A camp was formed in the neighbourhood of Torbay, where the French seemed to threaten a descent.

Their fleet, which lay at anchor in the bay, cannonaded a small village called Teign-mouth.

About a thousand of their men landed without opposition, set fire to the place, and burned a few coasting vessels; then they re-embarked and returned to Brest, so vain of this achievement that they printed a pompous account of their invasion.

Some of the whig partizans published pamphlets and diffused reports, implying that the suspended bishops were concerned in the conspiracy against the government; and these arts proved so inflammatory among the common people, that the prelates thought it necessary to print a paper, in which they asserted their innocence in the most solemn protestations.

The court seems to have harboured no suspicion against them, otherwise they would not have escaped imprisonment.