When darkness broke away and morning began to dawn, the town wore a
strange aspect indeed.
Sleep had hardly been thought of all night. The general alarm was so
apparent in the faces of the inhabitants, and its expression was so
aggravated by want of rest (few persons, with any property to lose,
having dared go to bed since Monday), that a stranger coming into the
streets would have supposed some mortal pest or plague to have been
raging. In place of the usual cheerfulness and animation of morning,
everything was dead and silent. The shops remained closed, offices and
warehouses were shut, the coach and chair stands were deserted, no carts
or waggons rumbled through the slowly waking streets, the early cries
were all hushed; a universal gloom prevailed. Great numbers of people
were out, even at daybreak, but they flitted to and fro as though they
shrank from the sound of their own footsteps; the public ways were
haunted rather than frequented; and round the smoking ruins people stood
apart from one another and in silence, not venturing to condemn the
rioters, or to be supposed to do so, even in whispers.
At the Lord President’s in Piccadilly, at Lambeth Palace, at the Lord
Chancellor’s in Great Ormond Street, in the Royal Exchange, the Bank,
the Guildhall, the Inns of Court, the Courts of Law, and every chamber
fronting the streets near Westminster Hall and the Houses of Parliament,
parties of soldiers were posted before daylight. A body of Horse Guards
paraded Palace Yard; an encampment was formed in the Park, where fifteen
hundred men and five battalions of Militia were under arms; the Tower
was fortified, the drawbridges were raised, the cannon loaded and
pointed, and two regiments of artillery busied in strengthening the
fortress and preparing it for defence. A numerous detachment of soldiers
were stationed to keep guard at the New River Head, which the people had
threatened to attack, and where, it was said, they meant to cut off the
main-pipes, so that there might be no water for the extinction of the
flames. In the Poultry, and on Cornhill, and at several other leading
points, iron chains were drawn across the street; parties of soldiers
were distributed in some of the old city churches while it was yet
dark; and in several private houses (among them, Lord Rockingham’s in
Grosvenor Square); which were blockaded as though to sustain a siege,
and had guns pointed from the windows. When the sun rose, it shone into
handsome apartments filled with armed men; the furniture hastily heaped
away in corners, and made of little or no account, in the terror of the
time--on arms glittering in city chambers, among desks and stools, and
dusty books--into little smoky churchyards in odd lanes and by-ways,
with soldiers lying down among the tombs, or lounging under the shade of
the one old tree, and their pile of muskets sparkling in the light--on
solitary sentries pacing up and down in courtyards, silent now, but
yesterday resounding with the din and hum of business--everywhere on
guard-rooms, garrisons, and threatening preparations.
As the day crept on, still more unusual sights were witnessed in the
streets. The gates of the King’s Bench and Fleet Prisons being opened at
the usual hour, were found to have notices affixed to them, announcing
that the rioters would come that night to burn them down. The wardens,
too well knowing the likelihood there was of this promise being
fulfilled, were fain to set their prisoners at liberty, and give
them leave to move their goods; so, all day, such of them as had any
furniture were occupied in conveying it, some to this place, some to
that, and not a few to the brokers’ shops, where they gladly sold it,
for any wretched price those gentry chose to give. There were some
broken men among these debtors who had been in jail so long, and were
so miserable and destitute of friends, so dead to the world, and utterly
forgotten and uncared for, that they implored their jailers not to
set them free, and to send them, if need were, to some other place of
custody. But they, refusing to comply, lest they should incur the anger
of the mob, turned them into the streets, where they wandered up and
down hardly remembering the ways untrodden by their feet so long, and
crying--such abject things those rotten-hearted jails had made them--as
they slunk off in their rags, and dragged their slipshod feet along the
pavement.
Even of the three hundred prisoners who had escaped from Newgate, there
were some--a few, but there were some--who sought their jailers out and
delivered themselves up: preferring imprisonment and punishment to the
horrors of such another night as the last. Many of the convicts, drawn
back to their old place of captivity by some indescribable attraction,
or by a desire to exult over it in its downfall and glut their revenge
by seeing it in ashes, actually went back in broad noon, and loitered
about the cells. Fifty were retaken at one time on this next day, within
the prison walls; but their fate did not deter others, for there they
went in spite of everything, and there they were taken in twos and
threes, twice or thrice a day, all through the week. Of the fifty just
mentioned, some were occupied in endeavouring to rekindle the fire; but
in general they seemed to have no object in view but to prowl and lounge
about the old place: being often found asleep in the ruins, or sitting
talking there, or even eating and drinking, as in a choice retreat.
Besides the notices on the gates of the Fleet and the King’s Bench,
many similar announcements were left, before one o’clock at noon, at
the houses of private individuals; and further, the mob proclaimed their
intention of seizing on the Bank, the Mint, the Arsenal at Woolwich, and
the Royal Palaces. The notices were seldom delivered by more than one
man, who, if it were at a shop, went in, and laid it, with a bloody
threat perhaps, upon the counter; or if it were at a private
house, knocked at the door, and thrust it in the servant’s hand.
Notwithstanding the presence of the military in every quarter of the
town, and the great force in the Park, these messengers did their
errands with impunity all through the day. So did two boys who went
down Holborn alone, armed with bars taken from the railings of Lord
Mansfield’s house, and demanded money for the rioters. So did a tall man
on horseback who made a collection for the same purpose in Fleet Street,
and refused to take anything but gold.
A rumour had now got into circulation, too, which diffused a greater
dread all through London, even than these publicly announced intentions
of the rioters, though all men knew that if they were successfully
effected, there must ensue a national bankruptcy and general ruin. It
was said that they meant to throw the gates of Bedlam open, and let all
the madmen loose. This suggested such dreadful images to the people’s
minds, and was indeed an act so fraught with new and unimaginable
horrors in the contemplation, that it beset them more than any loss or
cruelty of which they could foresee the worst, and drove many sane men
nearly mad themselves.
So the day passed on: the prisoners moving their goods; people running
to and fro in the streets, carrying away their property; groups standing
in silence round the ruins; all business suspended; and the soldiers
disposed as has been already mentioned, remaining quite inactive. So the
day passed on, and dreaded night drew near again.
At last, at seven o’clock in the evening, the Privy Council issued a
solemn proclamation that it was now necessary to employ the military,
and that the officers had most direct and effectual orders, by an
immediate exertion of their utmost force, to repress the disturbances;
and warning all good subjects of the King to keep themselves, their
servants, and apprentices, within doors that night. There was then
delivered out to every soldier on duty, thirty-six rounds of powder and
ball; the drums beat; and the whole force was under arms at sunset.
The City authorities, stimulated by these vigorous measures, held a
Common Council; passed a vote thanking the military associations who
had tendered their aid to the civil authorities; accepted it; and placed
them under the direction of the two sheriffs. At the Queen’s palace,
a double guard, the yeomen on duty, the groom-porters, and all other
attendants, were stationed in the passages and on the staircases at
seven o’clock, with strict instructions to be watchful on their posts
all night; and all the doors were locked. The gentlemen of the Temple,
and the other Inns, mounted guard within their gates, and strengthened
them with the great stones of the pavement, which they took up for the
purpose. In Lincoln’s Inn, they gave up the hall and commons to the
Northumberland Militia, under the command of Lord Algernon Percy; in
some few of the city wards, the burgesses turned out, and without
making a very fierce show, looked brave enough. Some hundreds of stout
gentlemen threw themselves, armed to the teeth, into the halls of the
different companies, double-locked and bolted all the gates, and
dared the rioters (among themselves) to come on at their peril. These
arrangements being all made simultaneously, or nearly so, were completed
by the time it got dark; and then the streets were comparatively clear,
and were guarded at all the great corners and chief avenues by
the troops: while parties of the officers rode up and down in all
directions, ordering chance stragglers home, and admonishing the
residents to keep within their houses, and, if any firing ensued, not
to approach the windows. More chains were drawn across such of the
thoroughfares as were of a nature to favour the approach of a great
crowd, and at each of these points a considerable force was stationed.
All these precautions having been taken, and it being now quite dark,
those in command awaited the result in some anxiety: and not without a
hope that such vigilant demonstrations might of themselves dishearten
the populace, and prevent any new outrages.
But in this reckoning they were cruelly mistaken, for in half an hour,
or less, as though the setting in of night had been their preconcerted
signal, the rioters having previously, in small parties, prevented the
lighting of the street lamps, rose like a great sea; and that in so many
places at once, and with such inconceivable fury, that those who had the
direction of the troops knew not, at first, where to turn or what to do.
One after another, new fires blazed up in every quarter of the town,
as though it were the intention of the insurgents to wrap the city in a
circle of flames, which, contracting by degrees, should burn the whole
to ashes; the crowd swarmed and roared in every street; and none but
rioters and soldiers being out of doors, it seemed to the latter as if
all London were arrayed against them, and they stood alone against the
town.
In two hours, six-and-thirty fires were raging--six-and-thirty great
conflagrations: among them the Borough Clink in Tooley Street, the
King’s Bench, the Fleet, and the New Bridewell. In almost every street,
there was a battle; and in every quarter the muskets of the troops were
heard above the shouts and tumult of the mob. The firing began in the
Poultry, where the chain was drawn across the road, where nearly a score
of people were killed on the first discharge. Their bodies having been
hastily carried into St Mildred’s Church by the soldiers, the latter
fired again, and following fast upon the crowd, who began to give way
when they saw the execution that was done, formed across Cheapside, and
charged them at the point of the bayonet.
The streets were now a dreadful spectacle. The shouts of the rabble,
the shrieks of women, the cries of the wounded, and the constant firing,
formed a deafening and an awful accompaniment to the sights which every
corner presented. Wherever the road was obstructed by the chains, there
the fighting and the loss of life were greatest; but there was hot work
and bloodshed in almost every leading thoroughfare.
At Holborn Bridge, and on Holborn Hill, the confusion was greater than
in any other part; for the crowd that poured out of the city in two
great streams, one by Ludgate Hill, and one by Newgate Street, united at
that spot, and formed a mass so dense, that at every volley the people
seemed to fall in heaps. At this place a large detachment of soldiery
were posted, who fired, now up Fleet Market, now up Holborn, now up Snow
Hill--constantly raking the streets in each direction. At this place
too, several large fires were burning, so that all the terrors of that
terrible night seemed to be concentrated in one spot.
Full twenty times, the rioters, headed by one man who wielded an axe
in his right hand, and bestrode a brewer’s horse of great size and
strength, caparisoned with fetters taken out of Newgate, which clanked
and jingled as he went, made an attempt to force a passage at this
point, and fire the vintner’s house. Full twenty times they were
repulsed with loss of life, and still came back again; and though
the fellow at their head was marked and singled out by all, and was a
conspicuous object as the only rioter on horseback, not a man could
hit him. So surely as the smoke cleared away, so surely there was he;
calling hoarsely to his companions, brandishing his axe above his head,
and dashing on as though he bore a charmed life, and was proof against
ball and powder.
This man was Hugh; and in every part of the riot, he was seen. He headed
two attacks upon the Bank, helped to break open the Toll-houses on
Blackfriars Bridge, and cast the money into the street: fired two of the
prisons with his own hand: was here, and there, and everywhere--always
foremost--always active--striking at the soldiers, cheering on the
crowd, making his horse’s iron music heard through all the yell and
uproar: but never hurt or stopped. Turn him at one place, and he made
a new struggle in another; force him to retreat at this point, and he
advanced on that, directly. Driven from Holborn for the twentieth
time, he rode at the head of a great crowd straight upon Saint Paul’s,
attacked a guard of soldiers who kept watch over a body of prisoners
within the iron railings, forced them to retreat, rescued the men they
had in custody, and with this accession to his party, came back again,
mad with liquor and excitement, and hallooing them on like a demon.
It would have been no easy task for the most careful rider to sit a
horse in the midst of such a throng and tumult; but though this madman
rolled upon his back (he had no saddle) like a boat upon the sea, he
never for an instant lost his seat, or failed to guide him where he
would. Through the very thickest of the press, over dead bodies and
burning fragments, now on the pavement, now in the road, now riding up
a flight of steps to make himself the more conspicuous to his party,
and now forcing a passage through a mass of human beings, so closely
squeezed together that it seemed as if the edge of a knife would
scarcely part them,--on he went, as though he could surmount all
obstacles by the mere exercise of his will. And perhaps his not being
shot was in some degree attributable to this very circumstance; for his
extreme audacity, and the conviction that he must be one of those to
whom the proclamation referred, inspired the soldiers with a desire to
take him alive, and diverted many an aim which otherwise might have been
more near the mark.
The vintner and Mr Haredale, unable to sit quietly listening to the
noise without seeing what went on, had climbed to the roof of the house,
and hiding behind a stack of chimneys, were looking cautiously down into
the street, almost hoping that after so many repulses the rioters would
be foiled, when a great shout proclaimed that a parry were coming round
the other way; and the dismal jingling of those accursed fetters warned
them next moment that they too were led by Hugh. The soldiers had
advanced into Fleet Market and were dispersing the people there; so that
they came on with hardly any check, and were soon before the house.
‘All’s over now,’ said the vintner. ‘Fifty thousand pounds will be
scattered in a minute. We must save ourselves. We can do no more, and
shall have reason to be thankful if we do as much.’
Their first impulse was, to clamber along the roofs of the houses, and,
knocking at some garret window for admission, pass down that way into
the street, and so escape. But another fierce cry from below, and a
general upturning of the faces of the crowd, apprised them that they
were discovered, and even that Mr Haredale was recognised; for Hugh,
seeing him plainly in the bright glare of the fire, which in that part
made it as light as day, called to him by his name, and swore to have
his life.
‘Leave me here,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘and in Heaven’s name, my good
friend, save yourself! Come on!’ he muttered, as he turned towards Hugh
and faced him without any further effort at concealment: ‘This roof is
high, and if we close, we will die together!’
‘Madness,’ said the honest vintner, pulling him back, ‘sheer madness.
Hear reason, sir. My good sir, hear reason. I could never make myself
heard by knocking at a window now; and even if I could, no one would be
bold enough to connive at my escape. Through the cellars, there’s a kind
of passage into the back street by which we roll casks in and out. We
shall have time to get down there before they can force an entry. Do
not delay an instant, but come with me--for both our sakes--for mine--my
dear good sir!’
As he spoke, and drew Mr Haredale back, they had both a glimpse of the
street. It was but a glimpse, but it showed them the crowd, gathering
and clustering round the house: some of the armed men pressing to the
front to break down the doors and windows, some bringing brands from
the nearest fire, some with lifted faces following their course upon the
roof and pointing them out to their companions: all raging and roaring
like the flames they lighted up. They saw some men thirsting for the
treasures of strong liquor which they knew were stored within; they saw
others, who had been wounded, sinking down into the opposite doorways
and dying, solitary wretches, in the midst of all the vast assemblage;
here a frightened woman trying to escape; and there a lost child; and
there a drunken ruffian, unconscious of the death-wound on his head,
raving and fighting to the last. All these things, and even such trivial
incidents as a man with his hat off, or turning round, or stooping down,
or shaking hands with another, they marked distinctly; yet in a glance
so brief, that, in the act of stepping back, they lost the whole, and
saw but the pale faces of each other, and the red sky above them.
Mr Haredale yielded to the entreaties of his companion--more because he
was resolved to defend him, than for any thought he had of his own life,
or any care he entertained for his own safety--and quickly re-entering
the house, they descended the stairs together. Loud blows were
thundering on the shutters, crowbars were already thrust beneath the
door, the glass fell from the sashes, a deep light shone through every
crevice, and they heard the voices of the foremost in the crowd so close
to every chink and keyhole, that they seemed to be hoarsely whispering
their threats into their very ears. They had but a moment reached the
bottom of the cellar-steps and shut the door behind them, when the mob
broke in.
The vaults were profoundly dark, and having no torch or candle--for
they had been afraid to carry one, lest it should betray their place of
refuge--they were obliged to grope with their hands. But they were not
long without light, for they had not gone far when they heard the crowd
forcing the door; and, looking back among the low-arched passages,
could see them in the distance, hurrying to and fro with flashing links,
broaching the casks, staving the great vats, turning off upon the right
hand and the left, into the different cellars, and lying down to drink
at the channels of strong spirits which were already flowing on the
ground.
They hurried on, not the less quickly for this; and had reached the only
vault which lay between them and the passage out, when suddenly, from
the direction in which they were going, a strong light gleamed upon
their faces; and before they could slip aside, or turn back, or hide
themselves, two men (one bearing a torch) came upon them, and cried in
an astonished whisper, ‘Here they are!’
At the same instant they pulled off what they wore upon their heads. Mr
Haredale saw before him Edward Chester, and then saw, when the vintner
gasped his name, Joe Willet.
Ay, the same Joe, though with an arm the less, who used to make the
quarterly journey on the grey mare to pay the bill to the purple-faced
vintner; and that very same purple-faced vintner, formerly of Thames
Street, now looked him in the face, and challenged him by name.
‘Give me your hand,’ said Joe softly, taking it whether the astonished
vintner would or no. ‘Don’t fear to shake it; it’s a friendly one and
a hearty one, though it has no fellow. Why, how well you look and how
bluff you are! And you--God bless you, sir. Take heart, take heart.
We’ll find them. Be of good cheer; we have not been idle.’
There was something so honest and frank in Joe’s speech, that Mr
Haredale put his hand in his involuntarily, though their meeting
was suspicious enough. But his glance at Edward Chester, and that
gentleman’s keeping aloof, were not lost upon Joe, who said bluntly,
glancing at Edward while he spoke:
‘Times are changed, Mr Haredale, and times have come when we ought to
know friends from enemies, and make no confusion of names. Let me tell
you that but for this gentleman, you would most likely have been dead by
this time, or badly wounded at the best.’
‘What do you say?’ cried Mr Haredale.
‘I say,’ said Joe, ‘first, that it was a bold thing to be in the crowd
at all disguised as one of them; though I won’t say much about that, on
second thoughts, for that’s my case too. Secondly, that it was a brave
and glorious action--that’s what I call it--to strike that fellow off
his horse before their eyes!’
‘What fellow! Whose eyes!’
‘What fellow, sir!’ cried Joe: ‘a fellow who has no goodwill to you, and
who has the daring and devilry in him of twenty fellows. I know him of
old. Once in the house, HE would have found you, here or anywhere. The
rest owe you no particular grudge, and, unless they see you, will only
think of drinking themselves dead. But we lose time. Are you ready?’
‘Quite,’ said Edward. ‘Put out the torch, Joe, and go on. And be silent,
there’s a good fellow.’
‘Silent or not silent,’ murmured Joe, as he dropped the flaring link
upon the ground, crushed it with his foot, and gave his hand to Mr
Haredale, ‘it was a brave and glorious action;--no man can alter that.’
Both Mr Haredale and the worthy vintner were too amazed and too much
hurried to ask any further questions, so followed their conductors
in silence. It seemed, from a short whispering which presently ensued
between them and the vintner relative to the best way of escape, that
they had entered by the back-door, with the connivance of John Grueby,
who watched outside with the key in his pocket, and whom they had taken
into their confidence. A party of the crowd coming up that way, just as
they entered, John had double-locked the door again, and made off for
the soldiers, so that means of retreat was cut off from under them.
However, as the front-door had been forced, and this minor crowd, being
anxious to get at the liquor, had no fancy for losing time in breaking
down another, but had gone round and got in from Holborn with the rest,
the narrow lane in the rear was quite free of people. So, when they had
crawled through the passage indicated by the vintner (which was a mere
shelving-trap for the admission of casks), and had managed with some
difficulty to unchain and raise the door at the upper end, they emerged
into the street without being observed or interrupted. Joe still holding
Mr Haredale tight, and Edward taking the same care of the vintner, they
hurried through the streets at a rapid pace; occasionally standing aside
to let some fugitives go by, or to keep out of the way of the soldiers
who followed them, and whose questions, when they halted to put any,
were speedily stopped by one whispered word from Joe.