LETTER CCXLIII.

Το Mrs.

THRAL E.

DEAR MADAM,

London, June 12, 1780.

A

LL is well, and all is likely to continue well. The streets are all quiet, and the houses are all fafe. This is a true answer to the firft enquiry which obtrudes itself upon your tongue at the reception of a letter from London.

The publick has escaped a very heavy calamity. The rioters attempted the Bank on Wednesday night, but in no great number; and like other thieves, with no great resolution. Jack Wilkes headed the party that drove them away. It is agreed, that if they had feized the Bank on Tuesday, at the height of the panick, when no resistance had been prepared, they might have carried irrecoverably away whatever they had found. Jack, who was always zealous for order and decency, declares, that if he be trufted with power, he will not leave a rioter alive. There is however now no longer any need of he

roism or bloodshed; no blue riband is any longer worn.

called on Friday at Mrs. Gardiner's, to fee how the efcaped or what the fuffered; and told her, that fhe had herself too much affliction within doors, to take much notice of the difturbances without.

It was furely very happy that you and Mr. Thrale were away in the tumult; you could have done nothing better than has been done, and must have felt much terrour which absence has fpared you.

your

We have accounts here of great violences committed by the Proteftants at Bath; and of the demolition of the masshouse. We have feen fo much here, that we are very credulous.

Pray tell Mifs Burney that Mr. Hutton called on me yesterday, and spoke of her with praise; not profufe, but very fincere, juft as I do. And tell Queeney, that if she does not write oftener, I will try to forget her. There are other pretty girls that perhaps I could get, if I were not constant.

My

My Lives go on but flowly. I hope to add fome to them this week. I wish they were well done.

Thus far I had written when I received your letter of battle and conflagration. You certainly do right in retiring; for who can guefs the caprice of the rabble? My master and Queeney are dear people for not being frighted, and you and Burney are dear people for being frighted. I wrote to you a letter of intelligence and confolation; which, if you ftaid for it, you had on Saturday; and I wrote another on Saturday, which perhaps may follow you from Bath, with some atchievement of John Wilkes,

Do not be disturbed; all danger here is apparently over: but a little agitation ftill continues. We frighten one another with seventy thousand Scots to come hither with the Dukes of Gordon and Argyle, and eat us, and hang us, or drown us; but we are all at quiet.

I am glad, though I hardly know why, that you are gone to Brighthelmftone rather than to Briftol. You are fomewhat nearer home,

and

and I may perhaps come to fee you. Brighthelmstone will foon begin to be peopled, and Mr. Thrale loves the place; and you will fee Mr. Scrafe; and though I am forry that you fhould be fo outrageously unroofted, I think that Bath has had you long enough.

Of the commotions at Bath there has been talk here all day. An exprefs must have been fent; for the report arrived many hours before the poft, at least before the diftribution of the letters. This report I mentioned in the first part of my letter, while I was yet uncertain of the fact.

When it is known that the rioters are quelled in London, their fpirit will fink in every other place, and little more mifchief will be done.

I am, dear Madam,

Your, &c.

LETTER CCXLIV.

Το Mrs. THRA L E.

DEAR MADAM,

London, June 14, 1780.

E

VERY thing here is fafe and quiet. This is the first thing to be told; and this I told in my last letter directed to Brighthelmftone. There has indeed been an univerfal panick, from which the King was the firft that recovered. Without the concurrence of his minifters, or the affiftance of the civil magiftrate, he put the foldiers in motion, and faved the town from calamities, fuch as a rabble's government must naturally produce.

Now you are at ease about the publick, I may tell you that I am not well; I have had a cold and cough fome time, but it is grown fo bad, that yesterday I fafted and was blooded, and to day took phyfick and dined: but neither fafting nor bleeding, nor dinner, nor phyfick, have yet made me well.

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