The Diary and Collected Letters of Madame D'Arblay, Frances Burney. Frances Burney
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 Woodstreet 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.
“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 at quiet. What has happened at your house100 you will know: the harm is only a few butts of beer; and, I think, you may be sure that the danger is over.”
10th June, 1780. 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.
Government now acts again with its proper force——and we are all under the protection of the King and the law.
When we came home our newspaper accounts of the tumults In town with Lord George Gordon and his mob, alarmed us very much; but we had still no notion of the real danger you were all in.
Next day we drank tea with the Dowdlers. At our return home we were informed a mob was surrounding a new Roman Catholic chapel. At first we disbelieved it, but presently one of the servants came and told us they were knocking it to pieces; and in half an hour, looking out of our windows, we saw it in flames: and listening, we heard loud and violent shouts!
I shall write no particulars—the horrible subject you have had more than your share of. Mrs. Thrale and I sat up till four o’clock, and walked about the parades, and at two we went with a large party to the spot, and saw the beautiful new building consuming; the mob then were all quiet—all still and silent, and everybody seemed but as spectators.
Saturday morning, to my inexpressible concern, brought me no letters from town, and my uneasiness to hear from you made me quite wretched. Mrs. Thrale had letters from Sir Philip Clerke and Mr. Perkins, to acquaint her that her town-house had been three times attacked, but was at last saved by guards; her children, plate, money, and valuables all removed. Streatham also threatened, and emptied of all its furniture.
The same morning also we saw a Bath and Bristol paper, in which Mr. Thrale was asserted to be a papist. This villanous falsehood terrified us even for his personal safety, and Mrs. Thrale and I agreed it was best to leave Bath directly, and travel about the country.
She left to me the task of acquainting Mr. Thrale with these particulars, being herself too much disturbed to be capable of such a task. I did it as well as I could, and succeeded so far that, by being lightly told of it, he treated it lightly, and bore it with much steadiness and composure. We then soon settled to decamp.
We had no time nor spirits pour prendre conge stuff, but determined to call upon the Bowdlers and Miss Cooper. They were all sorry to part, and Miss Cooper, to my equal surprise and pleasure, fairly made a declaration of her passion for me, assuring me she had never before taken so great a fancy to a new acquaintance, and beginning warmly the request I meant to make myself, of continuing our intimacy in town.
Fanny Burney to Dr. Burney.
Bath, June 9, 1780,
My dearest sir,
How are you? where are you? and what is to come next? The accounts from town are so frightful, that I am uneasy, not only for the city at large, but for every individual I know in it. Does this martial law confine you quite to the house? Folks here say that it must, and that no business of any kind can be transacted. Oh, what dreadful times! Yet I rejoice extremely that the opposition members have fared little better than the ministerial. Had such a mob been confirmed friends of either or of any party, I think the nation must have been at their disposal; for, if headed by popular or skilful leaders, who and what could have resisted them?—I mean, if they are as formidable as we are here told.
Dr. Johnson has written to Mrs. Thrale, without even mentioning the existence of this mob; perhaps at this very moment he thinks it “a humbug upon the nation,” as George Bodens called the parliament,
A private letter to Bull, the bookseller, brought word this morning that much slaughter has been made by the military among the mob. Never, I am sure, can any set of wretches less deserve quarter or pity; yet it is impossible not to shudder at hearing of their destruction. Nothing less, however, would do; they were too outrageous and powerful for civil power.
But what is it they want? who is going to turn papist? who, indeed, is thinking in an alarming way of religion?—this pious mob, and George Gordon excepted?
All the stage-coaches that come into Bath from London are chalked over with “No Popery,” and Dr. Harrington called here just now, and says the same was chalked this morning upon his door, and is scrawled in several places about the town. Wagers have been laid that the popish chapel here will be pulled or burnt down in a few days; but I believe not a word of the matter, nor do I find that anybody is at all alarmed. Bath, indeed, ought to be held sacred as a sanctuary for invalids; and I doubt not but the news of the firing in town will prevent all tumults out of it.
Now, if, after all the intolerable provocation given by the mob, after all the leniency and forbearance of the ministry, and after the shrinking Of the minority, we shall by and by hear that this firing was a massacre—will it not be villanous and horrible? And yet as soon as safety is secured—though by this means alone all now agree it can be secured—nothing would less surprise me than to hear the seekers of popularity make this assertion.
Friday night.—The above I writ this morning, before I recollected this was not post-day, and all is altered here since. The threats I despised were but too well grounded, for, to our utter amazement and consternation, the new Roman Catholic chapel in this town was set on fire at about nine o’clock. It is now burning with a fury that is dreadful, and the house of the priest belonging to it is in flames also. The poor persecuted man himself has I believe escaped with life, though pelted, followed, and very ill used. Mrs. Thrale and I have been walking about with the footmen several times. The whole town is still and orderly. The rioters do their work with great composure, and though there are knots of people in every corner, all execrating the authors of such outrages, nobody dares oppose them. An attempt indeed was made, but it was ill-conducted, faintly followed, and soon put an end to by a secret fear of exciting vengeance.
Alas! to what have we all lived!—the poor invalids here will probably lose all chance of life, from terror. Mr. Hay, our apothecary, has been attending the removal of two, who were confined to their beds in the street where the chapel is burning. The Catholics throughout the place are all threatened with destruction, and we met several porters, between ten and eleven at night, privately removing goods, walking on tiptoe, and scarcely breathing.
I firmly believe, by the deliberate villany with which this riot is conducted, that it wil! go on in the same desperate way as in town, and only be stopped by the same desperate means. Our plan for going to Bristol is at an end. We are told it would be madness, as there are seven Romish chapels in it; but we are determined upon removing somewhere tomorrow; for why should we, who can go, stay to witness such horrid scenes?
Saturday Afternoon, June 10—I was most cruelly disappointed in not having one word today. I am half crazy with doubt and disturbance in not hearing. Everybody here is terrified to death. We have intelligence that Mr. Thrale’s house in town is filled with soldiers, and threatened by the mob with destruction.
Perhaps he may himself be a marked man for their fury. We are going directly from Bath, and intend to stop only at villages. To-night we shall stop