the
course of which the mob smashed Pitt's windows in Downing Street, and
demolished a recruiting station in St. George's Fields, Lambeth. The
country districts were deeply agitated by the shortage of corn resulting
from the bad harvest of 1794. A report from Beaminster in Dorset stated
that for six weeks before the harvest of 1