It was an incident, into which politics entered not a little; there were wires to pull, and Lord Bolingbroke had his hand in the theatrical pie.

"To reward his merit," chronicles Chetwood, "he (Booth) was joined in the patent, tho' great interest was made against him by the other patentees, who, to prevent his soliciting his patrons at Court, then at Windsor, gave out plays every night, where Mr.Booth had a principal part.

Notwithstanding this step, he had a chariot and six of a nobleman's waiting for him at the end of every play, that whipt him the twenty miles in three hours, and brought him back to the business of the theatre the next night." "He told me," adds the writer, "not one nobleman in the Kingdom had so many sets of horses at command as he had at that time, having no less than eight; the first set carrying him to Hounslow from London, ten miles; and the next set, ready waiting with another chariot to carry him to Windsor." Evidently the inspired Barton, with all his high-flown talent, had an eye for the main chance.

In this respect he resembled one greater than he--David Garrick.
Like Garrick, too, the enterprising Booth had his Peg Woffington, in the pretty person of Susan Mountford, a daughter of the great Mistress Verbruggen.

He never placed a wedding-ring upon a finger of this young woman, but he gave her his protection after the death of the baronet's daughter, and continued to do so until the fragile creature ran off with a craven fellow named Minshull.