“At ten I went to Lord Hertford’s, and found him and his sons charging muskets. Lord Rockingham has two hundred soldiers in his house, and is determined to defend it. Thence I went to General Conway’s, and in a moment a servant came in and said there was a great fire just by. We went to the street-door and thought it was St. Martin’s Lane in flames, but it is either the Fleet Prison or the distiller’s. I forgot that in the court of Gloucester House I met Colonel Jennings, who told me there had been an engagement at the Royal Exchange to defend the Bank, and that the Guards had shot sixty of the mob; I have since heard seventy, for I forgot to tell your Ladyship that at a great council, held this evening at the Queen’s House, at which Lord Rockingham and the Duke of Portland were present, military execution was ordered, for, in truth, the Justices dare not act.
“After supper I returned to Lady Hertford, finding Charing Cross, and the Haymarket, and Piccadilly, illuminated from fear, though all this end of the town is hitherto perfectly quiet, lines being drawn across the Strand and Holborn, to prevent the mob coming westward. Henry and William Conway arrived, and had seen the populace break open the toll-houses on Blackfriars Bridge, and carry off bushels of halfpence, which fell about the streets, and then they set fire to the toll-houses. General Conway’s porter had seen five distinct conflagrations.
“Lady Hertford’s cook came in, white as this paper. He is a German Protestant. He said his house had been attacked, his furniture burnt; that he had saved one child, and left another with his wife, whom he could not get out; and that not above ten or twelve persons had assaulted his house. I could not credit this, at least was sure it was an episode that had no connection with the general insurrection, and was at most some pique of his neighbours. I sent my own footman to the spot in Woodstock Street; he brought me word there had been eight or ten apprentices who made the riot, that two Life Guardsmen had arrived and secured four of the enemies. It seems the cook had refused to illuminate like the rest of the street. To-morrow I suppose his Majesty King George Gordon will order their release; they will be inflated with having been confessors, and turn heroes.
“On coming home I visited the Duchess Dowager and my fair ward; and am heartily tired with so many expeditions, for which I little imagined I had youth enough left.
“We expect three or four more regiments to-morrow, besides some troops of horse and militia already arrived. We are menaced with counter-squadrons from the country. There will, I fear, be much blood spilt before peace is restored. The Gordon has already surpassed Masaniello, who I do not remember set his own capital on fire. Yet I assure your ladyship there is no panic. Lady Aylesbury has been at the play in the Haymarket, and the Duke and my four nieces at Ranelagh, this evening. For my part, I think the common diversions of these last four-and-twenty hours are sufficient to content any moderate appetite; and as it is now three in the morning, I shall wish you good night, and try to get a little sleep myself, if Lord George Macbeth has not murdered it all. I own I shall not soon forget the sight I saw from the top of Gloucester House.
“Thursday morning, after breakfast.
“I do not know whether to call the horrors of the night greater or less than I thought. My printer, who has been out all night, and on the spots of action, says, not above a dozen were killed at the Royal Exchange, some few elsewhere; at the King’s Bench, he does not know how many; but in other respects the calamities are dreadful. He saw many houses set on fire, women and children screaming, running out of doors with what they could save, and knocking one another down with their loads in the confusion. Barnard’s Inn is burnt, and some houses, mistaken for Catholic. Kirgate[82] says most of the rioters are apprentices, and plunder and drink have been their chief objects, and both women and men are still lying dead drunk about the streets: brandy is preferable to enthusiasm. I trust many more troops will arrive to-day. What families ruined! What wretched wives and mothers! What public disgrace!—ay! and where, and when, and how will all this confusion end! and what shall we be when it is concluded? I remember the Excise and the Gin Act, and the rebels at Derby, and Wilkes’s interlude, and the French at Plymouth; or I should have a very bad memory; but I never till last night saw London and Southwark in flames!
“After dinner.
“It is a moment, Madam, when to be surprised is not surprising. But what will you say to the House of Commons meeting by twelve o’clock to-day, and adjourning, ere fifty members were arrived, to Monday se’nnight! So adieu all government but the sword!
“Will your Ladyship give me credit when I heap contradictions on absurdities—will you believe such confusion and calamities, and yet think there is no consternation? Well, only hear. My niece, Mrs. Keppel, with her three daughters, drove since noon over Westminster Bridge, through St. George’s Fields, where the King’s Bench is smoking, over London Bridge, passed the Bank, and came the whole length of the City! They have been here, and say the people look very unquiet; but can one imagine that they would be smiling? Old Lady Albemarle, who followed me in a few minutes from Gloucester House, was robbed at Mrs. Keppel’s door in Pall Mall, between ten and eleven, by a horseman. Sparrow, one of the delivered convicts, who was to have been hanged this morning, is said to have been shot yesterday as he was spiriting up the rioters. Kirgate has just heard in the Park, that the Protestant Association disavow the seditious, and will take up arms against them. If we are saved, it will be so as by fire.