When it was known that there had been no cause of alarm, attempts were made to discover the origin of the rumour which had produced so much agitation.

It appeared that some persons who had the look and dress of clowns just arrived from the country had first spread the report in the suburbs a little before midnight: but whence these men came, and by whom they were employed, remained a mystery.

And soon news arrived from many quarters which bewildered the public mind still more.

The panic had not been confined to London.

The cry that disbanded Irish soldiers were coming to murder the Protestants had, with malignant ingenuity, been raised at once in many places widely distant from each other.