Although he had had no rest upon the previous night, and had watched
with little intermission for some weeks past, sleeping only in the day
by starts and snatches, Mr Haredale, from the dawn of morning until
sunset, sought his niece in every place where he deemed it possible she
could have taken refuge. All day long, nothing, save a draught of water,
passed his lips; though he prosecuted his inquiries far and wide, and
never so much as sat down, once.
In every quarter he could think of; at Chigwell and in London; at the
houses of the tradespeople with whom he dealt, and of the friends he
knew; he pursued his search. A prey to the most harrowing anxieties and
apprehensions, he went from magistrate to magistrate, and finally to the
Secretary of State. The only comfort he received was from this minister,
who assured him that the Government, being now driven to the exercise
of the extreme prerogatives of the Crown, were determined to exert them;
that a proclamation would probably be out upon the morrow, giving to the
military, discretionary and unlimited power in the suppression of the
riots; that the sympathies of the King, the Administration, and both
Houses of Parliament, and indeed of all good men of every religious
persuasion, were strongly with the injured Catholics; and that justice
should be done them at any cost or hazard. He told him, moreover, that
other persons whose houses had been burnt, had for a time lost sight of
their children or their relatives, but had, in every case, within his
knowledge, succeeded in discovering them; that his complaint should be
remembered, and fully stated in the instructions given to the officers
in command, and to all the inferior myrmidons of justice; and that
everything that could be done to help him, should be done, with a
goodwill and in good faith.
Grateful for this consolation, feeble as it was in its reference to the
past, and little hope as it afforded him in connection with the subject
of distress which lay nearest to his heart; and really thankful for the
interest the minister expressed, and seemed to feel, in his condition;
Mr Haredale withdrew. He found himself, with the night coming on, alone
in the streets; and destitute of any place in which to lay his head.
He entered an hotel near Charing Cross, and ordered some refreshment and
a bed. He saw that his faint and worn appearance attracted the attention
of the landlord and his waiters; and thinking that they might suppose
him to be penniless, took out his purse, and laid it on the table. It
was not that, the landlord said, in a faltering voice. If he were one
of those who had suffered by the rioters, he durst not give him
entertainment. He had a family of children, and had been twice warned to
be careful in receiving guests. He heartily prayed his forgiveness, but
what could he do?
Nothing. No man felt that more sincerely than Mr Haredale. He told the
man as much, and left the house.
Feeling that he might have anticipated this occurrence, after what
he had seen at Chigwell in the morning, where no man dared to touch a
spade, though he offered a large reward to all who would come and dig
among the ruins of his house, he walked along the Strand; too proud
to expose himself to another refusal, and of too generous a spirit
to involve in distress or ruin any honest tradesman who might be weak
enough to give him shelter. He wandered into one of the streets by the
side of the river, and was pacing in a thoughtful manner up and
down, thinking of things that had happened long ago, when he heard a
servant-man at an upper window call to another on the opposite side of
the street, that the mob were setting fire to Newgate.
To Newgate! where that man was! His failing strength returned, his
energies came back with tenfold vigour, on the instant. If it were
possible--if they should set the murderer free--was he, after all he had
undergone, to die with the suspicion of having slain his own brother,
dimly gathering about him--
He had no consciousness of going to the jail; but there he stood, before
it. There was the crowd wedged and pressed together in a dense, dark,
moving mass; and there were the flames soaring up into the air. His head
turned round and round, lights flashed before his eyes, and he struggled
hard with two men.
‘Nay, nay,’ said one. ‘Be more yourself, my good sir. We attract
attention here. Come away. What can you do among so many men?’
‘The gentleman’s always for doing something,’ said the other, forcing
him along as he spoke. ‘I like him for that. I do like him for that.’
They had by this time got him into a court, hard by the prison. He
looked from one to the other, and as he tried to release himself, felt
that he tottered on his feet. He who had spoken first, was the old
gentleman whom he had seen at the Lord Mayor’s. The other was John
Grueby, who had stood by him so manfully at Westminster.
‘What does this mean?’ he asked them faintly. ‘How came we together?’
‘On the skirts of the crowd,’ returned the distiller; ‘but come with us.
Pray come with us. You seem to know my friend here?’
‘Surely,’ said Mr Haredale, looking in a kind of stupor at John.
‘He’ll tell you then,’ returned the old gentleman, ‘that I am a man
to be trusted. He’s my servant. He was lately (as you know, I have no
doubt) in Lord George Gordon’s service; but he left it, and brought,
in pure goodwill to me and others, who are marked by the rioters, such
intelligence as he had picked up, of their designs.’
--‘On one condition, please, sir,’ said John, touching his hat. No
evidence against my lord--a misled man--a kind-hearted man, sir. My lord
never intended this.’
‘The condition will be observed, of course,’ rejoined the old distiller.
‘It’s a point of honour. But come with us, sir; pray come with us.’
John Grueby added no entreaties, but he adopted a different kind of
persuasion, by putting his arm through one of Mr Haredale’s, while his
master took the other, and leading him away with all speed.
Sensible, from a strange lightness in his head, and a difficulty in
fixing his thoughts on anything, even to the extent of bearing his
companions in his mind for a minute together without looking at them,
that his brain was affected by the agitation and suffering through which
he had passed, and to which he was still a prey, Mr Haredale let them
lead him where they would. As they went along, he was conscious of
having no command over what he said or thought, and that he had a fear
of going mad.
The distiller lived, as he had told him when they first met, on Holborn
Hill, where he had great storehouses and drove a large trade. They
approached his house by a back entrance, lest they should attract the
notice of the crowd, and went into an upper room which faced towards the
street; the windows, however, in common with those of every other room
in the house, were boarded up inside, in order that, out of doors, all
might appear quite dark.
They laid him on a sofa in this chamber, perfectly insensible; but John
immediately fetching a surgeon, who took from him a large quantity of
blood, he gradually came to himself. As he was, for the time, too weak
to walk, they had no difficulty in persuading him to remain there all
night, and got him to bed without loss of a minute. That done, they
gave him cordial and some toast, and presently a pretty strong
composing-draught, under the influence of which he soon fell into a
lethargy, and, for a time, forgot his troubles.
The vintner, who was a very hearty old fellow and a worthy man, had
no thoughts of going to bed himself, for he had received several
threatening warnings from the rioters, and had indeed gone out that
evening to try and gather from the conversation of the mob whether his
house was to be the next attacked. He sat all night in an easy-chair in
the same room--dozing a little now and then--and received from time
to time the reports of John Grueby and two or three other trustworthy
persons in his employ, who went out into the streets as scouts; and
for whose entertainment an ample allowance of good cheer (which the old
vintner, despite his anxiety, now and then attacked himself) was set
forth in an adjoining chamber.
These accounts were of a sufficiently alarming nature from the first;
but as the night wore on, they grew so much worse, and involved such a
fearful amount of riot and destruction, that in comparison with these
new tidings all the previous disturbances sunk to nothing.
The first intelligence that came, was of the taking of Newgate, and the
escape of all the prisoners, whose track, as they made up Holborn and
into the adjacent streets, was proclaimed to those citizens who were
shut up in their houses, by the rattling of their chains, which formed
a dismal concert, and was heard in every direction, as though so many
forges were at work. The flames too, shone so brightly through the
vintner’s skylights, that the rooms and staircases below were nearly as
light as in broad day; while the distant shouting of the mob seemed to
shake the very walls and ceilings.
At length they were heard approaching the house, and some minutes of
terrible anxiety ensued. They came close up, and stopped before it;
but after giving three loud yells, went on. And although they returned
several times that night, creating new alarms each time, they did
nothing there; having their hands full. Shortly after they had gone away
for the first time, one of the scouts came running in with the news that
they had stopped before Lord Mansfield’s house in Bloomsbury Square.
Soon afterwards there came another, and another, and then the first
returned again, and so, by little and little, their tale was this:--That
the mob gathering round Lord Mansfield’s house, had called on those
within to open the door, and receiving no reply (for Lord and Lady
Mansfield were at that moment escaping by the backway), forced an
entrance according to their usual custom. That they then began to
demolish the house with great fury, and setting fire to it in several
parts, involved in a common ruin the whole of the costly furniture, the
plate and jewels, a beautiful gallery of pictures, the rarest collection
of manuscripts ever possessed by any one private person in the world,
and worse than all, because nothing could replace this loss, the great
Law Library, on almost every page of which were notes in the Judge’s
own hand, of inestimable value,--being the results of the study and
experience of his whole life. That while they were howling and exulting
round the fire, a troop of soldiers, with a magistrate among them, came
up, and being too late (for the mischief was by that time done), began
to disperse the crowd. That the Riot Act being read, and the crowd still
resisting, the soldiers received orders to fire, and levelling their
muskets shot dead at the first discharge six men and a woman, and
wounded many persons; and loading again directly, fired another volley,
but over the people’s heads it was supposed, as none were seen to fall.
That thereupon, and daunted by the shrieks and tumult, the crowd began
to disperse, and the soldiers went away, leaving the killed and wounded
on the ground: which they had no sooner done than the rioters came back
again, and taking up the dead bodies, and the wounded people, formed
into a rude procession, having the bodies in the front. That in this
order they paraded off with a horrible merriment; fixing weapons in the
dead men’s hands to make them look as if alive; and preceded by a fellow
ringing Lord Mansfield’s dinner-bell with all his might.
The scouts reported further, that this party meeting with some others
who had been at similar work elsewhere, they all united into one, and
drafting off a few men with the killed and wounded, marched away to Lord
Mansfield’s country seat at Caen Wood, between Hampstead and Highgate;
bent upon destroying that house likewise, and lighting up a great fire
there, which from that height should be seen all over London. But in
this, they were disappointed, for a party of horse having arrived before
them, they retreated faster than they went, and came straight back to
town.
There being now a great many parties in the streets, each went to
work according to its humour, and a dozen houses were quickly blazing,
including those of Sir John Fielding and two other justices, and four
in Holborn--one of the greatest thoroughfares in London--which were all
burning at the same time, and burned until they went out of themselves,
for the people cut the engine hose, and would not suffer the firemen to
play upon the flames. At one house near Moorfields, they found in one of
the rooms some canary birds in cages, and these they cast into the fire
alive. The poor little creatures screamed, it was said, like infants,
when they were flung upon the blaze; and one man was so touched that he
tried in vain to save them, which roused the indignation of the crowd,
and nearly cost him his life.
At this same house, one of the fellows who went through the rooms,
breaking the furniture and helping to destroy the building, found a
child’s doll--a poor toy--which he exhibited at the window to the mob
below, as the image of some unholy saint which the late occupants had
worshipped. While he was doing this, another man with an equally tender
conscience (they had both been foremost in throwing down the canary
birds for roasting alive), took his seat on the parapet of the house,
and harangued the crowd from a pamphlet circulated by the Association,
relative to the true principles of Christianity! Meanwhile the Lord
Mayor, with his hands in his pockets, looked on as an idle man might
look at any other show, and seemed mightily satisfied to have got a good
place.
Such were the accounts brought to the old vintner by his servants as he
sat at the side of Mr Haredale’s bed, having been unable even to doze,
after the first part of the night; too much disturbed by his own fears;
by the cries of the mob, the light of the fires, and the firing of the
soldiers. Such, with the addition of the release of all the prisoners in
the New Jail at Clerkenwell, and as many robberies of passengers in
the streets, as the crowd had leisure to indulge in, were the scenes of
which Mr Haredale was happily unconscious, and which were all enacted
before midnight.