THE GORDON NO-POPERY RIOTS (1780).
Source.—Letters of Horace Walpole.
To Rev. William Cole, Strawberry Hill, June 15, 1780.
You may like to know one is alive, dear sir, after a massacre and the conflagration of a capital. I was in it, both on the Friday, and on the Black Wednesday; the most horrible sight I ever beheld, and which, for six hours together, I expected to end in half the town being reduced to ashes. I can give you little account of the original of this shocking affair; negligence was certainly its nurse, and religion only its godmother. The ostensible author is in the Tower. Twelve or fourteen thousand men have quelled all tumults; and as no bad account is come from the country, except for a moment at Bath, and as eight days have passed—nay, more, since the commencement—I flatter myself the whole nation is shocked at the scene; and that, if plan there was, it was laid only in and for the metropolis. The lowest and most villainous people, and to no great amount, were almost the sole actors.
I hope your electioneering riotry has not, nor will mix in these tumults. It would be most absurd; for lord Rockingham, the duke of Richmond, Sir George Saville, and Mr. Burke, the patrons of toleration, were devoted to destruction as much as the ministers. The rails torn from Sir George’s house were the chief weapons and instruments of the mob. For the honour of the nation I should be glad to have it proved that the French were the engineers. You and I have lived too long for comfort—shall we close our eyes in peace? I will not trouble you more about the arms I sent you: I should like that they were those of the family of Boleyn; and since I cannot be sure they were not, why should not I fancy them so? I revert to the prayer for peace. You and I, that can amuse ourselves with our books and papers, feel as much indignation at the turbulent as they have scorn for us. It is hard at least that they who disturb nobody can have no asylum in which to pursue their innoxious indolence! Who is secure against Jack Straw and a whirlwind? How I abominate Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander, who routed the poor Otaheitans out of the centre of the ocean, and carried our abominable passions amongst them! not even that poor little speck could escape European restlessness. Well, I have seen many tempestuous scenes, and outlived them! the present prospect is too thick to see through—it is well hope never forsakes us. Adieu!
Yours most sincerely.
SURRENDER OF CORNWALLIS (1781).
Source.—Gentleman’s Magazine. Vol. li., p. 539.
Whitehall.—By Sir H. Clinton’s letter to Lord G. Germaine, dated off Chesapeak, October 29, and brought by the Rattlesnake sloop, capt. Melcombe, it appears that “the fleet and army, which sailed from the Hook on the 19th, arrived off Cape Charles on the 24th, when they had the mortification to hear that lord Cornwallis had proposed terms of capitulation to the enemy on the 18th. This intelligence was brought by the pilot of the Charon, and some other persons who came off from the shore, and said they had made their escape from York on the 18th, and had not heard any firing there since the day before. The Nymph frigate also arriving from New-York, says the General, brought me a letter from his lordship, dated the 15th, the desponding tenor of which gives me the most alarming apprehensions of its truth.
Since then we have been plying off the Capes, with variable and hard gales of wind, to the present hour, without being able to procure any further information, except from two men taken in a Canoe, whose report exactly corresponds with the former.
Comparing, therefore, the intelligence given by those people, and several others since come in, with the purport of lord Cornwallis’s letter, a copy of which I have the honour to inclose for your lordship’s information; we cannot entertain the least doubt of his lordship’s having capitulated, and that we are unfortunately too late to relieve him; which being the only object of the expedition, the admiral has determined upon returning with his fleet to Sandy Hook.
I beg leave to mention to your lordship, that the army is under the greatest obligations to the admirals, the captains, and the officers of the king’s ships, for the cheerfulness with which they submitted to many and great inconveniences for our accommodation on this service.”