“You have no conception of the frenzy of the multitude. This now being done, and Akerman’s house now a mere shell of brick-work, they kept a store of flame for other purposes. It became red-hot, and the doors and windows appeared like the entrance 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; any one might get in, and what was never the case before, any one might get out. I did both, for the people were now chiefly lookers-on. The mischief was done, and the doers of it gone to another part of the town.... But I must not omit what struck me most: about ten or twelve of the mob getting to the top of the debtors’ prison whilst it was burning, to halloo, they appeared rolled in black smoke mixed with sudden bursts of fire—like Milton’s infernals, who were as familiar with flames as with each other.”
It should be added here that the excesses of the rioters did not end with the burning of Newgate; they did other mischief. Five other prisons, the new prison, Clerkenwell, the Fleet, the King’s Bench, the Borough Clink in Tooley Street, and the new Bridewell, were attacked, their inmates released, and the buildings set on fire. At one time the town was convulsed with terror at a report that the rioters intended to open the gates of Bedlam, and let loose gangs of raving lunatics to range recklessly about. They made an attempt upon the Bank of England, but were repulsed with loss by John Wilkes and the soldiers on guard. At one time during the night as many as thirty-six incendiary fires were ablaze. The troops had been called upon to support the civil power, and had acted with vigour. There was fighting in nearly all the streets, constant firing. At times the soldiers charged with the bayonet. The streets ran with blood. In all, before tranquillity was restored, nearly five hundred persons had been killed and wounded, and to this long bill of mortality must be added the fifty-nine capitally convicted under the special commission appointed to try the rioters.
It was in many cases cruel kindness to set the prisoners free. Numbers of the debtors of the King’s Bench were loth to leave their place of confinement, for they had no friends and nowhere else to go. Of the three hundred released so unexpectedly from Newgate, some returned on their own accord a few days later and gave themselves up. It is said that many others were drawn back by an irresistible attraction, and were actually found loitering about the open wards of the prison. Fifty were thus retaken within the walls the day after the fire, and others kept dropping by twos and threes to examine their old haunts and see for themselves what was going on. Some, Dickens says, were found trying to rekindle the fire; some merely prowled about the place, “being often found asleep in the ruins, or sitting talking there, or even eating and drinking, as in a choice retreat.”[196]
The ringleader and prime mover, Lord George Gordon, was arrested on the evening of the 9th, and conveyed to the Tower. His trial did not come on till the following February at the King’s Bench, where he was indicted for high treason. He was charged with levying war against the majesty of the king; “not having the fear of God before his eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil; ... that he unlawfully, maliciously, and traitorously did compass, imagine, and intend to raise and levy war, insurrection, and rebellion,” and assembled with some five hundred more, “armed and arrayed in a warlike manner, with colours flying, and with swords, clubs, bludgeons, staves, and other weapons,” in the liberty of Westminster. It was proved in evidence that Lord George directed the Associated Protestants to meet him at Westminster in their best clothes, and with blue cockades in their hats, and said he should wear one himself. He was also heard to declare that the king had broken his coronation oath, and to exhort the mob to continue steadfast in so good and glorious a cause. For the defence it was urged that Lord George Gordon had desired nothing but to compass by all legal means the repeal of the Act of Toleration; that he had no other view than the Protestant interest, and had always demeaned himself in the most loyal manner. He had hoped that the great gathering would be all peaceable; that the mob “should not so much as take sticks in their hands,” should abstain from all violence, surrender at once any one riotously disposed; in a word, should exhibit the true Protestant spirit, and if struck should turn the other cheek. Mr. Erskine, Lord George’s counsel, after pointing out that his client had suffered already a long and rigorous imprisonment, his great youth, his illustrious lineage and zeal in parliament for the constitution of his country, urged that the evidence and the whole tenor of the prisoner’s conduct repelled the belief of traitorous purpose.
Lord Mansfield, who had been a chief victim to the riots, and whose house had been gutted and burnt,[197] summed up the case fairly and impartially. He laid it down that insurrection, or any forcible attempt to alter laws or gain any end, amounted to levying war against the majesty of the realm. The point was not whether the Toleration Act was a good or a bad one; “whether grievances be real or pretended, whether a law be good or bad, it is equally high treason, by the strong hand of a multitude to force the repeal or redress.” It was for the jury to decide, first, whether the multitude did assemble with intent to terrify the legislature into the repeal of the obnoxious act, and secondly, whether the prisoner at the bar incited, encouraged, and promoted the insurrection. If there was any doubt, however, and the jury were not fully satisfied of Lord George Gordon’s guilt, they must acquit him. The jury retired for half an hour, and then brought in a verdict of not guilty.
Lord George, unhappily, could not keep out of trouble, although naturally of mild disposition. He was an excitable, rather weak-minded man, easily carried away by his enthusiasm on particular points. Six years later he espoused, with customary warmth and want of judgment, the case of other prisoners in Newgate, and published a pamphlet purporting to be a petition from them presented to himself, praying him to “interfere and secure their liberties by preventing their being sent to Botany Bay.” Prisoners labouring under severe sentences cried out from their dungeons for redress. “Some were about to suffer execution without righteousness, others to be sent off to a barbarous country.” “The records of justice have been falsified,” the pamphlet went on to say, “and the laws profanely altered by men like ourselves. The bloody laws against us have been enforced, under a normal administration, by mere whitened walls, men who possess only the show of justice, and who condemned us to death contrary to law.”
That this silly production should be made the subject of a criminal information for libel, rather justifies the belief that an exaggerated importance was given to Lord George’s vagaries, both by the Government and his own relations and friends. No doubt he was a thorn in the side of his family, but the ministry could well have afforded to treat him and his utterances with contempt. He was, however, indicted at the King’s Bench for publishing the petition, which he had actually himself written, with a view to raise a tumult among the prisoners within Newgate, or cause a disturbance by exciting the compassion of those without. The pamphlet included the law and judges in indiscriminate abuse. “The laws,” said the Attorney-General, “might not be absolutely perfect, but those who condemned them should not reside under their jurisdiction. The criminal law was nowhere attended to with more, or enforced with so much lenity.”[198] Lord George when “wanted” on these charges was not to be found. At first it was thought he had escaped to Holland, but he was at length arrested in Birmingham, dressed in Jewish garb, and wearing a long beard. Some time before this he had espoused Judaism, even submitting, it was alleged, to circumcision, a change of religious belief for which he was excommunicated at Marylebone church. When put upon his trial he conducted his own defence, and made a long and desultory harangue, which included a history of the English criminal law from the days of Athelstan.
He had been induced, he said, to look into the laws against felony because of a petty fraud in his family, which he had found constituted a capital offence, although the sum stolen was only eighteenpence. He went on to protest against the code as much too sanguinary, an opinion which proves that there was some method in Lord George Gordon’s madness, and that he only lived a little before his time as regards the reform of our criminal law. His pamphlet, every word of which he contended was actually to be found in the Bible, he urged was but the enlargement of this idea, which he had already communicated to Lord Mansfield and other judges, who admitted the propriety of his views, and recommended him to put them on paper. In the course of his address, Lord George complained bitterly of the vexatious prosecutions instituted against him, thus giving colour to the presumption that he was the victim of persecution. He quoted Blackstone to show that ex officio informations, such as those filed against him, “are only proper for such enormous misdemeanours as peculiarly tend to disturb or endanger the king’s government, and in the punishment or execution of which a moment’s delay would be fatal.” Yet in his case the informations against him had been pending six and ten months. He complained also that spies had been set over him by the Treasury for several months, and concluded by solemnly declaring that his object had been reformation, not tumult.
The case against him was very clearly made out. It was proved by a Newgate turnkey that Lord George frequently came to the lodge of the prison and asked to see various prisoners, particularly those under sentence of death, “which request was often denied;” presumably, therefore, he was sometimes admitted. When he had published his pamphlet he had been at great pains to distribute it, especially among the prisoners and prison officials. A man and woman were employed in handing them about at the door of the prison. Copies were also sent to Mr. Akerman, the governor, Mr. Villette, the chaplain, and the turnkeys. One of the latter waited on him at his house in Welbeck Street, and said there was sad work about the distribution of the pamphlet. Lord George replied, “No matter; let them come on as soon as they please; I am ready for them.” There were numbers of the pamphlet about, one of which, at Lord George’s request, the turnkey took to Mr. Akerman. Upon all this, and notwithstanding his lordship’s defence, the jury without hesitation returned a verdict of guilty against him for having written and published the libel as alleged.
Before sentence the court passed on to the consideration of a second libel, published by Lord George Gordon in the ‘Public Advertizer.’ This was an account of his visit to the French embassy accompanied by the notorious Count Cagliostro, whose cause, like that of the Newgate prisoners, Lord George had warmly espoused. The article enlarged upon the merits and sufferings of the count, and reflected severely upon Marie Antoinette, at that time Queen of France, the French ambassador, and the secretary of the embassy. The defence of the diplomatic body, no less than of that of a royal personage, was undertaken by the Government. Lord George attempted to justify all that he had written. Count Cagliostro, he averred, had been persecuted by a faction in Paris, of which the queen was the head; and although acquitted by the Parliament of Paris, Count d’Adhemar, the French ambassador, had continued to vilify him by inserting infamous paragraphs about him in the ‘Courrier de l’Europe,’ a French paper published in London. “Count d’Adhemar,” said Lord George, “was a low man of no family; but being plausible and clever, had pushed himself forward to the notice of men in authority; in short, what Jenkinson was in Britain, d’Adhemar was in France.” This allusion to Lord Hawkesbury[199] caused a great laugh in the court. Lord George went on to indulge in very scurrilous abuse of Marie Antoinette. He said he was charged with libelling the Queen of France, whereas that was impossible, as her character was well known in every street in Paris. He could only compare her to Catherine of Russia. “He was proceeding in this strain,” says the report of the trial, “when the court was compelled to interfere, and the Attorney-General told him he was a disgrace to the name of Briton.”