A History of the Four Georges and of William IV Volume III Part 10

Sir George Savile was a man of advanced views; he fought gallantly in the House of Commons through five successive Parliaments, in which he represented York County, for all measures which he believed to be sincerely patriotic, and against all measures which he believed to be opposed to the honorable interests of his country. He gained the laurel of praise from Burke, who, in one of his famous Bristol speeches, spoke of him as a true genius, "with an understanding vigorous, acute, relined, distinguis.h.i.+ng even to excess; and illuminated with a most unbounded, peculiar, and original cast of imagination." The man whom Burke thus generously praised deserved the praises. He strove earnestly against the American war. He enthusiastically supported Pitt's motion in 1783 for a reform in Parliament. He was the author of an admirable Bill for the Limitation of the Claims of the Crown upon Landed Estates. But his name is chiefly a.s.sociated with his Bill for Catholic Relief, both because of the excellent purpose of the measure itself, and because of the remarkable outburst of fanaticism which followed it.

Sir George Savile's measure did away with certain restrictions, certain barbarous restrictions, as they now seem, upon English subjects professing the Catholic faith. The famous Act of the eleventh and twelfth years of King William the Third, the Act known as the Act for the Further Preventing the Growth of Popery, had inst.i.tuted certain very harsh penal enactments against Catholics. {192} That Act Sir George Savile proposed largely to repeal. This was a measure of relief of no great magnitude, but it did at least recognize the common humanity of Catholic Englishmen with Protestant Englishmen; it did at least allow to Catholic Englishmen some of the dearest and most obvious rights of citizens.h.i.+p. The savage penal laws which for so long afflicted the sister island of Ireland were tempered and abrogated in this measure as far as England was concerned, and rumor spread it abroad that a similar relief was soon to be extended to the Catholics of Scotland. Straightway a Bill which had pa.s.sed both Houses without a single negative aroused the fiercest opposition beyond the Border. The announcement of the recall of the Stuarts could not have spread a greater panic through the ranks of the Scottish Protestants. A violent agitation was set on foot, an agitation which could not have been more violent if the Highlanders had once again been at the gates of Edinburgh. An alarmist spirit spread abroad. All manner of a.s.sociations and societies were called into being for the defence of a faith which was not menaced. Committees were appointed to inflame faction and serve as the rallying points of bigotry. Sectarian books and pamphlets of the most exaggerated and alarming kind were sown broadcast all over the country. The result of this kind of agitation showed itself in a religious persecution, which gradually developed into a religious war. The unfortunate Catholic residents in Edinburgh, in Glasgow, and in other great Scottish towns found themselves suddenly the victims of savage violence at the hands of mobs incited by the inflammatory utterances and the inflammatory propaganda of the Protestant committees. In the face of the disorder which a suggestion of mercy aroused in Scotland, the Government seemed to take fright, and to abandon all thought of extending the clemency of the Relief Bill to Scotland.

But the Scottish agitation against the Catholics soon spread across the Border, soon directed itself, not against the imaginary Bill which it might be the intention of the Government to pa.s.s, but against the actual Bill which the {192} Government had pa.s.sed for the benefit of English Catholics. The bigoted bodies, societies, and committees in Scotland soon found their parallels in England. The English Protestant a.s.sociation rose into being like some sudden evocation of a wizard, and chose for its head and leader the man who had made himself conspicuous as the head and leader of the movement in Scotland--Lord George Gordon.

[Sidenote: 1750-80--Lord George Gordon]

Lord George Gordon lives forever, a familiar figure in the minds of the English-speaking race, thanks to the picture drawn by Charles d.i.c.kens.

Englishmen know, as they know the face of a friend, the ominous figure "about the middle height, of a slender make and sallow complexion, with an aquiline nose, and long hair of a reddish brown, combed perfectly straight and smooth about his ears and slightly powdered, but without the faintest vestige of a curl." It is a living portrait of that solemn gentleman in the suit of soberest black, with those bright large eyes in which insanity burned, "eyes which betrayed a restlessness of thought and purpose, singularly at variance with the studied composure and sobriety of his mien, and with his quaint and sad apparel." It fits well with all that we know of Lord George Gordon, to learn that there was nothing fierce or cruel in his face, whose mildness and whose melancholy were chiefly varied by a haunting air of "indefinable uneasiness, which infected those who looked upon him and filled them with a kind of pity for the man: though why it did so they would have had some trouble to explain." Such was the strange fanatic whose name was destined to be blown for a season throughout England, who was fated to stand for a moment visible in the eyes of all men, the idol of intolerance, the apostle of violence, of murder, and of fire, and then to fall most pitiably, most pitifully into the dust.

Lord George Gordon was still a young man when he became leader of the anti-Catholic agitation. He would seem in our days a very young man, for, as he was born in 1750, he was only thirty when the agitation reached its height. But a man of thirty was counted older than he {193} would not be reckoned, in an epoch when it was possible for a young man just come of age to lead the House of Commons. Lord George Gordon had led a somewhat varied life. He had been in the navy, and had left the service from pique, while the American war was still in its earliest stages, in consequence of a quarrel with Lord Sandwich concerning promotion. The restless energy which he could no longer dedicate to active service he resolved most unhappily to devote to political life. He entered Parliament as the representative of the borough of Ludgershall, and soon earned for himself a considerable notoriety in Westminster. He had very fierce opinions; he attacked everybody and everything; his vehemence and vituperation were seasoned with a kind of wit, and he made himself, if not a power, at least an important factor in the House of Commons. Indeed, it pa.s.sed into a kind of proverb at St. Stephen's that there were three parties in the State--the Ministry, the Opposition, and Lord George Gordon.

Parliament had seen before, and has seen since, many a politician fighting thus like Hal o' the Wynd for his own hand, but no one so influential for a season or so pernicious in his influence as Lord George Gordon.

It seems quite clear to those who review so strange a career at this distance of time that Lord George Gordon was of deranged intellect. It does not need the alleged contrast between his professions and his practice to enforce this conclusion. Many men have affected the religious habit and the religious bearing while their lives were privately profligate without deserving to be called insane except in the sense in which any criminal excess may be regarded pathologically as a proof of madness. Even if it were true that the long-haired and black-habited George Gordon were the debauched profligate that Hannah More and Horace Walpole maintained him to be, he might find fellow-sinners of unquestioned sanity. But the conduct of his public life goes to prove that his wits were diseased. His behavior in the House, when it was not intolerably tedious, was characterized by a grotesque buffoonery which men looked upon as laughable {194} or pitiable according to their tempers, but which they had not yet learned to look upon as dangerous. When he denounced the King as a Papist, when he declared that the time would come when George Gordon would be able to dictate to the Crown and Parliament, when he occasionally interrupted his wild utterances to break into floods of tears, men sneered or yawned or laughed. They were soon to learn that the man was something more than divertingly contemptible.

In the excitement that followed on the pa.s.sing of the relief measure Lord George Gordon found his opportunity for being actively noxious. A gloomy fanaticism in Scotland took fire at the fear lest kindred relief should be extended to the North Briton, and, as we have said, displayed itself in savage speech and savage deed. In the press and from the pulpit denunciations of the Catholics streamed. The Synod of Glasgow solemnly resolved that it would oppose any Bill brought into Parliament in favor of Scottish Catholics. In Edinburgh and in Glasgow houses were wrecked and lives menaced. In Glasgow a worthy potter, Mr.

Bagnal, who had brought from Staffords.h.i.+re its famous art, had his property wholly destroyed. In Edinburgh the house of a Catholic priest was wrecked in obedience to a brutal handbill which called upon its readers to "take it as a warning to meet at Leith Wynd, on Wednesday next, in the evening, to pull down that pillar of popery lately erected there." The "pillar of popery" was the dwelling occupied by the priest, which was duly wrecked in obedience to the bidding of the nameless "Protestant" who signed the manifesto. It is curious to note a postscriptum to the handbill, which ran thus: "Please to read this carefully, keep it clean, and drop it somewhere else. For King and country.--UNITY." The means which were adopted to spread fanaticism in Scotland were carefully followed when the time came for carrying the agitation into England.

[Sidenote: 1778-80--The English "Protestant a.s.sociation"]

It was indeed not necessary to be a Catholic to call down the fury of fanatical persecution. To have expressed any sympathy for Catholicism, to have taken part in any way, {195} no matter how indirect, in the advocacy of the relief measure, was enough to mark men out for vengeance. Dr. Robertson, the historian, was threatened because he advocated tolerance in religious matters. A lawyer named Crosbie was denounced merely because he had in the way of his regular business drawn up the Bill intended for Parliament. It was inevitable that the action of intolerance in Scotland should come before the notice of Parliament. Wilkes, always ostentatious in the cause of liberty, called upon Dundas to bring in his relief measure for Scotland. When Dundas declared that it was better to delay the measure until cooler judgment might prevail, Wilkes denounced him for allowing Parliament to truckle to riot, and the denunciation found support in the actions of Burke and of Fox. Lord George Gordon had found his opportunity. He a.s.sailed Fox; he a.s.sailed Burke. He declared that every non-Catholic in Scotland was ready to rise in arms against Catholic relief, and that the rebels had chosen him for their leader. He raged and vapored and threatened on the floor of the House. But he did more than rage and vapor and threaten. Whether of his own motion, or prompted by others, he formed a "Protestant a.s.sociation" in England. Of this, as of the similar Scottish a.s.sociation, he was declared the head, and this acc.u.mulation of honors wholly overthrew his intelligence. An amiable writer has declared that "it would be much beneath the dignity of history to record the excesses of so coa.r.s.e a fanatic but for the fatal consequences with which they were attended." The amiable defender of a detestable phrase does not understand that it was the excesses of the fanatic that led to the fatal consequences, and that Lord George Gordon, as the ostensible head and conspicuous cause of one of the gravest events of the history of England in the eighteenth century, is in no sense beneath the "dignity of history." The business of history is with him and with such as he, as well as with the statelier, austerer figures who sanely shape the destinies of the State. There was plenty of fanaticism abroad in England; it was reserved for Lord George Gordon to bring it together into {196} a single body, to organize it, and to employ its force with a terrible if temporary success. He issued an insane proclamation calling upon men to unite against Catholicism; he held a great meeting of the Protestant a.s.sociation at Coachmakers' Hall, at which with a kind of Bedlamite-brilliancy he raved against Catholicism and lashed the pa.s.sions of his hearers to delirium. It was resolved to hold a huge meeting of the Protestant a.s.sociation in St. George's Fields on June 2.

At its head Lord George Gordon was to proceed to the House of Commons and deliver the pet.i.tion against Catholic relief. All stanch Protestants were to wear blue c.o.c.kades in their hats to mark out the faithful from the unfaithful.

[Sidenote: 1780--The Lord George Gordon riots]

On June 2, 1780, the meeting was held. Lord George Gordon had announced in his speech at the Coachmakers' Hall that he would not deliver the pet.i.tion if the meeting were less than twenty thousand strong. The number of Lord George's limit was enormously exceeded. It is said that at least sixty thousand persons were present in St.

George's Fields on the appointed day, and some chroniclers compute the number at nearer one hundred thousand than sixty thousand. It is curious to note in pa.s.sing that a Roman Catholic cathedral stands now on the very site where this meeting was held. After the meeting had a.s.sembled it started to march six abreast to Westminster. The hand of the great romancer who has made George Gordon live has renewed that memorable day, with its noise, its tumult, its tossing banners, its shouted party cries, its chanted hymns, its military evolutions, its insane enthusiasms, its dangerous latent pa.s.sions. Gibbon, who was then a member of the House of Commons, declared that the a.s.semblage seemed to him as if forty thousand Puritans of the days of Cromwell had started from their graves. The forty thousand Puritans were escorted by and incorporated with a still greater body of all the ruffianism and scoundrelism that a great city can contribute to any scene of popular agitation. What fanaticism inspired rowdyism was more than ready to profit by. The march to Westminster and the arrival at Westminster form one of {197} the wildest episodes in the history of London. By three different routes the blue-c.o.c.kaded pet.i.tioners proceeded to Westminster, and rallied in the large open s.p.a.ces then existing in front of the Houses of Parliament. The innate lawlessness of the a.s.semblage soon manifested itself in a series of attacks upon the members of both Houses who were endeavoring to make their way through the press to their respective Chambers. It is one more example of the eternal irony of history that, while the mob was buffeting members of the Lower House, and doing its best to murder members of the Upper House, while a merciless intolerance was rapidly degenerating into a merciless disorder, the Duke of Richmond was wholly absorbed in a speech in favor of annual parliaments and universal suffrage. Member after member of the House of Lords reeled into the Painted Chamber, dishevelled, bleeding, with pale face and torn garments, to protest against the violence of the mob and the insult to Parliamentary authority. Ashburnham, Townshend and Willoughby, Stormont and Bathurst, Mansfield, Mountfort, and Boston, one after another came in, dismayed victims of and witnesses to the violence that reigned outside.

Bishop after bishop entered to complain of brutal ill-treatment. But the Duke of Richmond was so wrapped up in his own speech and its importance that he could only protest against anything which interrupted its flow. It is agreeable to find that imbecility and terror did not rule unchallenged over the Upper House that day. One account, that of Walpole, who is always malicious, represents Lord Mansfield as sitting upon the woolsack trembling like an aspen.

Another, more creditable and more credible, declares that Lord Mansfield showed throughout the utmost composure and presence of mind.

About the gallantry of Lord Townshend there can be no doubt. When he heard that Lord Boston was in the hands of the mob, he turned to the younger peers about him, reminded them of their youth, and the fact that they wore swords, and called upon them to draw with him and fight their way to the rescue of their brother peer. It was at least a gallant if a hopeless suggestion. What could the {198} rapiers of a score of gentlemen avail against the thousands who seethed and raved outside Westminster Hall? The solemn Duke of Richmond interfered. If the Lords went forth to face the mob he urged that they should go as a House and carrying the Mace before them. On this a debate sprang up, while the storm still raged outside. A Middles.e.x magistrate, called to the bar in haste, declared that he could only offer six constables to meet the difficulty. A proposal to call upon the military power was fiercely opposed by Lord Shelburne. Under such conditions the Peers did nothing, and in the end retired, leaving Lord Mansfield alone in his glory.

[Sidenote: 1780--Lord George Gordon at Westminster]

If things went badly in the Upper House, they went still worse in the Lower House. While members trying to gain entrance suffered almost as much ill-treatment as the Peers at the hands of the mob, the Commons'

House was much more closely leaguered than the House of Lords. For it was in the Commons' House that the pet.i.tion was to be presented. It was in the Commons' House that Lord George Gordon, pale, lank-haired, black-habited, with the blue c.o.c.kade in his hat, was calling upon the Commons to receive immediately the monstrous pet.i.tion. Every entrance to the House was choked with excited humanity. The Lobby itself was overflowing with riotous fanatics, who thundered at intervals upon the closed doors of the Chamber with their bludgeons. Shrieks of "No Popery," and huzzas for Lord George Gordon filled the place with a hideous clamor strangely contrasting with the decorum that habitually reigned there.

Lord George Gordon did not cut a very heroic figure on that memorable day at Westminster. He was perpetually rus.h.i.+ng from his place to the door of the House to repeat to rowdyism in the Lobby what different members had said in the debates. At one time he denounced the Speaker of the House; at another, Mr. Rous; at another, Lord North.

Occasionally he praised a speaker, and his praise was more ludicrous than his condemnation. At one moment, when Lord George was at the door communicating with the crowd, Sir Michael le Fleming came up to him {199} and tried to induce him to return to his seat. Lord George immediately began caressing Sir Michael le Fleming in a childish, almost in an imbecile way, patting and stroking him upon the shoulders, and expressing inarticulately a pitiful kind of joy. He introduced Sir Michael le Fleming to the mob as a man who had just been speaking for them. A little later Lord George again addressed the crowd, this time from the little gallery, when he stimulated their pa.s.sions by appeal to the example of the Scotch, who had found no redress till they had pulled down the Ma.s.s-houses. Probably no stranger scene has ever been witnessed at Westminster than this of the pale-faced fanatic and madman, with the blue c.o.c.kade in his hat, running backward and forward from the Chamber to the door of the House, delivering inflammatory addresses to the mob that raged in the Lobby, and stimulating them by his wild harangues to persevere in their conduct, and to terrify the King and the Parliament into obedience to their wishes. The names of the members who spoke against the pet.i.tion he communicated to the shrieking throng; their utterances he falsely reported.

It is deeply interesting to note a fact which has escaped the notice of not merely the most conspicuous historians of the time, but also the keen eye of the great novelist who studied the event. It is recorded in the "Annual Register" for the year 1780 that among the members whose names Lord George Gordon denounced to the raving crowd in the Lobby the name of Mr. Burke had especial prominence. It is curious to picture the imbecile fanatic standing upon the steps leading to the Strangers'

Gallery and invoking the fury of the fanatic and the lawless against the greatest public man of his age.

For a while Lord George Gordon was suffered to rant unimpeded. At last Colonel Holroyd, seizing hold of him, threatened to move for his immediate committal to Newgate, while Colonel Gordon, with a blunter and yet more efficacious eloquence, declared that if any of the rioters attempted to force his way past the door of the House, he, Colonel Gordon, would run his sword through {200} the body, not of the invader, but of Lord George Gordon. As Colonel Gordon was a kinsman of Lord George's, it may be that Lord George knew sufficient of his temper to believe his word and was sufficiently sane to accept his warning. At least there came a pause in his inflammatory phrases, and shortly afterward the news of the arrival of a party of Horse and Foot Guards did what no persuasions or entreaties could effect. It cleared the Lobby and the approaches to the House. Under conditions of what might be called comparative quiet the division on Lord George Gordon's proposal for the immediate reception of the pet.i.tion was taken, and only found six supporters against a majority of one hundred and ninety-two.

[Sidenote: 1780--Spread of the Gordon Riots]

But mischief was afoot and began to work. The mob that had been dispersed from Westminster broke up into different parties and proceeded to expend its fury in the destruction of buildings. The hustling of peers, the bonneting of bishops, the insulting of members of Parliament, all made rare sport; but the demolition of Catholic places of wors.h.i.+p promised a better, and suggested exquisite possibilities of further depredation. The Catholic chapels in Duke Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and in Warwick Street, Golden Square--the one belonging to the Sardinian, the other to the Bavarian Minister--were attacked, plundered, set fire to, and almost entirely destroyed. The military were sent for; they arrived too late to prevent the arson, but thirteen of the malefactors were seized and committed to Newgate, and for the night the mob was dispersed. It was not a bad day's work for the rioters. Parliament had been insulted, the Government and the very Throne menaced. In two parts of the town Catholic buildings, under the protection of foreign and friendly Powers, stood stripped and blackened piles. Riot had faced the bayonets of authority--had for a moment seemed ready to defy them. Yet at first n.o.body seems to have taken the matter seriously or gauged its grave significance. Neither the Catholics, against whom the agitation was levelled, nor the peers and prelates and members of Parliament who had been so harshly treated seemed to understand the {201} sternness of the situation. There was a sense of confidence in law and order, a feeling of security in good administration, which lulled men into a false confidence.

This false confidence was increased by the quiet which reigned over Sat.u.r.day, June 3. Parliament met undisturbed. An address of Lord Bathurst's, calling for a prosecution of "the authors, abettors, and instruments of yesterday's outrages," was carried after a rambling and purposeless debate, and the House of Lords adjourned till the 6th, apparently convinced that there was no further cause for alarm. This public composure was rudely shaken on the following day, Sunday, June 4. The rioters rea.s.sembled at Moorfields. Once again the buildings belonging to Catholics were ransacked and demolished; once again incendiary fires blazed, and processions of savage figures decked in the spoils of Catholic ceremonial carried terror before them. The Lord Mayor, Kennett, proved to be a weak man wholly unequal to the peril he was suddenly called upon to face. There were soldiers at hand, but they were not made use of. One act of resolution might have stayed the disorder at the first, but no man was found resolute enough to perform the act; and rapine, raging unchecked, became more audacious and more dangerous.

On the Monday, though the trouble grew graver, nothing was done to meet it beyond the issuing of a proclamation offering a reward of five hundred pounds for the discovery of the persons concerned in the destruction of the chapels of the Bavarian and Sardinian Amba.s.sadors.

The mob gathered again, bolder for the impunity with which it had so far acted. Large bodies of men marched to Lord George Gordon's house in Welbeck Street and paraded there, displaying the trophies stripped from the destroyed chapels in Moorfields. Others began work of fresh destruction in Wapping and in Smithfield. Sir George Savile's house in Leicester Fields, and the houses of Mr. Rainsforth of Clare Market, and Mr. Maberly of Little Queen Street, respectable tradesmen who had been active in arresting rioters on the Friday night, were sacked and their furniture burned in huge bonfires in the streets. The {202} Guards who had the task of escorting the prisoners taken on Friday to Newgate were pelted.

On the Tuesday authority seemed to have wakened up to a vague sense that the situation was somewhat serious. Parliament rea.s.sembled to find itself again surrounded and menaced by a mob, which wounded Lord Sandwich and destroyed his carriage. Lord George Gordon attended the House, but even his madness appeared to have taken alarm, for he had caused a proclamation to be issued in the name of the Protestant a.s.sociation disavowing the riots. As he sat in his place, with the blue c.o.c.kade in his hat, Colonel Herbert, who was afterwards Lord Carnarvon, called to him from across the House, telling him to take off the badge or he would cross the floor and do it himself, Lord George's vehemence did not stand him in good stead where he himself was menaced.

He had no following in the House. Colonel Herbert was a man of the sword and a man of his word. Lord George Gordon took the c.o.c.kade from his hat and put it in his pocket. If authority had acted with the firmness of Colonel Gordon on the Friday and of Colonel Herbert on the Tuesday, the tumult might have been as easily cowed as its leader. But still nothing was done. The House of Commons made a half-hearted promise that when the tumult subsided the Protestant pet.i.tion would be taken into consideration, and a suggestion that Lord George ought to be expelled was unfavorably received.

From that moment, and for two long and terrible days, riot ruled in London. In all directions the evening sky was red with flames of burning buildings; in all directions organized bands of men, maddened with drink, carried terror and destruction. The Tuesday evening was signalized by the most extraordinary and most daring deed that the insurgents had yet done. Some of the men arrested on the Friday had been committed to Newgate Prison. To Newgate Prison a vast body of men marched, and called upon Mr. Akerman, the keeper, to give up his keys and surrender his prisoners. His firm refusal converted the mob into a besieging army.

{203}

[Sidenote: 1780--The burning of Newgate Prison]

Two men of genius have contributed to our knowledge of the siege of Newgate. Crabbe, the poet, was at Westminster on the Tuesday, and after seeing all the disturbance there he made his way with the current of destruction towards Newgate, and witnessed the astonis.h.i.+ng capture of a ma.s.sive prison by a body of men, unarmed save with such rude weapons of attack as could be hurriedly caught up. The prison was so strong that, had a dozen men resisted, it would have been almost impossible to take it without artillery. But there was n.o.body to resist. Mr. Akerman, the keeper, acted with great courage, and did his duty loyally, but he could not hold the place alone. Crowbars, pickaxes, and fire forced an entrance into the prison. "Not Orpheus himself," wrote Crabbe, "had more courage or better luck" than the desperate a.s.sailants of the prison. They broke into the blazing prison, they rescued their comrades, they set all the other prisoners free. Into the street, where the summer evening was as bright as noonday with the blazing building, the prisoners were borne in triumph.

Some of them had been condemned to death, and never were men more bewildered than by this strange reprieve. The next day Dr. Johnson walked, in company with Dr. Scott, to look at the place, and found the prison in ruins, with the fire yet glowing. The stout-hearted Doctor was loud in his scorn of "the cowardice of a commercial place," where such deeds could be done without hinderance.

While one desperate gang was busy with the destruction of Newgate, other gangs, no less desperate, were busy with destructive work elsewhere. The new prison in Clerkenwell was broken open by one crowd, and its prisoners set free. Another a.s.sailed Sir John Fielding's house, and burned its furniture in the streets. A third attacked the house of Lord Mansfield in Bloomsbury Square. This last enterprise was one of the most remarkable and infamous of the bad business. Lord Mansfield and his wife had barely time to escape from the house by a back way before the mob were upon it. The now familiar scenes of savage violence followed. The doors were broken open, the {204} throng poured in, and in a comparatively short time the stately mansion was a ruin. Lord Mansfield's law library, one of the finest in the kingdom, and all the judicial ma.n.u.scripts made by him during his long career, were destroyed. A small detachment of soldiers came upon the scene too late to prevent the destruction of the house or to intimidate the mob; although, according to one account, the Riot Act was read and a couple of volleys fired, with the result that several of the rioters were shot and wounded. It is curious to find that the reports of the intended purposes of the wreckers drew persons of quality and curiosity to Bloomsbury Square in their coaches as to a popular performance, and that the destruction of Lord Mansfield's house proved more attractive than the production of a new play.

[Sidenote: 1780--Public alarm in London]

The Wednesday was no less terrible than the Tuesday. The rioters seemed to think that, like so many Mortimers, they were now Lords of London. They sent messages to the keepers of the public prisons of the King's Bench, the Fleet, and to prominent Catholic houses, informing them of the precise time when they would be attacked and destroyed. By this time peaceable London was in a state of panic. All shops were shut. From most windows blue banners were thrust out to show the sympathy of the occupants with the agitation, and the words "No Popery"

were scrawled in chalk across the doors and windows of every householder who wished to protect himself against the fanaticism of the mob. At least one enterprising individual got from Lord George Gordon his signature to a paper bidding all true friends to Protestants to do no injury to the property of any true Protestant, "as I am well a.s.sured the proprietor of this house is a stanch and worthy friend to the cause." But there were plenty of houses where neither fear nor fanaticism displayed blue banner or chalked scrawl, houses whose owners boasted no safeguard signed by Lord George Gordon, and with these the mob busied themselves. The description in the "Annual Register" is so striking that it deserves to be cited; it is probably from the pen of Edmund Burke: "As soon {205} as the day was drawing towards a close one of the most dreadful spectacles this country ever beheld was exhibited.

Let those who were not spectators of it judge what the inhabitants felt when they beheld at the same time the flames ascending and rolling in clouds from the King's Bench and Fleet Prisons, from New Bridewell, from the toll-gates on Blackfriars Bridge, from houses in every quarter of the town, and particularly from the bottom and middle of Holborn, where the conflagration was horrible beyond description. . . .

Six-and-thirty fires, all blazing at one time, and in different quarters of the city, were to be seen from one spot. During the whole night, men, women, and children were running up and down with such goods and effects as they wished to preserve. The tremendous roar of the authors of these terrible scenes was heard at one instant, and at the next the dreadful report of soldiers' musquets, firing in platoons and from different quarters; in short, everything served to impress the mind with ideas of universal anarchy and approaching desolation."

From the closing words of this account it is plain that at last authority had begun to do its duty and to meet force with force.

Terrorized London shook with every wild rumor. Now men said that the mob had got arms, and was more than a match for the military; now that the lions in the Tower were to be let loose; now that the lunatics from Bedlam were to be set free. Every alarming rumor that fear could inspire and terror credit was buzzed abroad upon that dreadful day, when the servants of the Secretary of State wore blue c.o.c.kades in their hats and private gentlemen barricaded their houses, armed their people, and prepared to stand a siege. Horace Walpole found his relative, Lord Hertford, engaged with his sons in loading muskets to be in readiness for the insurgents. Everybody now shared in the general alarm, but the alarm affected different temperaments differently. Some men fled from town; others loaded guns and sharpened swords; others put their hands in their pockets and lounged, curious spectators, on the heels of riot, eager to observe {206} and willing to record events so singular and so unprecedented.

It is pleasant to be able to chronicle that the King showed an especial courage and composure during that wild week's work. George the Third never lost head nor heart. To do his House justice, personal courage was one of their traditions, but the family quality never showed to better advantage than in this crisis. If indeed George the Second were prepared, as has been hinted, to fly from London on the approach of the young Pretender, George the Third displayed no such weakness in the face of a more immediate peril. The peril was more immediate, it was also more menacing. No man could safely say where bad work so begun might ultimately pause. What had been an agitation in favor of a pet.i.tion might end in revolution against the Crown. Outrages that had at first been perpetrated with the purpose of striking terror only were changing their character. Schemes of plunder formed no part of the early plans of the rioters; now it began to be known that the rioters had their eyes turned towards the Bank of England and were planning to cut the pipes which provided London with water. With a little more laxity on the part of authority, and a few more successes on the part of the mob, it is possible that Lord George Gordon might have found himself a puppet Caesar on the s.h.i.+elds of Protestant Praetorians.

[Sidenote: 1780--Stern action by the authorities]

That nothing even approaching to this did happen was largely due to the courage and the determination of the Sovereign. The Administration vacillated. The Privy Council, facing an agitation of whose extent and popularity it was unaware, feared to commit itself. George felt no such fear. Where authority fell back paralyzed in the presence of a new, unknown, and daily increasing peril, he came forward and a.s.serted himself after a fas.h.i.+on worthy of a king. If the Privy Council would not act with him, then he would act without them. He would lead out his Guards himself and charge the rioters at their head. The courage which had shown itself at Dettingen, the courage which had been displayed by generations of rough German {207} electors and Italian princes, showed itself gallantly now and saved the city. The King lamented the weakness of the magistrates, but at least there was one, he said, who would do his duty, and he touched his breast with his hand. George the Third is not a heroic figure in history, but just at that moment he bore himself with a royal honor which ranked him with Leonidas or Horatius. If there are to be kings at all, that is how kings ought to behave. George was fortunate in finding a man to stand by him and to lend to his soldierly courage the support of the law.

Wedderburn, the Attorney-General, declared, with all the authority of his high position, that in cases where the civil power was unable to restrain arson and outrage, it was the duty of all persons, civil as well as military, to use all means in their power to deal with the danger. The reading of the Riot Act was nugatory in such exceptional conditions, and it became the duty of the military to attack the rioters. Thus supported, the King ordered Wedderburn to write at once to Lord Amherst, the Commander-in-Chief, authorizing him to employ the military without waiting for authority from the civil powers.

Wedderburn, who in a few days was to become Chief Justice and Lord Loughborough, wrote the order, kneeling upon one knee at the council table, and from that moment the enemy was grappled with in grim earnest.

It was high time. No less than two unsuccessful attacks had been made during that day upon the Bank of England, but precautions had been taken, and the successes of Newgate were not repeated in Threadneedle Street. The a.s.sailants were repulsed on each occasion by the military, who occupied every avenue leading to the Bank. Had the attack upon the Bank succeeded it is impossible to form any estimate of what the result might have been. But it failed, and with that failure the whole hideous agitation failed as well. But the crowning horror of the whole episode was reserved for that final day of danger. In Holborn, where riot raged fiercest, stood the distilleries of Mr. Langdale, a wealthy Roman Catholic. The distilleries were attacked and fired. Rivers of spirit ran in all the {208} conduits and blazed as they ran. Men, drunk with liquor and maddened with excitement, kneeled to drink, and, drinking, fell and died where they lay. By this time the soldiers were acting vigorously, driving the rabble before them, shooting all who resisted, as some did resist desperately. The fire that had grown during the week was quenched at last in blood. On the Thursday morning London was safe, comparatively quiet, almost itself again. The shops indeed were still closed, but mutiny had lived its life. There was a short, sharp struggle during the day in Fleet Street, between some of the fanatics and the Guards, which was stamped out by repeated bayonet charges which killed and wounded many. Everywhere were blackened s.p.a.ces, smouldering ruins, stains of blood, and broken weapons, everywhere the signs of outrage and of conflict. But the incendiary fires were quenched and with them the fire of insurrection. The riots were at an end. The one wish of every one was to obliterate their memory as speedily as might be. The stains of blood were quickly removed from the walls of the Bank of England, from the roadway of Blackfriars Bridge. The marks of musket shots were swiftly effaced from the scarred buildings.

[Sidenote: 1780--Suppression of the Gordon Riots]

It was never fully known how far the rioters themselves suffered in the suppression of the disorder. The official returns give lists of 285 direct deaths, and of 173 cases of serious wounds in the hospitals.

But this can only represent a small proportion of the actual casualties. Many dead, many wounded, must have been carried away by friends and hidden in hurried graves, or nursed in secret to recovery.

Many, too, perished at Blackfriars Bridge, or were hideously consumed in the flames that rose from the burning of Langdale's distilleries.

But if the number of those who suffered remains an unknown quant.i.ty, it is not difficult to approximate to the destructive power of the disturbances. The cost of the whole bad business has been estimated at at least 180,000 pounds. To that amount an imbecile insanity had despoiled London. But the imbecile insanity had incurred a deeper debt. In the wild trials that followed upon the panic and the violence forty-nine {209} men were condemned to death for their share in the riot, and twenty-nine of these actually suffered the last penalty of the law. It was not, in the eyes of some, a heavy sacrifice to pay.

It did not seem a heavy sacrifice in the eyes of John Wilkes, who declared that if he were intrusted with sovereign power not a single rioter should be left alive to boast of, or to plead for forgiveness for, his offence. But Lord George Gordon was not worth the life of one man, not to speak of nine-and-twenty.

The folly of the Administration did not end with their victory. On the 9th they did what they ought to have done long before, and arrested Lord George Gordon. But even this necessary belated act of justice they performed in the most foolish fas.h.i.+on. Everything that the pomp and ceremonial of arrest and arraignment could do was done to exalt Lord George in the eyes of the mob and swell his importance. He was conveyed to the Tower of London. Though the rising was thoroughly stamped out, and there was practically no chance of any attempt being made to rescue the prisoner, Lord George was escorted to the Tower by a numerous military force in broad daylight, with an amount of display that gave him the dignity of a hero and a martyr. To add to the absurdity of the whole business, the poor crazy gentleman was solemnly tried for high treason. Many months later, in the early February of the next year, 1781, when the riots were a thing of the past, and their terrible memory had been largely effaced, George Gordon was brought to the Bar of the Court of King's Bench for his trial. His wits had not mended during his confinement. He had been very angry because he thought that he was prevented from seeing his friends. His anger deepened when he learned that no friends had desired to see him. The fanatic had served his turn, and was forgotten. He was not of that temper which makes men devoted to a leader. He was but the foolish figurehead of a fanatical outburst, and when he was set aside he was forgotten. But when he was brought up for trial a measure of popular enthusiasm in the man rea.s.serted itself. He behaved very strangely at his trial, urging his right to read {210} long pa.s.sages of Scripture in his defence. Happily for him, his defence was managed by abler hands than his own. The genius of Erskine, the gifts of Kenyon, were expended in his behalf. The unwisdom of the Government in prosecuting him for high treason was soon apparent. He was acquitted, to the general satisfaction of his supporters, and of many who were not his supporters. If public thanksgiving were returned in several churches for his acquittal, one grave manly voice was uplifted to swell the approval. Dr. Johnson declared that he was far better pleased that Lord George Gordon should escape punishment than that a precedent should be established for hanging a man for constructive treason.

Thus the great Gordon riots flickered ignominiously out. Lord George made occasional desperate efforts to rea.s.sert himself, trying to force himself upon the notice of the King at St. James's. In 1787 he was found guilty of libels upon the Queen of France and the French Amba.s.sador. He fled to Holland, where he was arrested by the Dutch authorities, and s.h.i.+pped back to England. He was committed to Newgate, by curious chance, on the anniversary of the day on which it had been burned by his followers. In Newgate he lived for some years, adjuring Christianity, and declaring himself to be a follower of the Jewish faith. In Newgate the fanatic, renegade, madman, died of jail distemper on November 1, 1793. He was only forty-two years old. In his short, unhappy life he had done a great deal of harm, and, as far as it is possible to judge, no good whatever. Perhaps the example of the Gordon riots served as a precedent in another land. If the news of the fall of the Bastille and the September ma.s.sacres reached Lord George Gordon in his prison, he may have recalled to his crazed fancy the fall of Newgate and the b.l.o.o.d.y Wednesday of the June of 1780.