Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 5.djvu/260

246 of May he announced in the house of commons that he should appear there with the petition at the head of all those who had signed it. Accordingly, on that day vast crowds assembled on the appointed spot, amounting to sixty thousand, or, as many asserted, one hundred thousand men. This formidable throng was arranged in four battalions, one consisting entirely of Scotchmen, who received lord George with enthusiastic acclamations, and, after a vapouring speech from him, marched by different ways to Westminster. The main body, however, headed by lord George, with his blue cockade in his hat, passed through the Borough, over London-bridge, and thence all the way through the city, marching six abreast, with a very tall man going before them, carrying the huge petition on his head, said to contain, not twenty thousand, but one hundred and twenty thousand signatures and marks.



As the so-called protestants advanced, shouting "No popery! no popery!" they were joined by all the scamps and pickpockets, who increased the tumult for their own purposes. Though government had had abundance of warning from lord George Gordon himself, they had taken no measures of precaution whatever. So far from having bodies of troops drawn up, as they had been too ready to have at the harmless meeting at Westminster, they had not even sworn in a single special constable. Thus the metropolis was left at the mercy of this mob, with no persona authorised to keep order except the feeble parish beadles, who were, for the most part, old and useless. Thus marching on without any opposition, this immense mob filled up all the open spaces around the houses of parliament, and compelled all who approached to put on blue cockades, and cry "No popery!"

The lords had been summoned to discuss a motion by the duke of Richmond on universal suffrage and annual parliaments, and lord Mansfield was to preside in the absence of the lord chancellor Thurlow. Mansfield had excited the especial resentment of these zealots by having acquitted a catholic priest, who was charged with the crime of celebrating