In Parliament the Whigs
cheered at military defeats which might serve to discredit the
Tory Government. The navy was torn by faction. When, in 1778, the
Whig Admiral Keppel fought an indecisive naval battle off Ushant
and was afterwards accused by one of his officers, Sir Hugh
Palliser, of not pressing the enemy hard enough, party passion
was invoked. The Whigs were for Keppel, the Tories for Palliser,
and the London mob was Whig. When Keppel was acquitted there were
riotous demonstrations; the house of Palliser was wrecked, and he
himself barely escaped with his life. Whig naval officers
declared that they had no chance of fair treatment at the hands
of a Tory Admiralty, and Lord Howe, among others, now refused to
serve. For a time British supremacy on the sea disappeared and it
was only regained in April, 1782, when the Tory Admiral Rodney
won a great victory in the West Indies against the French.
A spirit of violence was abroad in England. The disabilities of
the Roman Catholics were a gross scandal. They might not vote or
hold public office. Yet when, in 1780, Parliament passed a bill
removing some of their burdens dreadful riots broke out in
London. A fanatic, Lord George Gordon, led a mob to Westminster
and, as Dr.
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