44 6
OLD AND NEW LONDON.
firing them also in an instant. The engines came" (they were mere squirts in those days), " but were only suffered to preserve the private houses near the prison." This was about half-past seven. " As I was standing near the spot, there approached another body of men I suppose five hundred and Lord George Gordon in a coach drawn by the mob, towards Alderman Bull's, bowing as he passed along. He is a lively-looking young man in ap- pearance, and nothing more, though just now the reigning hero. By eight o'clock Akerman's house was in flames. I went close to it, and never saw anything so dreadful. The prison was, as I said, a remarkably strong building ; but, determined to force it, they broke the gates with crows and other instruments, and climbed up the outside of the cell part, which joins the two great wings of the build- ing, where the felons were confined; and I stood where I plainly saw their operations. They broke the roof, tore away the rafters, and having got ladders they descended. Not Orpheus himself had more courage or better luck. Flames all around them, and a body of soldiers expected, they defied and laughed at all opposition. The prisoners escaped. I stood and saw about twelve women and eight men ascend from their confine- ment to the open air, and they were conducted through the street in their chains. Three of these were to be hanged on Friday " (Newgate was burnt on the Tuesday). " You have no conception of the frenzy of the multitude. This being done, and Akerman's house now a mere shell of brickwork, they kept a store of flame there for other purposes. It became red-hot, and the doors and windows appeared like the entrance to so many volcanoes. With some difficulty they then fired the debtors' prison, broke the doors, and they, too, all made their escape. Tired of the scene, I went home, and returned again at eleven o'clock at night. I met large bodies of horse and foot soldiers, coming to guard the Bank, and some houses of Roman Catholics near it. Newgate was at this time open to all ; any one might get in, and, what was never the case before, any one might get out. I did both, for the people were now chiefly lookers-on. The mischief was done, and the doers of it gone to another part of the town " (to Bloomsbury Square, to burn Lord Mansfield's house). " But I must not omit what struck me most : about ten or twelve of the mob getting to the top of the debtors' prison, whilst it was burning, to halloo, they appeared rolled in black smoke mixed with sudden bursts of fire like Milton's infernals, who were as familiar with flame as with each other." On the Wednesday, the day after the fire, a big
carelessly-dressed man worked his way to the ruins from Bolt Court, Fleet Street. The burly man's name was Doctor Samuel Johnson, and he wrote to Mrs. Thrale and her husband a brief account of what had happened since the Friday before. On that day Lord George Gordon and the mob went to Westminster, and that night the rioters burnt the Catholic chapel in Duke Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. On Monday they gutted Sir George Saville's house in Leicester Square ; on Tuesday pulled down the house of Sir John Fielding, the blind magistrate and the novelist's half-brother, in Bow Street ; and the same night burnt Newgate, Lord Mansfield's house in Bloomsbury, and a Catholic chapel in Moorfields. On Wednesday they burnt the Fleet and the King's Bench, and attacked the Bank of England, but were driven off by a party of constables headed by John Wilkes.
" On Wednesday," says the doctor, to come to what he actually saw himself, " I walked with Doctor Scott, to look at Newgate, and found it in ruins, with the fire yet glowing. As I went by, the Protestants were plundering the Sessions House at the Old Bailey. There were not, I believe, a hundred ; but they did their work at leisure, in full security, without sentinels, without trepidation, as men lawfully employed in full day. Such is the cowardice of a commercial place. On Wednesday they broke open the Fleet, and the King's Bench, and the Marshalsea, and Wood Street Compter, and Clerkenwell Bridewell, and released all the prisoners. At night they set fire to the Fleet, and to the King's Bench, and I don't know how many other places ; and one might see the glare of con- ' flagration fill the sky from many parts. The sight was dreadful. Some people were threatened. Mr. Strahan advised me to take care of myself. . . . . . Several chapels have been destroyed, and several inoffensive Papists have been plundered; but the high sport was to burn the gaols. This was a good rabble trick. The debtors and the criminals were all set at liberty ; but of the criminals, as hasf always happened, many are already re-taken, and two pirates have surrendered themselves, and it is,' : expected that they will be pardoned." Then follows a fine touch of irony : " Jack " (Wilkes), " who was; always zealous for order and decency, declares that f he be trusted with power, he will not leave a rioter alive. There is, however, now no longer any need of heroism or bloodshed; no blue ribbon" (the badge of the rioters) " is any longer worn." As for Thrale, his brewery escaped pretty well. The men gave away a cask or two of beer to the ob, and when the rioters came on a second and more importunate visit, the soldiers received then:.
