The Admirals were represented as flying with their whole fleet before a few French privateers, and taking shelter under the grins of the Tower.
The office of Chorus was performed by a Jackpudding who expressed very freely his opinion of the naval administration.

Immense crowds flocked to see this strange farce.

The applauses were loud; the receipts were great; and the mountebanks, who had at first ventured to attack only the unlucky and unpopular Board of Admiralty, now, emboldened by impunity and success, and probably prompted and rewarded by persons of much higher station than their own, began to cast reflections on other departments of the government.

This attempt to revive the license of the Attic Stage was soon brought to a close by the appearance of a strong body of constables who carried off the actors to prison.

[463] Meanwhile the streets of London were every night strewn with seditious handbills.
At all the taverns the zealots of hereditary right were limping about with glasses of wine and punch at their lips.