Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/122

468 sue in the awful and unparalleled circumstances in which they were placed, began to gather resolution, to concentrate their force, and to perceive the absolute necessity of acting with vigour and decision—a necessity which every moment increased. The strong arm of the law, which had so long hung paralyzed over the heads of the wretched criminals, once more became nerved, and prepared to avenge the cause of justice, humanity, and social order. The struggle, however, as may well be conceived, was dreadful ; and we gladly borrow the language of one who witnessed the awful spectacle, in detailing the events of that ever-memorable night. The King's Bench, Fleet Prison, Borough Clink, and Surrey Bridewell, were all in flames at the same moment, and their inhabitants let loose to assist in the general havoc. No less than thirty-six fearful conflagrations in different parts of the metropolis, were seen raging simultaneously, "licking up every thing in their way," as a writer at the time expressively described it, and "hastening to meet each other."

"Let those," observes the writer before alluded to, "call to their imagination flames ascending and rolling in vast voluminous clouds from the King's Bench and Fleet Prisons, the Surrey Bridewell, and the toll houses on Blackfriars bridge; from houses in flames in every quarter of the city, and particularly from the middle and lower end of Holborn, where the premises of Messrs Langdale and Son, eminent distillers, were blazing as if the whole elements were one continued flame ; the cries of men, women, and children, running up and down the street, with whatever, in their fright, they thought most necessary or most precious; the tremendous roar of the infernal miscreants inflamed with liquor, who aided the sly incendiaries, whose sole aim was plunder; and the repeated reports of the loaded musquetry dealing death and worse than death among the thronging multitude!" But it was not what was doing only, but what might yet be done, that roused the fears of all classes. When they beheld the very outcasts of society every where triumphant, and heard of their attempting the bank; threatening Doctors-Commons, the Exchange, the Pay-Office; in short, every repository of treasure and office of record, men of every persuasion and party bitterly lamented the rise and progress of the bloody and fatal insurrection, and execrated the authors of it. Had the bank and public offices been the first objects of attack, instead of the jails and houses of private individuals, there is not the smallest reason to doubt of their success. The consequences of such an event to the nation may well be imagined!

The regulars and militia poured into the city in such numbers during the night of Wednesday and the morning of Thursday, that, on the latter day, order was in a great measure restored; but the alarm of the inhabitants Mas so great that every door remained shut. So speedily and effectually, however, did the strict exercise of authority subdue the spirit of tumult, that on Friday, the 9th of June, the shops once more were opened, and business resumed its usual course.

So terminated the famous riots of 1780; an event which will long be memorable in the history of our country, and ought to remain a warning beacon to future popular leaders, of the danger of exciting the passions of the multitude for the accomplishment of a particular purpose, under the idea that they can stop the career of the monster they have evoked, when the wished-for end is attained. It was impossible to ascertain correctly the exact number of the unhappy beings, whose depravity, zeal, or curiosity hurried them on to a fatal doom. The sword and the musket proved not half so deadly a foe as their own inordinate passions. Great numbers died from sheer inebriation, especially at the distilleries of the unfortunate Mr Langdale, from which the unrectified spirits ran down the middle of the streets, was taken up in pailfuls, and held