seen it slowly yield, and drop from its topmost hinge. It hung on that side by that one, but it was upright still because of the bar, and of having sunk of its own weight into the heap of ashes at its foot. There was now a gap at the top of the doorway, through which could be descried a gloomy passage, cavernous and dark. Pile up the fire! "It burnt fiercely. The door was red hot, and the gap wider. They vainly tried to shield their faces with their hands, and, standing as if in readiness for a spring, watched the place. Dark figures, some crawling on their hands and knees, some carried in the arms of others, were seen to pass along the roof. It was plain the gate could hold out no longer. The keeper and his officers and their wives and children were escaping. Pile up the fire!

"At length the door gave way, and into the doomed building, which was by this time all ablaze, the rioters rushed pell-mell, yelling and shouting, brandishing their rude implements, and pouring through the vaulted corridors; beating at the doors of cells and wards; wrenching off, in their mad haste, bolts and locks and bars; endeavouring to drag the shrieking felons through impossible apertures; seizing them by their legs, their arms, their hair, and hauling them through the flames and smoke into the nearest breathing-place; whooping and wildly laughing, with a half-mad hysterical laughter, and actually dancing in their delirious triumph. Now a score of prisoners ran to and fro who had lost themselves in the intricacies of the prison, and were so bewildered with the noise and the glare that they knew not where to turn or what to do, and still cried out for help as loudly as before. Anon some famished wretch, whose theft had been a loaf of bread or a scrap of butcher's meat, came skulking past barefooted,

going slowly away because that gaol, his home, was burning; not because he had another, or had friends to meet, or old haunts to revisit, or any liberty to gain, but liberty to starve and die. [Some afterwards returned and gave themselves up voluntarily; others, drawn to the scene as by a magnet, were retaken while wandering about the open wards.] And then a knot of highwaymen went trooping by, conducted by the friends they had amongst the crowd, who muffled their fetters as they went along with handkerchiefs and bands of hay, and wrapped them in coats and cloaks, and gave them drink from bottles, and held it to their lips because of their handcuffs, which there was no time to remove. All this was done amidst a noise, a hurry, and distraction like nothing that we know of even in our dreams; which seemed for ever on the rise, and never to decrease for the space of a single instant."

A side-light upon this monstrous saturnalia is cast by the poet Crabbe in one of his letters. "As I was standing near Akerman's house," he writes, "there approached another body of men-Lord George Gordon, in a coach, drawn by the mob, bowing as he passed along. He is a lively-looking young man in appearance, and nothing more, though just now the popular hero. By eight o'clock Akerman's house was in flames. I went close to it, and never saw anything so dreadful. The prison was a remarkably strong building; but, determined to force it, they broke the gates with crows and other instruments, and climbed up outside of the cell part, which joins the two great wings of the building, where the felons were confined; and I stood where I plainly saw their operations. They broke the roof, tore away the rafters, and, having got ladders, they descended. Not Orpheus himself had more

courage, or better luck. Flames all round them, and a body of soldiers expected, yet they laughed at all opposition. The prisoners escaped. I stood and saw about twelve women and eight men ascend from their confinement to the open air, and they were conducted through the streets in their chains. Three of them were to be hanged on Friday."

How overpowering must have been their sensations at their unexpected release! And they would seem to have made good their escape, for I can find no official record of their re-capture.

"You can have no conception," adds Crabbe, “of the frenzy of the multitude. Akerman's house being now a mere shell of brickwork, they kept a store of flame for other purposes. It became red hot, and the doors and windows appeared like the entrances to so many volcanoes. With some difficulty they then fired the debtors' prison, broke the doors, and they too all made their escape. Tired of the scene, I went home, and returned again at eleven o'clock at night. I met large bodies of horse and foot soldiers, coming to guard the Bank and some houses of Roman Catholics near it. Newgate was at this time open to all anyone might get in, and, what was never the case before, anyone might get out. I did both, for the people were now chiefly lookers-on. The mischief was done, and the doors of it [had] gone to another part of the town.”

It is evident that by this time the fanatical portion of the mob had been thrust aside and overruled by the criminal or "rough" contingent; for their destructive efforts were no longer directed against Roman Catholic chapels, but against the metropolitan prisons-Clerkenwell, the Fleet, the King's Bench, Bridewell, and the Borough Chink, in Tooley Street all of which were set on fire and their

inmates released; against the houses of active magistrates, like Mr. Justice Hyde and Sir John Fielding; and against the mansion of Lord Mansfield, the Chief Justice, in Bloomsbury Square, which was gutted from roof to cellar, and all its valuable contents, including a priceless library of books and manuscripts, thrown into the street and made into one colossal bonfire. Lord George Gordon had long ceased to exercise any control over the monster which he had called into existence. It is only fair to say, however,-and to an English writer it is pleasant,-that the mob was not a murderous one, like the sans-culottes of revolutionary Paris, though it revelled in fire and rapine. On Wednesday night London was in flames in thirty places. "One might see the glare of conflagration fill the sky from many parts," says Johnson; "the sight was dreadful." In Holborn,

where the distillery of Mr. Langdale, a Roman Catholic, was set on fire, a terrible scene occurred, the unrectified spirits, as they poured into the street, being greedily lapped up by numbers of men, women, and children, who, overcome by intoxication, perished miserably amidst the streams of liquid flame, or were mutilated or crushed by falling timbers. An attempt was made against the Bank of England; but the defence was so firmly maintained by John Wilkes and the military guard that the assailants retreated hurriedly with considerable loss.

That London should have been for hours virtually in the possession of an unarmed and undisciplined multitude, without leadership or cohesion, was a scandal to its municipal authorities and a disgrace also to the Government, who, when the first city of the empire was in danger, might have been expected to have shown some promptitude and decision in their councils. A large military force was stationed in and

around the metropolis; but instead of employing it swiftly and en masse, the Ministers wasted valuable time in discussing the provisions of the Riot Act; and it was not until Wedderburn, the Attorney General, had given it as his opinion that the military power might lawfully be called into requisition, that they issued orders for the movement of the troops. As if they could not have taken action on their own responsibility, and applied for an indemnity afterwards! The consequence was that order could not be restored without a good deal of hard fighting, the outbreak having been allowed to assume too large proportions; the streets ran red with blood, and some five hundred unfortunate creatures were killed or wounded. Before morning, however, London was safe; its citizens could breathe again. There was nothing more to be done but to bury the dead, fill the remaining gaols with prisoners, punish the ringleaders, and rebuild Newgate.

Lord George Gordon was arrested on the 9th and comImitted to the Tower. His trial was deferred until the following February, when he was indicted before the King's Bench for having unlawfully, maliciously, and traitorously compassed, imagined, and intended to raise and levy war, insurrection, and rebellion "against the majesty of the King." He was ably defended by Henry (afterwards Lord) Erskine, then in the zenith of his fame, and as the evidence failed to support the charge of high treason the jury returned a verdict of acquittal. But that he richly deserved exemplary punishment everybody will now admit. Of the wretched rioters, for whom he was responsible, one hundred and thirty-five were tried in Middlesex and Surrey, one half of whom were convicted, and twenty-one executed.