Queen Square was filled with the rioters, who were now letting loose the most furious rage against the Mayor and Recorder. They tore up the iron railings in front of the Mansion House, and hooted and scoffed at the Riot Act, which was read by the Mayor's order, and the force of special constables was quite insufficient.
Gilbert saw this at once, and now, when the cry arose: "Fire the Mansion House!" it was a relief to see some action taken, by a troop of the 14th Light Dragoons, and Dragoon Guards trotting into the Square.
There was to all noble-hearted men, something terribly humiliating in the aspect of affairs. Here was a seething, ignorant crowd of men, women, and boys, intimidating the magistrates, frightening the Mayor till he actually barricaded his windows in the Mansion House with his bed; and Sir Charles Wetherall beating an undignified retreat from the flat roof of the dining-room. There, helped by a woman's hand, who set up a ladder for him, he dropped in pitiable terror into the stables behind, and hid in a loft. Gilbert, standing on guard by the corner of the Square with four friends bravely holding their ground, and warding off with their staves the excited crowd, recognised in the dim light the Recorder slipping by, in a post-boy's dress, which actually passed him through the crowd, till he found himself safe at Kingsdown. And if the cowardice of the Recorder, in escaping for dear life from the storm he had himself roused was unprecedented, the wavering uncertainty of the Colonel in command of the troops was scarcely less reprehensible!
How Gilbert longed to take a prominent part, and how his heart burned with righteous indignation against the weakness and incapacity of those in command.
Everything seemed to go from bad to worse, till Captain Gage received orders to protect the Council-house. He then charged through High Street and Wine Street, and drove the rioters, who assailed the soldiers with stones, into the narrow lanes and alleys.
Wine Street, Bristol.
Many were wounded with sabre cuts, and Gilbert, in his efforts to save a woman and child from being trampled down, just by the old timber house at the corner of Wine Street, was overpowered by the press behind him, and, just as he had succeeded in placing the woman and her infant in safety on the high stone sill of a window, he was stunned by a blow, given at a venture from a stout stick, and would have fallen and been trampled to death, had not a pair of strong arms seized him and borne him to a comparatively quiet place on the quay.
Gilbert was stunned and hardly conscious, and when he found himself on his feet, he staggered and fell against a wall. Some soldiers riding up, chased a band of rioters out of Clare Street, and Gilbert saw the great giant who had delivered him felled by a sabre cut. The crowd passed over him, and when it had cleared, Gilbert, himself feeble and exhausted, bent over the man, and tried to drag him nearer the houses.
He was bleeding profusely, and hailing a cart passing to the Infirmary with two wounded men, Gilbert begged the driver in charge, to raise the prostrate man, and take him also to the Infirmary. It was no easy matter, but at last it was accomplished, and a pair of dark, blood-shot eyes were turned on Gilbert. The man tried to articulate, but no sound came. As the cart was moving off, Gilbert saw he made a desperate effort.