The Reign of George III. - (Continued.) page 3

These riots might soon have been quelled, but the corporation of Edinburgh was deeply infected with the anti- catholic spirit. They were very willing to lie still, and let the populace do its worst. In Glasgow the mob had no such indulgence, for there was not a catholic chapel or a catholic priest to be found in that zealous presbyterian city; but they found a Mr. Bagnal, a catholic earthenware manufacturer from Staffordshire, and they fell upon his house, and drove him and his family, with the fiercest insult and violence, thence, and destroyed his property. In Edinburgh, the duke of Buccleuch, who commanded a regiment of fencibles, offered to march in and quell the mob, but the corporation repelled his offer. A lieutenant of the navy, who was lying at Leith, offered the same service, but the provost ordered him at once out of the city. When the mischief was pretty well completed, the provost issued a proclamation, calling on the mob to return to order, so as to quiet the fears of many well-meaning people, assuring them that the bill for the repeal of the penal statutes against the catholics was quite laid aside, and that it was expected that for the future the people of Edinburgh would avoid connecting themselves with any tumultuous assembly. Not the slightest attempt was made to punish the ringleaders of these abominable outrages; and, though the riots were over, no catholic was safe that dared to appear abroad.

Wilkes, in the house of commons, demanded of the lord advocate whether it was intended to keep the promise which had been made to the catholics of Scotland, to repeal the laws against them, but Dundas replied, that, in consequence of the excited state of the public mind in Scotland, it was agreed to postpone any measure of the kind to a future day.

The persecuted and despoiled catholics of Edinburgh presented, by Burke, a petition for compensation for the damages sustained, and for measures of future security Fox, in supporting this petition, commented in severe terms on the bitter spirit of Scotch theology, and contrasted it with the all-tolerant spirit of the Founder of Christianity; demanding that parliament, in defiance of these broils and popular violences, should repeal the penal laws in toto.

But the same unchristian spirit had now spread to England, and protestant associations, as they were called, linked together by corresponding committees, were established in various towns, and had elected as their president and parliamentary head lord George Gordon, a brother of the duke of Gordon. This young man, who was about nine-and-twenty, had been some time in parliament, and had attracted attention by the eccentricity of his manners and the slovenliness of his dress. Especially during the present session he had spoken a great deal, and in a style which was already full of a fanaticism fast ripening into insanity. Sometimes this fanaticism produced flashes of what looked like inspiration, at other times it descended to a low buffoonery. Early in the year he obtained an interview with the king, and read over to him the greatest part of an Irish pamphlet to show him the dangerous character of popery; for he suspected that George himself was in heart a papist.

To abate the virulence of the dissenters, it was resolved to give them an act of parliament, relieving them from subscription to nearly the extent of the bill rejected in 1772, and again in 1773. But this act, now passed without debate, had no effect in reducing the anti-catholic excitement. Lord George Gordon continued his wild harangues in the commons, at which the members often laughed, and treated his menaces as mere sounds. He assured them that every man in Scotland, except the papists, was ready for a revolution; he moved that the petition introduced by Burke should be thrown over the table; and he declared that he would come down to the house with one hundred and fifty thousand men of the protestant associations at his back; that he would besiege both houses of parliament, the king, and the prince of Wales, with petitions. He asserted in the house in November, 1779, that the Scotch were quite satisfied that the king was a papist. During the spring of 1780 he presented several petitions from the people of Kent, and he then conceived his grand idea of a petition long enough to reach from the speaker's chair to the centre window at Whitehall, out of which Charles walked to the scaffold. At a meeting of the protestant association, held towards the end of May in Coachmakers'-hall, he announced that he would present this petition on the 2nd of June. Resolutions were passed that the whole body of the association and all their friends must go in procession on that day to present the petition. They were to assemble in St. George's-fields, every one must have a blue cockade in his hat, to distinguish them from the enemies of the cause, and lord George, to stimulate them, told them that unless the assembly amounted to twenty thousand he would not present the petition. On the 26th of May he stated in the house of commons that he should appear there with the petition at the head of all those who had signed it. Accordingly, on that day vast crowds assembled on the appointed spot, amounting to sixty thousand, or, as many asserted, one hundred thousand men. This formidable throng was arranged in four battalions, one consisting entirely of Scotchmen, who received lord George with enthusiastic acclamations, and, after a vapouring speech from him, marched by different ways to Westminster. The main body, however, headed by lord George, with his blue cockade in his hat, passed through the Borough, over London Bridge, and thence all the way through the city, marching six abreast, with a very tall man going before them, carrying the huge petition on his head, said to contain, not twenty thousand, but one hundred and twenty thousand signatures and marks.

As the so-called protestants advanced, shouting "No popery! no popery! " they were joined by all the scamps and pickpockets, who increased the tumult for their own purposes. Though government had had abundance of warning from lord George Gordon himself, they had taken no measures of precaution whatever. So far from having bodies of troops drawn up, as they had been too ready to have at the harmless meeting at Westminster, they had not even sworn in a single special constable. Thus the metropolis was left at the mercy of this mob, with no persons authorised to keep order except the feeble parish beadles, who were, for the most part, old and useless. Thus marching on without any opposition, this immense mob filled up all the open spaces around the houses of parliament, and compelled all who approached to put on blue cockades, and cry " No popery!"

The lords had been summoned to discuss a motion by the duke of Richmond on universal suffrage and annual parliaments, and lord Mansfield was to preside in the absence of the lord chancellor Thurlow. Mansfield had excited the especial resentment of these zealots by having acquitted a catholic priest charged with the crime of celebrating mass, and no sooner did he make his appearance than he was assailed with the fiercest yells and execrations. His carriage windows were dashed in, his robe torn, and he escaped finally into the house with his wig in great disorder, and himself pale and trembling. The archbishop of York was an object of the especial fury of these protestants. They tore off his lawn sleeves and flung them in his face. The bishop of Lincoln, a brother of lord Thurlow, had his carriage demolished, and was compelled to seek refuge in a neighbouring house, where he is said to have made his way in women's clothes over the roof into another dwelling. The secretaries of state, lords Stormont, Townsend, and Hillsborough, were rudely handled. Lord Bathurst, the president of the council, had his wig pulled off, and was complimented by the epithets of " the pope " and an " old woman." The duke of Northumberland, having a gentleman in black with him, the mob declared that this must be a jesuit, and the duke was quickly dragged from his carriage, and was robbed of his watch and purse.

When thus a certain number of the lords had made their way into the house, they were only secured from the invasion of the mob by the doorkeepers closing the doors. The peers, however, proceeded to business amid this strange confusion, and the duke of Richmond attempted to make his motion, but in vain. " At this instant," says a writer of the time, "it is hardly possible to conceive a more grotesque appearance than the house exhibited. Some of their lordships with their hair about their shoulders; others smothered with dust, and most of them as pale as the ghost in ' Hamlet;' and all of them standing up in their several places, and speaking at the same instant. One lord proposing to send for the guards, another for the justices or civil magistrates, many crying out, ' Adjourn! adjourn!' while the skies resounded with the hissings and hootings, shoutings and huzzahs, in Palace Yard. This scene of unprecedented alarm continued for about half an hour."

In the midst of this chaos lord Montfort rushed into the house, exclaiming that lord Boston was dragged out of his carriage, was in the hands of the mob, and in danger of being murdered. It was proposed by lord Townshend that they should rush out in a body to the rescue of lord Boston and any others of the members, but then arose a debate whether they should take the mace with them, and at length it was decided in the negative; but, before this debate had terminated, lord Boston had managed to make his escape and his appearance in the house whitened all over with his own hair-powder.

Then two of the Middlesex magistrates were summoned to the bar to give a reason for there being no precautions taken against this riot, and the magistrates declared that they had received no orders from government, and, though they had endeavoured to collect some aid to prevent mischief on their own account, they had only been able to assemble six constables!

The opposition then accused ministers of this gross neglect, and charged all the violence on the pusillanimity of ministers in not punishing with a proper severity the no- popery rioters of Edinburgh. It was found impossible to proceed with the orders of the day. The peers retired as best they might, one "by one, making their way home on foot, or in hackney coaches, in the dark, and no one was left in the house except lord Mansfield and a few servants.

The members of the house of commons had to run the gauntlet of these furies much like the lords. They pulled many of them out of their carriages, tore their clothes from their backs, and maltreated them, crying continually, " Repeal the bill! No popery! Lord George Gordon! " The frantic multitude forced their way into the lobby of the house, and attempted to break into the house itself. They thundered at the doors, and there was imminent danger of their forcing their way in. Meantime, lord George Gordon and alderman Ball were presenting the petition, and moved that the house should consider it at once in committee. An amendment was moved, that it should be considered on Tuesday, the 6th; but there were not means of putting either motion or amendment, for the mob had possession of the lobby, and the serjeant-at-arms declared it was impossible to clear it.

Whilst this confusion lasted, lord George Gordon exerted himself to excite the mob to the highest possible pitch. So long as members were speaking, he continued to go to the top of the gallery stairs, ever and anon, to drop a word to the crowd below likely to exasperate them against the particular member speaking. " Burke, the member for Bristol, is up now," he cried; and then coming again, " Do you know that lord North calls you a mob? " This he repeated till the crowd was worked up to a maddening frenzy, and made so desperate a battering at the door, that it was momentarily expected they would burst it open. Several of the members vowed to lord George, that, if his rabid friends did violate the sanctity of the house, they would run him through as the first man stepped over the lintel. Henry Herbert, afterwards the earl of Caernarvon, followed lord George closely for this purpose; and general Murray, brother to the duke of Athol, and a kinsman of lord George, told him plainly that, should a single man of the mob enter, he would run his sword, not through that man, but through lord George himself. Colonel Holroyd laid hands on the great agitator, and told him that, if he attempted to go out again, he would immediately move for his commitment to Newgate; that hitherto he had attributed his conduct to insanity, but now he regarded it as something much worse.

These determined proceedings daunted lord George. He retired to the eating-room, and sank quietly into a chair. Meantime, lord North had privately dispatched a messenger for a party of the guards. Till these could arrive, some of the more popular members went out, and used their endeavours to appease the rage of the multitude. Lord Mahon harangued them from the balcony of a coffee-house, and produced considerable effect. About nine o'clock, Mr. Addington, a Middlesex magistrate, came up with a party of horse-guards. He spoke kindly to the people, and advised them to disperse quietly, which, the exasperator being absent, many of them did. Soon after came a party of foot- guards, who were drawn up in the Court of Requests, and they soon cleared the lobby. The members then boldly proceeded with the debate, and, undeterred by the cries still heard from without, carried the amendment for deferring the consideration of the petition by a hundred and ninety-four votes, including the tellers, against only eight. The house then adjourned.

Imagining that the crowd would now disperse, the soldiers were dismissed, and the magistrates returned home. But this was premature. There were shoals of hot-headed fanatics, who were not willing to depart without some damage inflicted on the catholics. One division of these attacked the Bavarian chapel in Warwick Lane, Golden Square, and another attacked the Sardinian chapel in Duke Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, destroyed their interiors, and set them on fire. These chapels existed on the faith of treaties. The engines arrived only in time to see a huge bonfire before the Sardinian chapel made of its seats, and both chapels too far in flames to be stopped; indeed, the mob would not allow the engines to play. The soldiers, too, arrived when it was too late to do anything, but seized thirteen of the rioters.