sign of the Craven-arms, in Southampton-street, belongs to a
charity in our parish; and we therefore beg the favour of you
to use what methods shall seem right to prevent the populace
doing any farther damage to it: and as to any extraordinary
expence which may happen on this account, the trustees will
readily pay. A Committee of the Trustees of the Charity
will be immediately called, and they will do themselves the
pleasure of waiting on you. We are, Sir, &c.
JACKSON, Rector,
BARTHO. PAYNE, Churchwarden.
HENRY BUNN, Secretary to the Trust[54:A]."
Nothing particular occurred for upwards of a year after the above
outrage; but in October 1758, the brutality of the mob was excited by
the interment of Mr. Wilson, an undertaker and pawnbroker, who had kept
the Punch-bowl near Moorgate. The cause of their resentment proves that
a British mob generally acts upon a noble principle; as the deceased
was reported to have left a legacy of 200_l._ to be paid in groats to
those persons who were then imprisoned at his suit, though he died
rich. This malice from the grave justly exasperated all who knew of it;
and their anger was properly inflamed by observing that a detachment
of the Artillery company, to which Wilson had belonged, intended to
pay him military honours on the way to Islington, where he was to be
buried. Every mark of abhorrence and contempt consequently ensued
from an astonishing number of persons, who severely hurt each other
by collision; and it was with the utmost difficulty that the priest
performed his office.
I am sorry to add that at the same time some miscreants in the middle
rank of life, inflamed by dissipation, were in the practice of
pretending to fight every evening on Ludgate-hill, for the diabolical
pleasure of dealing blows indiscriminately on peaceable passengers;
and, to use their own words, "in order to see the claret run." These
wretches who thus wantonly attacked the publick, broke the leg of a
Constable, and bruised several watchmen, before they could secure two
of them, who were committed till the Constable recovered.
Five years passed without producing a single offence committed by
numbers acting under temporary impulse; at length an affray happened
between certain Irish chairmen and sailors, who were all inflamed by
liquor, drank in honour of the election held in Covent-garden March
1763. After they had abused each other with the usual language of
vulgar irritation, a challenge was offered by a chairman to fight
the best sailor present: this ended in the defeat of the Irishman,
who was instantly reinforced by his brethren, when a general attack
with pokers, tongs, fenders, &c. &c. commenced on the sailors; those,
supported by a party of unarmed soldiers, drove their antagonists from
the field, and immediately proceeded to demolish every chair they could
find. These outrages continued till evening, and by that time a general
muster of chairmen had taken place, who, exasperated to madness, beat
down men, women, and children, in their progress to the scene of
action, where a dreadful conflict was prevented by a party of Soldiers
from the Savoy, whose exertions accomplished the capture of some of the
ringleaders, but not before a Soldier and a Sailor, and three other
persons, had been dangerously wounded, and the King's-head ale-house
almost demolished.
The hardy seamen, defenders of our island, are excellent subjects when
on-board their respective ships, but they are very apt to be turbulent
on shore; another instance of which succeeded the Covent-garden riot
almost immediately, though the cause was different. The conduct of the
Sailor is generally exceedingly thoughtless: low drinking-houses and
women are their favourite sources of amusement; and the keepers of
the former, united with the latter, never fail to make them repent,
as far as their insensible minds are susceptible. The Police of the
Tower Hamlets, aware of this, frequently sent peace-officers to houses
of ill-fame, in order to apprehend the most obnoxious inmates; and in
pursuit of this laudable custom several women and a few sailors were
sent to the Round-house in March 1763. On the following morning they
were taken before the Magistrates then assembled at the Black-horse
near the Victualling-office for examination; there numbers of Sailors
collected, and demanded the release of their comrades, which the
Justices complied with; but, still dissatisfied, they insisted on the
enlargement of the women. This presumptuous request was, however,
positively refused, and the Magistrates, dreading the consequences,
sent three different times for detachments of Soldiers to support their
authority, and as an equipoise for the increasing numbers of the
Sailors, who assembled from all sides to the amount, it is said, of
more than a thousand: the Riot Act was read no less than three times
to no purpose, during which time the Sailors had obtained flags from
the shipping, and having marshalled themselves _in a line of battle,
they bore down_ on the Soldiers drawn up to receive them. At the
instant the commanding officer of the latter was about to pronounce
the dreadful word _Fire!_ a naval officer made his appearance in front
of the Sailors, and intreated the order might be reserved till he
had endeavoured to convince his brethren of the impropriety of their
conduct. He then addressed himself to the Sailors, and said they would
forfeit the favour of the King, who had promised to take off their
R's; to which he added other arguments, and at length prevailed upon
two-thirds of them to follow him to Tower-hill, where he dismissed them.
A Serjeant and twelve Soldiers were sent about four o'clock on the same
afternoon to Clerkenwell Bridewell, as an escort to eight of the women
who had occasioned the riot. Those were pursued by a party of Sailors,
and overtaken at Chiswell-street. The instant release of the prisoners
was demanded and refused, when one of the Soldiers fired, and wounded
a Sailor and a Baker; but, as the assailants became more violent after
this precipitation, the Serjeant wisely determined to resign his
charge, rather than cause farther bloodshed.
The Weavers resident in Spital-fields were the next disturbers of the
public peace. Those useful members of Society had long disputed with
their employers respecting their wages; and at length a compromise
took place, when printed papers of the various prices of their work
were distributed, in order to prevent future disputes. Some avaricious
master-weavers, however, thought proper to reduce the weaving of
certain articles one half-penny _per_ yard; and hence the riots, which
commenced with the destruction of the looms belonging to one of the
most active opponents of the journeymen, whose effigies they afterwards
placed in a cart, hanged, and burnt. This conduct, though highly
improper, was innocence compared with that now to be related, which
originated in the strange folly and wickedness of Seamen almost at the
same time. The narrative was compiled from the minutes of the Coroner's
Inquest.
"On Thursday last an inquisition was taken in Holywell-street,
Shoreditch, upon the bodies of Ralph Meadows and John Whitrow, two
of the persons killed in the late riot before a public house, known
by the sign of the Marquis of Granby's-head, in Holywell-street. The
inquisition lasted six hours. It appeared in the evidence, that on
Monday last, about one o'clock, a great mob assembled before and in
the dwelling-house of Thomas Kelly the publican, committing outrages;
that on application to two Magistrates, they wrote to the Lieutenant
of the third regiment of foot-guards, then on duty, with an Ensign
and 100 men under his command, in Spital-fields, on account of a late
riot there, acquainting him, that there was a great mob assembled in
Holywell-street, Shoreditch, who had broke open a house in a violent
and outrageous manner, to the terror of his Majesty's quiet subjects,
and in breach of the peace; and desiring him to attend with a proper
force to disperse the mob and stop their proceedings.
"The Lieutenant assembled as many of his men as the short notice would
permit, before the passage door leading to the said public house, where
he found a great crowd of people; and on going into the house with
the Justices' order in his hand, he found some very desperate fellows
in it, some in sailors' habits, who were cursing and swearing that
they would not leave the house, but do what they pleased; one of them
behaving in a very affronting manner to the Lieutenant, some of the
soldiers led him out. About three o'clock, the Lieutenant prevailed on
them to depart, and they went away quietly, leaving only a crowd of
people standing before the passage door, who had gathered there out
of curiosity. The Lieutenant then withdrew himself, leaving only a
Serjeant, Corporal, and twelve private soldiers, which he did at the
solicitation of the publican, who was afraid of a second attack. The
Lieutenant then went to dinner, and informed the Serjeant he would
return in an hour. For about half an hour all was quiet; and then a
gentleman came up to the Serjeant, and bade him take care of himself,
as there was a body of sailors coming up the street, d--ing their eyes,
declaring, 'they would clear the soldiers, and pull the house down.'
The Serjeant seeing them advance, looked round to the soldiers, and
said, 'There they come;' and ordered his men to stand to their arms,
and he would meet the rioters, but bade them fix their bayonets. He
approached about twelve yards towards the rioters, and pulled off his
hat, and said, 'Gentlemen, I hope you do not come with any intent to
make a disturbance.' They d--ned their eyes, and informed him, that
'they had got one man, and would have the landlord of the house.' The
Serjeant, telling them 'that he was placed there by an order from the
civil power to take care of the house and preserve the peace,' returned
to his command. The sailors then advanced, and some of them mounted the
sign-post, and to prevent their getting up, some of the soldiers gently
struck them with their pieces; but the Serjeant, finding them resolute
to take down the sign, ordered the soldiers to let them, and informed
the soldiers, that he was then in hopes to disperse them without
mischief. As soon as the sign was down, they gave a huzza, and some
of them called out, 'Now for the landlord,' and in a riotous manner
advanced with their sticks towards the passage which the soldiers
were guarding. The Serjeant informed them he could not admit them
into the house upon any account: upon which they began to beat with
their sticks, and press on the soldiers; and the serjeant ordered the
soldiers to charge (which is fixing their musquets breast high) but it
had no effect: they then assaulted the soldiers with pieces of brick,
tile, and great quantities of mud, and forced two bayonets from the
musquets, one of which was broke, and the other was taken up by one of
the sailors, with which he made a full push at the Serjeant, but he
happily warded it off with his halbert; and the sailors got between
him and his men, and attacked them with such violence that they were
forced into the passage which leads to the public-house, and thereupon
a battle ensued, and the Serjeant used all his endeavours to come to
his men, but he was prevented by the sailors, and received several
blows. The men being thus pressed into the passage, were obliged to
fire, and two pieces were discharged, which, from the faint report, and
no mischief being done, and the sailors not giving way, the witnesses
all declared, that they believed the pieces were loaded with gunpowder
only. The sailors continuing to press violently upon the soldiers, and
endeavouring to force the passage, the soldiers fired again, and two
men, amongst the rioters, were seen to drop.
"The sailors now became very desperate, and most violently assaulted
the soldiers with their sticks; and the soldiers were, through
inevitable necessity, in defence of their lives, and for the public
peace, obliged to fire, and the firing continued till they cleared the
passage and street before it, which was very soon done: upon which the
Serjeant took the opportunity of running to his men, and cried out,
'For God's sake fire no more.' He then drew all his men out of the
passage, and formed a square in the street, and ordered them to ease
their arms, and on looking about him he saw three men lying dead in the
street, two of which appeared to be sailors. Several of the soldiers'
fingers were bloody from the blows they received from the rioters. In
the riot two sailors jumped into a window belonging to a butcher's
house, near the public-house, and one of them taking a chopper out of
the shop, endeavoured to rush by the Corporal into the passage to the
public-house, but was seized by the Corporal to prevent his going in,
by which means the Corporal's hand was cut by the chopper to such a
degree, that he was obliged to be sent to an hospital.
"The witnesses swore, that they verily believed the soldiers were
obliged to fire in defence of their lives, as well as for the
preservation of the public peace; and the Jury were well satisfied with
the evidence before them.
"The Coroner, in summing up the evidence, distinguished between murder,
manslaughter, and justifiable or excusable homicides, both voluntary
and involuntary; and chance-medley, or homicide by misadventure; under
one of which classes, he informed the Jury, the present case must fall.
He observed, that the soldiers did not come to that place wantonly to
do an injury, but were called in, as the Lieutenant understood, and
so called it (when he produced his authority) in his evidence, 'by an
order from the civil power,' to suppress the rioters, and preserve
the King's peace; and whether the civil power had taken the proper
steps before applying to the military, or whether the notice sent to
the Lieutenant was a legal warrant or order, or not, were not matters
of their enquiry; for that, supposing a Justice of Peace should issue
an illegal warrant, and an officer should be killed in the execution
of it, in that case the party killing would be deemed a murderer; for
the officer was obliged to execute his office: he is not supposed to
be a judge of law; he is only a minister of Justice, and the party
had a legal remedy, if he had been improperly arrested. The Coroner
said, that the conduct of the military power upon that occasion was
the immediate subject of their enquiry; that, if the Jury gave credit
to the witnesses, the major part of whom were disinterested persons,
the soldiers did not fire till they were pressed to it, by inevitable
necessity, in defence of their own lives, and for the preservation
of the public peace; and in killing any of the rioters, had done
no more than 'Justifiable Homicides' of inevitable necessity, for
the preservation of the King's peace, and in defence of themselves;
and added, that in such case, if any person was killed that was not
concerned in the riot, but unfortunately hemmed in by the rioters, or
was passing along at that time, in that case it would be chance-medley,
or homicide _per infortunium_, that is, death by misadventure; and as
it did not appear to the Jury that the persons upon whom they then sat
were acting in the riot, the Jury found the special matter, and brought
in their verdict Homicides by Misadventure.
"After the riot by the sailors was over, the people collected, and were
so much enraged against the soldiers, that the Lieutenant was obliged
to send to the Tower for a reinforcement to prevent mischief; and they
continued under arms till near twelve at night, when he withdrew,
leaving at the public-house a Serjeant, Corporal, and twenty private
men, who, reporting the next morning that all was well, were ordered to
their several quarters."
A third scene of popular tumult occurred before the close of the year
1763, and was caused by the execution of the sentence of burning Mr.
Wilkes's celebrated Number 45 of the North Briton.
The 3d of December was appointed for this silly ceremony, which took
place before the Royal Exchange amidst the hisses and execrations of
the mob, not directed at the obnoxious paper, but at Alderman Harley,
the Sheriffs, and constables; the latter of whom were compelled to
fight furiously through the whole business. The instant the hangman
held the work to a lighted link it was beat to the ground; and the
populace, seizing the faggots prepared to complete its destruction,
fell upon the peace-officers, and fairly threshed them from the field;
nor did the Alderman escape without a contusion on the head, inflicted
by a billet thrown through the glass of his coach; and several other
persons had reason to repent the attempt to burn that publicly which
the _sovereign people_ determined to approve, who afterwards exhibited
a large _jack boot_ at Temple-bar, and burnt it in triumph, unmolested,
as a species of retaliation.
February in the following year produced another description of outrage;
and, as the mob arranged themselves on the side of Liberty in the
above instance, they determined in the following to adopt the cause of
Justice, though, as it almost always happens, they listened only to
_one_ side of the case; in short, they are generally a Jury who retire
for a verdict when the evidence _for the prosecution_ is closed. The
Ambassador from the Emperor of Morocco resided in Panton-square, and
had in his suite a female servant who was arrested for debt, and sent
to a receiving or _spunging_ house. When the Resident heard of this
violation of diplomatic privilege, he immediately demanded that the
woman should be restored to liberty; and the officer in whose custody
she was, knowing of the illegality of the arrest, complied. So far
all was right; but the plaintiff (a chairman) despising the law of
Nations, watched at the Ambassador's door, and as soon as he obtained a
glimpse of his debtor claimed her _as his wife_, and under that claim
compelled her to attend him to a public-house in the neighbourhood.
Though the good lady strained every faculty in denying his assumed
rights, her clamour, of no avail with the chairman, reached the ears
of her fellow servants, who, melted with her distress, sallied forth,
and manfully released the captive from the fangs of a number of the
captor's brethren, whom he had wisely stationed at the public-house
to assist him in his views. Thus defeated, the creditor adopted a
most certain method to carry his point. He therefore assembled his
_posse_ in front of the Ambassador's house, and began his operations
by loud complaints, intended for the ears of those who passed, that
the servants of his Excellency had forcibly seized on his wife, and
conveyed her for some very dreadful purpose into his mansion, where
she was detained to his inexpressible grief and terror. A hint of
this description is sufficient in the streets of London; curiosity
soon collects a crowd, and the idea of injustice or oppression flies
like lightning from male to female, kindling in its progress the very
essence of indignation, and an immediate resolve to execute summary
justice. An hundred voices demanded the woman; an hundred arms were
lifted at the same moment with hands grasping dirt and stones, which
they hurled at the inoffensive windows without effect. At this moment
a cry to burst the door was accompanied by a successful effort, and in
rushed the mob; every thing that could be broken in the parlours was
demolished, and used as weapons for forcing the besieged, now driven to
the stairs head of the first floor, where they appeared, commanded by
the Ambassador and a gentleman, armed with drawn sabres. Intimidated
at the glances of the shining steel, the besiegers dared not ascend,
but made a drawn battle of the affair. A cannonade of legs and arms of
chairs, and other articles of broken furniture, succeeded, which no
sooner reached the heads of those above than they were darted back with
additional velocity. Captain Woolaston of the guards happened to pass
through the square with a party of soldiers, on his way to protect the
sufferers from a fire then raging in Eagle-street; and, attracted by
the shouts of the contending forces, examined into the affair, and soon
dispersed the rioters, several of whom were afterwards apprehended by
Justice Welch, and committed to prison.
In May 1764 several footmen who had attended their masters to Ranelagh
thought proper to attack certain gentlemen there for refusing vails to
their servants; and, not contented with hissing and abusing _them_,
proceeded to destroy the fences, break the lamps, and throw stones
through the windows upon the company in the Rotunda. The ringleaders
were as usual apprehended, and constables were afterwards placed at
Ranelagh to preserve the peace; but the best part of the fact is
that those worthy officers of Justice actually drank till they were
intoxicated on a subsequent evening, and _fought in the midst of the
company_.
We have now arrived at a period when riot and outrage was, to use
a modern phrase, _organized_; every real or imaginary evil led to
extremities, and the quiet Citizen passed his days in constant
apprehension. The year 1768 commenced with a fresh display of the
turbulence of weavers, who went well armed to the houses of other
journeymen in the same business, called single-handed Weavers, to
revenge the injuries asserted to have been inflicted by them on the
engine-loom Weavers, where they secured several, and conveyed them to a
Magistrate; and it appeared on examination their complaints were well
founded, as they proved the prisoners and their brethren had even fired
into their windows. Others in April, armed with cutlasses, pistols,
&c. and in disguise, went at 12 o'clock at night to the residences of
several journeymen in Spital-fields; and cut to pieces 16 looms, with
their contents, which belonged to Messrs. Everard and Phipps. On a
subsequent nocturnal excursion those miscreants narrowly escaped from a
party of soldiers who had nearly surrounded them unperceived.
Influenced by the above pernicious examples, the Coal-heavers of the
Metropolis entered into combinations before the end of April; and
collecting in considerable numbers went through Wapping, and thence
on board of colliers, where with weapons in hand they compelled their
sable brethren to desist from working, and even dangerously wounded
several. In this instance the military prevented greater outrages.
In May a large body of Sailors with drums and flags proceeded in two
divisions to St. James's Palace, and presented a petition to the King,
praying for an increase of their pay in consideration of the high price
of provisions. On the 10th of the same month, and at four o'clock in
the morning, many boats, manned by Sailors and Coal-heavers, entered
upon a survey of the wharfs above Blackfriars-bridge, and compelled
all they found at work to join them; others patroled the streets, and
collected those who were at home and in public-houses; when they began
their operations by forcing the drivers of carts and waggons loaded
with coals, flour, and wood, to return whence they came. After this
operation had been completely accomplished, they marched in a body,
increasing as they went, to Stepney-fields, whence parties of them
proceeded to unrig such vessels as they chose to prevent from sailing.
The fraternity of Sawyers, equally refractory, destroyed an excellent
saw-mill then recently erected by Charles Dingley, Esq. almost at the
same instant.