We therefore humbly beg leave to declare to your Majesty our unshaken resolution, that we will, on this critical conjuncture, exert our utmost endeavours for the support of public credit, and at all times hazard our lives and fortunes, in defence of your Majesty's sacred person and government, and for the security of the protestant succession in your Royal Family.
THE GORDON RIOTS (1780).
The Gordon Riots were the most formidable popular rising of the eighteenth century. In 1778 a Bill, brought forward by Sir George Savile, for the relaxation of some of the harsher penal laws against Catholics, passed almost unanimously through both Houses. Protestant associations were formed in Scotland; a leader was found in Lord George Gordon, a silly young man of twenty-eight years of age, and the agitation spread to England. Mobs collected in London, and interfered with the House of Commons; as they realised their strength, they proceeded to various excesses, destroying Catholic churches and the houses of prominent Romanists. The original objects of the agitation were entirely lost sight of in the disturbances, which were merely the unreasoning ravages of a wild mob. For five days the City was terrorised by the rioters, who were at length dispersed by the military authorities.
Source.—Boswell's Life of Johnson.
While Johnson was thus engaged in preparing a delightful literary entertainment for the world, the tranquillity of the metropolis of Great Britain was unexpectedly disturbed by the most horrid series of outrages that ever disgraced a civilised country. A relaxation of some of the severe penal provisions against our fellow subjects of the Catholic communion had been granted by the legislature, with an opposition so inconsiderable, that the genuine mildness of Christianity, united with liberal policy, seemed to have become general in this island. But a dark and malignant spirit of persecution soon showed itself, in an unworthy petition for the repeal of the wise and humane statute. That petition was brought forward by a mob, with the evident purpose of intimidation, and was justly rejected. But the attempt was accompanied and followed by such daring violence as is unexampled in history. Of this extraordinary tumult, Dr. Johnson has given the following concise, lively, and just account in his "Letter to Mrs. Thrale."
"On Friday, the good Protestants met in Saint George's-Fields, at the summons of Lord George Gordon, and marching to Westminster, insulted the Lords and Commons, who all bore it with great tameness. At night the outrages began by the demolition of the Mass-house by Lincoln's Inn. An exact journal of a week's defiance of government I cannot give you. On Monday, Mr. Strahan, who had been insulted, spoke to Lord Mansfield (who had, I think, been insulted too) of the licentiousness of the populace; and his lordship treated it as a very slight irregularity. On Tuesday night they pulled down Fielding's house, and burnt his goods in the street. They had gutted, on Monday, Sir George Savile's house, but the building was saved. On Tuesday evening, leaving Fielding's ruins, they went to Newgate to demand their companions, who had been seized demolishing the chapel. The keeper could not release them but by the Mayor's permission, which he went to ask; at his return he found all the prisoners released, and Newgate in a blaze. They then went to Bloomsbury, and fastened upon Lord Mansfield's house, which they pulled down; and as for his goods, they totally burnt them. They have since gone to Caenwood, but a guard was there before them. They plundered some Papists, I think, and burnt a mass-house in Moorfields the same night.
"On Wednesday I walked with Dr. Scot to look at Newgate, and found it in ruins, with the fire yet glowing. As I went by, the Protestants were plundering the Sessions House at the Old Bailey. There were not, I believe, a hundred; but they did their work at leisure, in full security, without sentinels, without trepidation, as men lawfully employed in full day. Such is the cowardice of a commercial place. On Wednesday they broke open the Fleet, and the King's Bench, and the Marshalsea, and Wood St. Compter, and Clerkenwell Bridewell, and released all the prisoners.
"At night they set fire to the Fleet, and to the King's Bench, and I know not how many other places; and one might see the glare of conflagration fill the sky from many parts. The sight was dreadful. Some people were threatened. Mr. Strahan advised me to take care of myself. Such a time of terror you have been happy in not seeing.
"The King said in Council 'that the magistrates had not done their duty, but that he would do his own'; and a proclamation was published directing us to keep our servants within doors, as the peace was now to be preserved by force. The soldiers were sent out to different parts, and the town is now (June 9) at quiet.
"The soldiers are stationed so as to be everywhere within call: there is no longer any body of rioters, and the individuals are hunted to their holes, and led to prison; Lord George was last night sent to the Tower. Mr. John Wilkes was this day in my neighbourhood, to seize the publisher of a seditious paper.