And England is risen to a mere smoky whirlwind, of rage, sorrow and
darkness, against Byng and others. Smoky darkness, getting streaked
with dangerous fire. "Tried?" said his Grace of Newcastle to the
City Deputation: "Oh indeed he shall be tried immediately; he shall
be hanged directly!"--assure yourselves of that. [Walpole, ii. 231:
Details of the Siege, ib. 218-225; in Gentleman's
Magazine, xxvi. 256, 312-313, 358; in Adelung, vii.; &c. &c.]
And Byng's effigy was burnt all over England. And mobs attempt to
burn his Seat and Park; and satires and caricatures and firebrands
are coming out: and the poor Constitutional Country is bent on
applying surgery, if it but know how. Surgery to such indisputable
abominations was certainly desirable. The new Relief Squadron,
which had been despatched by Majesty's Ministry, was too late for
Blakeney, but did bring home a superseded Byng.

SPITHEAD, TUESDAY, 27th JULY, The superseded Byng arrives; is
punctually arrested, on arriving: "Him we will hang directly:--
is there anything else we can try [except, perhaps, it were hanging
of ourselves, and our fine methods of procedure], by way of
remedying you?"--War against France, now a pretty plain thing, had
been "declared," 17th May (French counter-declaring, 9th June):
and, under a Duke of Newcastle and a Hero of Culloden, not even
pulling one way, but two ways; and a Talking-Apparatus full of
discords at this time, and pulling who shall say how many ways,--
the prospects of carrying on said War are none of the best.
Lord Loudon, a General without skill, and commanding, as Pitt
declares, "a scroll of Paper hitherto" (a good few thousands marked
on it, and perhaps their Colonels even named), is about going for
America; by no means yet gone, a long way from gone: and, if the
Laws of Nature be suspended--Enough of all that!