or maim some five or six poor drunken wretches, but could impress no salutary terror on the rest. They looked on without concern, some stupified and others maddened by their unwonted draughts of wine. Yet these were the very men who perhaps, a few hours before, might have slunk back in terror at the mere sight of a red coat. How forcibly do the events of that night illustrate what one of the principal sufferers by them, the Chief Justice, afterwards pronounced, that it is the highest humanity to check the infancy of tumults!*

Thus did that night pass in conflagration and dismay. Next morning, Wednesday, the 7th of June, the conflagrations were arrested, but the dismay continued. The shops in most places were kept carefully closed. In many districts the householders endeavoured to secure themselves by chalking "No Popery" on their doors, or hanging blue silk from their windows. Still more effectual, perhaps, was the precaution of paying money to several of the recent rioters, who made their rounds to claim it, walking singly, and three of them mere boys; but each armed with an iron bar, torn from the railings in front of Lord Mansfield's house. One fellow, mounted on horseback, refused, it was said, to take anything but gold. Yet amidst so much of horror there were not wanting, as usual, some points of ridicule. Thus, the Jews who lived in Houndsditch and Duke's Place, sharing in the common terror, wrote upon their shutters "This "house is a true Protestant." In other places the rioters, with perfect coolness and deliberation, recommenced their havoc. Dr. Johnson, who walked with a friend to see the ruins of Newgate, observed, as he went by, "the "Protestants" (for so he calls them), plundering the Sessions' House, at the Old Bailey. He adds: “There

66

were not, I believe, a hundred; but they did their "work at leisure, in full security, without sentinels and "without trepidation, as men lawfully employed in full "day." Not less striking are the words of another eyewitness to these scenes. "If one could in decency laugh,

*

"I have more than once heard him say this," declared Lord Erskine on the trial of Thomas Walker, in 1794. (See his Speeches, vol. iii. p. 34.)

1780.

THE GORDON RIOTS.

31

"must not one laugh to see what I saw; a single boy, of "fifteen years at most, in Queen Street, mounted on a pent-house, demolishing a house with great zeal, but "much at his ease, and throwing the pieces to two boys "still younger, who burnt them for their amusement, no one daring to obstruct them? Children are plundering "at noon day the city of London!"*

In the course of this Wednesday two separate attempts were made upon the Bank of England. Here, however, a party of soldiers had been providently stationed; and the rioters were so far intimidated by the strength with which they beheld it guarded that their attacks were but feeble and soon desisted from. They were led on to the first by a brewer's servant, on horseback, who had decorated his horse with the chains of Newgate.† Elsewhere the mob met with more success. The King's Bench, the Fleet, the Marshalsea, and several other prisons were forced open, and the prisoners released. The toll-gates on Blackfriars Bridge were attacked and plundered of the money they contained. All these, and some other buildings, were then set on fire. As the night advanced the glare of conflagration might be seen to fill the sky from many parts. "The sight was dread"ful," writes Dr. Johnson; and the number of the separate fires, all blazing at the same time, is computed at thirty-six. Happily this summer night was perfectly calm and serene; since the slightest wind might have stirred the flames, and reduced a great part of London to ashes. But the principal scene that night of conflagration, as of all tumult and horror, was Holborn. There the mob had burst open and set on fire the warehouses of Mr. Langdale, a Roman Catholic and a distiller, obnoxious to their attack from his religion, and still

* Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Thrale, June 9. and Mr. Richard Burke to Mr. Champion, June 7. 1780. This letter bears the further date: "in what was London." Many curious circumstances of these riots are derived from a "Plain and Succinct Narrative of them, which appeared in the same year, under the name of William Vincent, but written in fact by Thomas Holcroft, the dramatist. The story

of the Jews in Hounds ditch will be found at page 37. of this pamphlet.

"Plain and Succinct Narrative," p. 33.

more so perhaps from his trade. His large stores of spirits were poured forth in lavish profusion, and taken up by pailfuls; the kennel ran gin, and men, women, and children were seen upon their knees eagerly sucking up the liquor as it flowed. Many of these poor deluded wretches were stirred to the most frantic fury; many more sank down in helpless stupefaction, and, too drunk to move, perished in the flames which had been kindled by themselves.

Up to nearly this time there had been disgraceful terror in the magistracy, and as disgraceful torpor in the Government. Some men thought mainly of their own escape; others seem to have imagined that the rage of the people, like some impetuous flood, must quickly exhaust itself and pass by. Even at the outset there had been no lack of military aid; this was gradually increased by expresses sent in all directions; until by Wednesday the 7th, there could be mustered even at the lowest computation 10,000 men; besides which, several large bodies of Militia had been marched up in haste from the neighbouring counties. Yet still these numerous forces could be of no avail in restoring order, so long as the scruple remained that they had no legal right to fire till one hour after the Riot Act had been publicly read. In this dilemma the first to show energy and determination was the King. It was from him, rather than from any of his subjects, that came the measures of protection so much needed and so long postponed. Till then, such

had been the craven spirit of some men in authority that, according to the Duke of Grafton, in his Memoirs, even the Secretary of State's servants had worn in their hats, as a passport, the cockades of the rioters.

No further relying upon others, His Majesty, from his own impulse, called a Council, on Wednesday the 7th, and himself presiding, laid before the assembled Ministers the difficulty respecting the Riot Act. The whole Cabinet wavered, well remembering the excitement which had followed the letter of Lord Barrington in the riots of 1768, and the readiness, at that time, of juries to find verdicts against the officers and soldiers who had only done their duty. Happily for the peace, nay even the existence of London, the Attorney-General, Wedder

.1780.

THE RIOTS SUPPRESSED.

333

burn, was present as assessor. When the King turned to him for his opinion, Wedderburn answered boldly, that he was convinced the Riot Act did not bear the construction put upon it. In his judgment, neither the delay of an hour, nor any such formality, is by law required when the mob are engaged in a felony, as setting fire to a dwelling-house, and cannot be restrained by other means. The Ministers, gathering firmness from Wedderburn, concurred; and the King then said that this had been clearly his own opinion, though he would not venture to express it beforehand; but that now, as supreme magistrate, he would see it carried out. "There "shall be at all events," he added, "one magistrate in "the kingdom who will do his duty!"

By the King's commands a Proclamation was immediately drawn up, and issued that same afternoon, warning all householders to keep themselves, their servants, or apprentices within doors, and announcing that the King's officers were now instructed to repress the riots by an immediate exertion of their utmost force. Such instructions were sent accordingly from the Adjutant-General's office : "In obedience to an order of the King in Council, "the military to act without waiting for directions from "the Civil magistrates." That evening, for the first time, the rioters found themselves confronted by a determination equal to their own. Bodies of Militia, or of regular troops, were sent straight to any point where uproar and havoc most prevailed. Thus, for instance, the Northumberland Militia, which had come that day by a forced march of twenty-five miles, were led at once by Colonel Holroyd into Holborn, amidst the thickest of the flames. A detachment of the Guards drove before them the plundering party which had taken possession of Blackfriars Bridge. Here several were killed by the musketry, while others were thrown, or in their panic threw themselves, over the parapet into the Thames. Wherever the mob would not disperse, the officers gave the word, and the soldiers fired without further hesitation. Only in some cases, where the rioters had succeeded in obtaining arms, was any firing attempted in return; nor could oaken sticks and iron bars withstand, for more than a few moments, the onset of disciplined troops.

Then were some of the worst plunderers in their fall both punished and detected. One young chimneysweeper who was killed, was found to have forty guineas in his pocket. Appalling were the sights and sounds of that night; sleep banished from every eye; the streets thronged with people in wonder and affright; furniture hastily removed, in apprehension of the flames; the frantic yells of the drunken, and the doleful cries of the wounded, mingling with the measured tread of the soldiers' march, and the successive volleys of their musketry; and the whole scene illumined by the fitful glare of six and thirty conflagrations.

These tumults, so culpably neglected at their outset and grown to a height that threatened" to lay waste "defenced cities into ruinous heaps," could not be quelled at length without a loss of life almost as grievous as themselves. According to the Returns, sent in to Lord Amherst as Commander-in-chief, upwards of 200 persons were shot dead in the streets; and 250 were lying wounded in the hospitals, of whom seventy or eighty within a short time expired. Yet these Returns are far from conveying a full statement of the numbers that perished. They take no account of the dead or dying whom their own associates in the fray carried off and concealed. They take no account of those victims to their own excesses, who, lying helpless beside the pailfuls or kennelfuls of gin, were smothered by the spreading flames, or overwhelmed by the falling houses. Dreadful as was the loss of life that night, it proved at least decisive. The conflagrations and the plunder were stopped; the incendiaries and the robbers were scared. On the morning of Thursday the 8th of June, no trace was to be seen of the recent tumults, beyond the smouldering ruins, the spots of blood upon the pavement, and the marks of shot upon the houses. No renewed attempt was made at riot, or even at gathering in the streets. The crowds which had been "as the stars of heaven for "multitude," waned like the stars before the day; and those who, on their first appearance, had wondered whence so many came, now expressed equal wonder where they could be gone. Parties of soldiers were encamped in convenient places, as in the Parks, the Mu