Note 426 — 367.

The court-martial held at Portsmouth entirely acquitted Admiral Keppel on February 11. The news reached London that night. It was treated as a triumph for the Opposition. Ladies appeared at the opera in caps à la Keppel, and blue cockades bearing the Admiral's name were worn. His "Head" became a favourite alehouse sign. Houses were illuminated; guns discharged; bells rung; the windows of the houses of Sir H. Palliser, Lord North, Lord G. Germain, and Lord Sandwich were broken. Sir H. Palliser resigned his seat for Scarborough as well as all his employments, and asked for a court-martial, which acquitted him from any charge of misconduct. He underwent the operation to which Gibbon alludes. "Here are the exact, and all the words which the King said to him, the first time he was at Court afterwards—'Sir Hugh, how does your leg do?'" (Warner to Selwyn, May, 1779).