I HAVE described in the preceding chapter how the gaol fever spread from Newgate to the Old Bailey in 1750, and the havoc it occasioned. An account has also been given of the steps taken by the Corporation to minimize the chances of a fresh outbreak. The erection of a ventilator and windmill might do something towards rendering Newgate less foul, but much more was needed to make it a suitable receptacle for the numbers it was often called upon to hold. The total acreage covered by its ill-contrived, ruinous buildings was under three quarters of an acre, and upon this space as many as three hundred persons were sometimes crowded together;[192] while a part of this limited area was otherwise occupied by the Old Bailey Sessions’ House, gardens, and yards. The existing prison was obviously inadequate. One of the sheriffs in the year of the great mortality stigmatizes it as an abominable sink of beastliness and corruption. The Lord Mayor, judges, and the whole of the Court of Aldermen were so thoroughly persuaded, we are told, that notwithstanding all precautions, no effectual remedy could be applied to check the gaol infection but that of reconstruction, that a committee of the Common Council was appointed to consider the best method of building a new prison. It was for this reason, says a letter from one of the sheriffs who had been in office in 1750, that the old ruinous buildings between the Old Bailey Sessions’ House and Newgate belonging to the city were allowed to fall in, and that a plan for a new gaol became the general topic, as well as the general desire. Many people sought to have a finger in the pie. The committee to which the subject had been referred was lectured and advised in numerous letters, some authenticated, and many anonymous. It was suggested that they should imitate the example of the county of York, which had not long before rebuilt the gaol on an excellent plan, with sufficient internal area, water in great plenty, and all other conveniences, so that the inmates, averaging from a hundred to a hundred and twenty at most, are almost certain of being preserved in a healthy state at all times. Application was actually made to the Yorkshire county authorities, who forwarded four plans of their prison—“the noble prison in a spacious area,” of which Howard speaks in 1772. These plans came into the hands of Mr. Dance, the city surveyor, who seems to have been guided by them in the design he furnished the Newgate committee in 1755 for a new prison.

This committee was not ambitious, and was satisfied with endeavouring to improve and extend rather than reconstruct. “The business of enlarging the gaol engaged its attention,” we are told. It was to be effected according to their idea by making an “airy” or walking place for prisoners. For this purpose all the houses between Newgate and the Sessions’ House Gate were to be taken down, and an enclosure made on the space, surrounded by a strong wall. This recommendation when brought forward by the committee scarcely went far enough for the Common Council, who were at first strongly of opinion that it would be more proper to rebuild the gaol. But although they were convinced of the propriety, they speedily let the matter drop, and nothing was done as regards Newgate for another couple of years.

In 1757, however, the residents in the immediate neighbourhood of Newgate raised their protest against the gaol, and petitioned the Corporation, “setting forth their apprehensions from their vicinity to Newgate, and from the stenches proceeding therefrom, of being subject to an infectious disease called the gaol distemper.” Upon receipt of this petition, the Common Council appointed a fresh committee, and the various allegations were gone into seriatim. They next surveyed the gaol itself and the surrounding premises, examined the site with a view to rebuilding, and had plans prepared with estimates and specifications as to cost of ground and construction. The projected design embraced a series of quadrangles, one for the debtors and another for the felons, with an area to each. The probable expense for a work which the committee were of opinion was greatly needed would amount to about £40,000, for which sum “they did resolve to petition Parliament for a grant.” This petition was, however, never presented. Mr. Alderman Dickens, having spoken privately to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject, was informed that no public money would be forthcoming, and the project again fell through.

It did not entirely drop notwithstanding. To the credit of the Corporation it must be stated, that many attempts were made to grapple with the difficulties of ways and means. Application was made to Parliament more than once for powers to raise money for the work by some proportionable tax on the city and county, but always without avail. Parties differed as to the manner in which funds should be obtained, yet all were agreed upon the “immediate necessity for converting this seat of misery and disease, this dangerous source of contagion, into a secure and wholesome place of confinement.” The matter became more urgent, the occasion more opportune, when that part of the prison styled the press-yard was destroyed by fire in 1762.Some account of this fire may be inserted here. It broke out in the middle of the night at the back of the staircase in the press-yard, and in a few hours consumed all the apartments in that place, and greatly damaged the chapel. Other adjoining premises, particularly that of a stocking-trimmer in Phoenix Court, were greatly injured by the fire. Worst of all, two prisoners perished in the flames. One was Captain Ogle, who had been tried for murdering the cook of the Vine Tavern, near Dover St., Piccadilly, but had been found insane on arraignment, and had accordingly been detained in prison “during His Majesty’s pleasure.” There was no Broadmoor asylum in those days for criminal lunatics, and Newgate was a poor substitute for the palatial establishment now standing among the Berkshire pine woods. The fire was supposed to have originated in Captain Ogle’s room. Beneath it was one occupied by Thomas Smith, a horse-dealer, committed to prison on suspicion of stealing corn from Alderman Masters. Smith’s wife the night before the conflagration had carried him the whole of his effects, amounting to some five or six hundred pounds in notes and bank bills. When the fire was raging Smith was heard to cry out for help. He was seen also to put his arm through the iron grating, which, however, was so excessively hot that it set his shirt on fire. About this time it is supposed that he threw out his pocket-book containing the notes; it was caught and the valuables saved. A few minutes later the floor fell in, and both Captain Ogle and Smith were buried in the ruins. The fire had burnt so fiercely and so fast that no one could go to the assistance of either of these unfortunates. By six a.m., there being an abundance of water handy, the flames had greatly abated, but the fire continued to burn till two in the afternoon, and ended by the fall of a party wall, which happily did no great damage. About four a.m. the Lord Mayor and sheriffs arrived upon the scene, and took an active part in the steps taken to check the fire and provide for the safety of the prisoners.

This was no doubt the fire at which Mr. Akerman behaved with such intrepidity, and which has already been described.[193]

After the fire it was admitted that the proper time was arrived for “putting in execution the plan of rebuilding this inconvenient goal, which was thought of some time ago.” Once more a committee of the Common Council was appointed, and once more the question of site was considered, with the result that the locality of the existing prison was decided upon as the most suitable and convenient. Upon the receipt of this report, 1763, it was resolved to petition Parliament again for assistance, and this time the petition was actually presented. But the zeal of the Corporation for prison reform must have waxed cold, for I find it recorded in 1765 (5th March) that the project for rebuilding Newgate was laid aside. But the House of Commons, however, had not ignored the city’s petition. They had referred the whole subject to a committee, which took the evidence of all persons closely concerned. It was clearly proved that a new gaol was indispensable. Mr. Dance, the city surveyor, was quite against extension or reappropriation by adding on the Sessions’ House, and there was nothing to be done but to build a new prison. An Act was accordingly passed in 1766 (the 7 Geo. III.), authorizing the Corporation to raise for various works a certain sum at 3½ per cent. per annum, to be paid off by a tax at the rate of 6d. per ton on coal or culm imported into the city, of which £50,000 were to be applied to the purpose of erecting the new Newgate.

The following is a short summary of the various items of proposed expenditure, extracted from a pamphlet published by the Corporation under date 1767.

Leasehold interests to be purchased in the Old Bailey from the Mason’s Yard to Newgate, and some houses opposite thereto	£6000
N.B.—The old materials will pay for taking down and clearing away the rubbish to the surface of the streets.
The new prison, to answer the present Sessions’ House and to contain distinct wards for the men and women debtors, the men and women felons, transports, and convicts, a chapel, a keeper’s house, tap-houses, sutlery, yards, area, ponds of water, will require 160 square yards of new building, which, on account of the requisite strength per square, will cost £250 per square	£40,000
Salaries and gratuities to the surveyor, the committee clerk, the chamberlain’s clerks, &c.	2,750
Incidental Expenses	1,250
	£50,000

The sum of £50,000 already referred to, and raised under the powers granted by the 7 Geo. III., was not found sufficient to complete the gaol, after the manner of building estimates, which too often mislead all those who are beguiled into expenditure upon bricks and mortar. The foundations cost £19,000. It was necessary to sink them a depth of forty feet, as the site was that of the ditch of the old London Wall, besides which the neighbouring houses had to be shored. Ten years later, when the building was still incomplete, another Act of Parliament became necessary to increase the funds at the disposal of the Corporation. This Act, the 18 Geo. III. cap. 48, authorized the city to raise £40,000 for Newgate buildings upon the credit of the surpluses of a fund known as the Orphans’ Fund. It set forth that the Corporation had “proceeded in the erection of a new, spacious, and commodious gaol, and for that purpose have given up to the public the freehold of a very large and extensive tract of ground;” moreover, that they had already laid out £50,000 on this new gaol, as well as £15,000 on a new Sessions’ House, and £6,250 to buy several houses in the Old Bailey, “in order to make the new gaol more healthy and the avenues thereto more convenient.” The Act then goes on to say, that as the new prison still lacks an infirmary, which if built would “greatly contribute to the health of the prisoners, and thereby be of great public utility,” that the Corporation are in possession of a piece of ground quite handy and suitable for the purpose, and that as a sum of £20,000 would build it, while another £20,000 would complete the gaol, the Corporation are empowered to raise the money in the manner already mentioned, by the issue of bonds at 4½ per cent. interest.

The first stone of the new gaol was laid on the 31st May, 1770, by the Lord Mayor, William Beckford, Esquire, the founder of that family.

Within a year or two of its completion, the new Newgate had to pass through an ordeal which nearly threatened its existence. Its boasted strength as a place of durance was boldly set at naught, and almost for the first and last time in this country this gaol, with others in the metropolis, was sacked and its imprisoned inmates set free. The occasion grew out of the so-called Lord George Gordon Riots in 1780. These well-known disturbances had their origin in the relaxation of the penal laws against the Roman Catholics. Such concessions raised fanatical passion to fever pitch. Ignorance and intolerance went hand in hand, and the malcontents, belonging mainly to the lowest strata of society, found a champion in a weak-minded and misguided cadet of the ducal house of Gordon. Lord George Gordon,[194] who was a member of the House of Commons, showed signs of eccentricity soon after he took his seat, but it was at first more ridiculous than mischievous. Lord George became more dangerously meddlesome when the anti-Catholic agitation began. It was to him that the Protestant association looked for countenance and support, and when Lord North at his instance refused to present a petition from that society to Parliament, Lord George Gordon promised to do so in person, provided it was backed by a multitude not less than 20,000 strong.

This led to the great gathering in St. George’s Fields on the 2nd June, 1780, when thousands organized themselves into three columns, and proceeded to the House of Commons across the three bridges, Westminster, Blackfriars, and London Bridge. Lord George headed the Westminster procession, and all three concentrated at St. Stephens between two and three in the afternoon. There the mob filled every avenue and approach; crowds overflowed the lobbies, and would have pushed into the body of the House. Lord George went ahead with the monster petition, which bore some 120,000 signatures or “marks,” and which the Commons by a negative vote of 192 to 6 refused to receive. After this the rioters, at the instigation of their leader, hastened en masse to destroy the chapels of the foreign ambassadors. This was followed by other outrages. While some of their number attacked and rifled the dwellings of persons especially obnoxious to them, others set fire to public buildings, and ransacked the taverns. The military had been called out early in the day, and had made many arrests. As the prisoners were taken to Newgate, the fury of the populace was attracted to this gaol, and a large force, computed at quite two-thirds of the rioters, proceeded thither, determined to force open its gates. This mob was composed of the lowest scum of the town, roughs brutal and utterly reckless, having a natural loathing for prisons, their keepers, and all the machinery of the law. Many already knew, and but too well, the inside of Newgate, many dreaded to return there, either as lodgers or travellers bound on the fatal road to Tyburn. One wild fierce desire was uppermost with all, one thought possessed their minds to the exclusion of all others—to destroy the hateful prison-house and raze it to the ground.

On arriving at the Old Bailey in front of the stone faÇade, as grim and solid as that of any fortress, the mob halted and demanded the gaoler, Mr. Akerman, who appeared at a window, some say on the roof, of his house, which forms the centre of the line of buildings facing Newgate street. When he appeared the mob called on him to release their confederates and surrender the place unconditionally. Mr. Akerman distinctly and without hesitation refused, and then, dreading what was coming, he made the best of his way to the sheriffs, “in order to know their pleasure.” As the front of the prison was beset by the densely-packed riotous assemblage, Mr. Akerman probably made use of the side wicket and passage which leads direct from Newgate into the Sessions’ House. The magistrates seemed to have been in doubt how to act; and for some time did nothing. “Their timidity and negligence,” says Boswell, helped the almost incredible exertions of the mob. And he is of opinion, that had proper aid been given to Mr. Akerman, the sacking of Newgate would certainly have been prevented. While the magistrates hesitated the mob were furiously active; excited to frenzy, they tried to beat down the gate with sledge-hammers, and vainly sought to make some impression on the massive walls. A portion of the assailants forced their way into the governor’s house, and laying hands upon his furniture, with all other combustibles, dragged them out and made a great pile in front of the obdurate door, which still resisted force. The heap of wood, having been anointed with rosin and turpentine, was kindled, and soon fanned into a mighty blaze. The door, heavily barred and bolted, and strongly bound with iron, did not ignite quite readily, but presently it took fire and burnt steadily, though slowly. Meanwhile the rioters fed the flames with fresh fuel, and snatching burning brands from the fire, cast them on to the roof and over the external wall into the wards and yards within. The prisoners inside, who had heard without fully understanding the din, and saw the flames without knowing whether they promised deliverance or foreboded a dreadful death, suffered the keenest mental torture, and added their agonized shouts to the general uproar.

Charles Dickens has drawn an awful picture of the scene, based upon contemporary and authentic accounts. He has described in glowing language the yielding of the door.

“A shout! Another! another yet, though few knew why, or what it meant. But those around the gate had seen it slowly yield and drop from its topmost hinge. It hung on that side by but one, but it was upright still because of the bar, and of its having sunk of its own weight into the heap of ashes at its foot. There was now a gap at the top of the doorway, through which could be descried a gloomy passage, cavernous and dark. Pile up the fire!

“It burnt fiercely. The door was red hot and the gap wider. They vainly tried to shield their faces with their hands, and standing as if in readiness for a spring, watched the place. Dark figures, some crawling on their hands and knees, some carried in the arms of others, were seen to pass along the roof. It was plain the gaol could hold out no longer. The keeper and his officers and their wives and children were escaping. Pile up the fire!

“The door sank down again; it settled deeper in the cinders—tottered—yielded—was down!”

Dickens gives a prominent place among the rioters to John Dennis the hangman, who himself was, as the records state, sentenced to be hanged for his complicity in these dark doings. Dennis was likely to be familiar with the interior of the gaol. There were no doubt many others who had threaded its gloomy passages before. With such experienced guides the way must have been easy to find. The outer barriers down, the mob surged like a tidal wave into and through the whole gaol. I will again draw from fiction, which is the more powerful in this case that it is founded upon fact, and will quote from ‘Barnaby Rudge.’

“Now they came rushing through the gaol, calling to each other in the vaulted passages; clashing the iron gates dividing yard from yard; beating at the doors of cells and wards; wrenching off bolts and locks and bars; tearing down the door-posts to let men out; endeavouring to drag them by main force through gaps and windows where a child could scarcely pass; whooping and yelling without a moment’s rest, and running through the heat and flames as if they were cased in metal. By their legs, their arms, the hair upon their heads, they dragged the prisoners out. Some threw themselves upon their captives as they got towards the door, and tried to file away their irons; some danced about them with a frenzied joy, and rent their clothes, and were ready as it seemed to tear them limb from limb. Now a party of a dozen men came dashing through the yard, ... dragging a prisoner along the ground, whose dress they had nearly torn from his body in their mad eagerness to set him free, and who was bleeding and senseless in their hands. Now a score of prisoners ran to and fro who had lost themselves in the intricacies of the prison, and were so bewildered with the noise and the

The Burning and Plundering of NEWGATE & Letting the Felons at Liberty by the Mob.

glare that they knew not where to turn or what to do, and still cried out for help as loudly as before. Anon some famished wretch, whose theft had been a loaf of bread or a scrap of butcher’s meat, came skulking past barefooted, going slowly away because that gaol, his house, was burning; not because he had another, or had friends to meet, or old haunts to revisit, or any liberty to gain, but liberty to starve and die. And then a knot of highwaymen went trooping by, conducted by the friends they had amongst the crowd, who muffled their fetters as they went along with handkerchiefs and bands of hay, and wrapped them in coats and cloaks, and gave them drink from bottles, and held it to their lips because of their handcuffs, which there was no time to remove. All this, and Heaven knows how much, was done amidst a noise, a hurry and distraction like nothing that we know of even in our dreams; which seemed for ever on the rise, and never to decrease for the space of a single instant.”

Through all this tumult and destruction the law was paralyzed. After much delay the sheriff sent a party of constables to the gaolers’ assistance. But they came too late, and easily fell into a trap. The rioters suffered them to pass on till they were entirely encircled, then attacked them with great fury, disarmed them, took their staves, and quickly converted them at the fire into blazing brands, which they threw about to extend the flames. “It is scarcely to be credited,” says a narrator, “with what celerity a gaol which to a common observer appeared to be built with nothing that would burn, was destroyed by the flames. So efficient were the means employed, that the work of destruction was very rapid. Stones two or three tons in weight, to which the doors of the cells were fastened, were raised by that resistless species of crow known to housebreakers by the name of the pig’s foot. Such was the violence of the fire, that the great iron bars and windows were eaten through and the adjacent stones vitrified.[195] Nor is it less astonishing that from a prison thus in flames a miserable crew of felons in irons and a company of confined debtors, to the number in the whole of more than three hundred, could all be liberated as it were by magic, amidst flames and firebrands, without the loss of a single life.... But it is not at all to be wondered that by a body of execrable villains thus let loose upon the public, the house of that worthy and active magistrate Sir John Fielding should be the first marked for vengeance.” In the same way, even before the destruction of Newgate, the house of Justice Hyde, whose activity the rioters resented, had also been stripped of its furniture, which was burnt in front of the door.

Crabbe’s account written at the time to a friend is graphic, and contains several new details—“How Akerman, the governor, escaped,” he says, “or where he is gone, I know not; but just at the time I speak of they set fire to his house, broke in, and threw every piece of furniture they could find into the street, firing them also in an instant. The engines came, but they were only suffered to preserve the private houses near the prison. As I was standing near the spot, there approached another body of men—I suppose five hundred—and Lord George Gordon, in a coach drawn by the mob, towards Alderman Bull’s, bowing as he passed along. He is a lively-looking young man in appearance and nothing more, though just now the popular hero. By eight o’clock Akerman’s house was in flames. I went close to it, and never saw anything so dreadful. The prison was, as I have said, a remarkably strong building; but, determined to force it, they broke the gates with crows and other instruments, and climbed up outside of the cell part, which joins the two great wings of the building where the felons were confined; and I stood where I plainly saw their operations; they broke the roof, tore away the rafters, and having got ladders, they descended. Not Orpheus himself had more courage or better luck. Flames all around them, and a body of soldiers expected, yet they laughed at all opposition. The prisoners escaped. I stood and saw about twelve women and eight men ascend from their confinement to the open air, and they were conducted through the streets in their chains. Three of these were to be hanged on Friday (two days later).

“You have no conception of the frenzy of the multitude. This now being done, and Akerman’s house now a mere shell of brick-work, they kept a store of flame for other purposes. It became red-hot, and the doors and windows appeared like the entrance to so many volcanoes. With some difficulty they then fired the debtors’ prison, broke the doors, and they too all made their escape. Tired of the scene, I went home, and returned again at eleven o’clock at night. I met large bodies of horse and foot soldiers coming to guard the Bank and some houses of Roman Catholics near it. Newgate was at this time open to all; any one might get in, and what was never the case before, any one might get out. I did both, for the people were now chiefly lookers-on. The mischief was done, and the doers of it gone to another part of the town.... But I must not omit what struck me most: about ten or twelve of the mob getting to the top of the debtors’ prison whilst it was burning, to halloo, they appeared rolled in black smoke mixed with sudden bursts of fire—like Milton’s infernals, who were as familiar with flames as with each other.”

It should be added here that the excesses of the rioters did not end with the burning of Newgate; they did other mischief. Five other prisons, the new prison, Clerkenwell, the Fleet, the King’s Bench, the Borough Clink in Tooley Street, and the new Bridewell, were attacked, their inmates released, and the buildings set on fire. At one time the town was convulsed with terror at a report that the rioters intended to open the gates of Bedlam, and let loose gangs of raving lunatics to range recklessly about. They made an attempt upon the Bank of England, but were repulsed with loss by John Wilkes and the soldiers on guard. At one time during the night as many as thirty-six incendiary fires were ablaze. The troops had been called upon to support the civil power, and had acted with vigour. There was fighting in nearly all the streets, constant firing. At times the soldiers charged with the bayonet. The streets ran with blood. In all, before tranquillity was restored, nearly five hundred persons had been killed and wounded, and to this long bill of mortality must be added the fifty-nine capitally convicted under the special commission appointed to try the rioters.

It was in many cases cruel kindness to set the prisoners free. Numbers of the debtors of the King’s Bench were loth to leave their place of confinement, for they had no friends and nowhere else to go. Of the three hundred released so unexpectedly from Newgate, some returned on their own accord a few days later and gave themselves up. It is said that many others were drawn back by an irresistible attraction, and were actually found loitering about the open wards of the prison. Fifty were thus retaken within the walls the day after the fire, and others kept dropping by twos and threes to examine their old haunts and see for themselves what was going on. Some, Dickens says, were found trying to rekindle the fire; some merely prowled about the place, “being often found asleep in the ruins, or sitting talking there, or even eating and drinking, as in a choice retreat.”[196]

The ringleader and prime mover, Lord George Gordon, was arrested on the evening of the 9th, and conveyed to the Tower. His trial did not come on till the following February at the King’s Bench, where he was indicted for high treason. He was charged with levying war against the majesty of the king; “not having the fear of God before his eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil; ... that he unlawfully, maliciously, and traitorously did compass, imagine, and intend to raise and levy war, insurrection, and rebellion,” and assembled with some five hundred more, “armed and arrayed in a warlike manner, with colours flying, and with swords, clubs, bludgeons, staves, and other weapons,” in the liberty of Westminster. It was proved in evidence that Lord George directed the Associated Protestants to meet him at Westminster in their best clothes, and with blue cockades in their hats, and said he should wear one himself. He was also heard to declare that the king had broken his coronation oath, and to exhort the mob to continue steadfast in so good and glorious a cause. For the defence it was urged that Lord George Gordon had desired nothing but to compass by all legal means the repeal of the Act of Toleration; that he had no other view than the Protestant interest, and had always demeaned himself in the most loyal manner. He had hoped that the great gathering would be all peaceable; that the mob “should not so much as take sticks in their hands,” should abstain from all violence, surrender at once any one riotously disposed; in a word, should exhibit the true Protestant spirit, and if struck should turn the other cheek. Mr. Erskine, Lord George’s counsel, after pointing out that his client had suffered already a long and rigorous imprisonment, his great youth, his illustrious lineage and zeal in parliament for the constitution of his country, urged that the evidence and the whole tenor of the prisoner’s conduct repelled the belief of traitorous purpose.

Lord Mansfield, who had been a chief victim to the riots, and whose house had been gutted and burnt,[197] summed up the case fairly and impartially. He laid it down that insurrection, or any forcible attempt to alter laws or gain any end, amounted to levying war against the majesty of the realm. The point was not whether the Toleration Act was a good or a bad one; “whether grievances be real or pretended, whether a law be good or bad, it is equally high treason, by the strong hand of a multitude to force the repeal or redress.” It was for the jury to decide, first, whether the multitude did assemble with intent to terrify the legislature into the repeal of the obnoxious act, and secondly, whether the prisoner at the bar incited, encouraged, and promoted the insurrection. If there was any doubt, however, and the jury were not fully satisfied of Lord George Gordon’s guilt, they must acquit him. The jury retired for half an hour, and then brought in a verdict of not guilty.

Lord George, unhappily, could not keep out of trouble, although naturally of mild disposition. He was an excitable, rather weak-minded man, easily carried away by his enthusiasm on particular points. Six years later he espoused, with customary warmth and want of judgment, the case of other prisoners in Newgate, and published a pamphlet purporting to be a petition from them presented to himself, praying him to “interfere and secure their liberties by preventing their being sent to Botany Bay.” Prisoners labouring under severe sentences cried out from their dungeons for redress. “Some were about to suffer execution without righteousness, others to be sent off to a barbarous country.” “The records of justice have been falsified,” the pamphlet went on to say, “and the laws profanely altered by men like ourselves. The bloody laws against us have been enforced, under a normal administration, by mere whitened walls, men who possess only the show of justice, and who condemned us to death contrary to law.”

That this silly production should be made the subject of a criminal information for libel, rather justifies the belief that an exaggerated importance was given to Lord George’s vagaries, both by the Government and his own relations and friends. No doubt he was a thorn in the side of his family, but the ministry could well have afforded to treat him and his utterances with contempt. He was, however, indicted at the King’s Bench for publishing the petition, which he had actually himself written, with a view to raise a tumult among the prisoners within Newgate, or cause a disturbance by exciting the compassion of those without. The pamphlet included the law and judges in indiscriminate abuse. “The laws,” said the Attorney-General, “might not be absolutely perfect, but those who condemned them should not reside under their jurisdiction. The criminal law was nowhere attended to with more, or enforced with so much lenity.”[198] Lord George when “wanted” on these charges was not to be found. At first it was thought he had escaped to Holland, but he was at length arrested in Birmingham, dressed in Jewish garb, and wearing a long beard. Some time before this he had espoused Judaism, even submitting, it was alleged, to circumcision, a change of religious belief for which he was excommunicated at Marylebone church. When put upon his trial he conducted his own defence, and made a long and desultory harangue, which included a history of the English criminal law from the days of Athelstan.

He had been induced, he said, to look into the laws against felony because of a petty fraud in his family, which he had found constituted a capital offence, although the sum stolen was only eighteenpence. He went on to protest against the code as much too sanguinary, an opinion which proves that there was some method in Lord George Gordon’s madness, and that he only lived a little before his time as regards the reform of our criminal law. His pamphlet, every word of which he contended was actually to be found in the Bible, he urged was but the enlargement of this idea, which he had already communicated to Lord Mansfield and other judges, who admitted the propriety of his views, and recommended him to put them on paper. In the course of his address, Lord George complained bitterly of the vexatious prosecutions instituted against him, thus giving colour to the presumption that he was the victim of persecution. He quoted Blackstone to show that ex officio informations, such as those filed against him, “are only proper for such enormous misdemeanours as peculiarly tend to disturb or endanger the king’s government, and in the punishment or execution of which a moment’s delay would be fatal.” Yet in his case the informations against him had been pending six and ten months. He complained also that spies had been set over him by the Treasury for several months, and concluded by solemnly declaring that his object had been reformation, not tumult.

The case against him was very clearly made out. It was proved by a Newgate turnkey that Lord George frequently came to the lodge of the prison and asked to see various prisoners, particularly those under sentence of death, “which request was often denied;” presumably, therefore, he was sometimes admitted. When he had published his pamphlet he had been at great pains to distribute it, especially among the prisoners and prison officials. A man and woman were employed in handing them about at the door of the prison. Copies were also sent to Mr. Akerman, the governor, Mr. Villette, the chaplain, and the turnkeys. One of the latter waited on him at his house in Welbeck Street, and said there was sad work about the distribution of the pamphlet. Lord George replied, “No matter; let them come on as soon as they please; I am ready for them.” There were numbers of the pamphlet about, one of which, at Lord George’s request, the turnkey took to Mr. Akerman. Upon all this, and notwithstanding his lordship’s defence, the jury without hesitation returned a verdict of guilty against him for having written and published the libel as alleged.

Before sentence the court passed on to the consideration of a second libel, published by Lord George Gordon in the ‘Public Advertizer.’ This was an account of his visit to the French embassy accompanied by the notorious Count Cagliostro, whose cause, like that of the Newgate prisoners, Lord George had warmly espoused. The article enlarged upon the merits and sufferings of the count, and reflected severely upon Marie Antoinette, at that time Queen of France, the French ambassador, and the secretary of the embassy. The defence of the diplomatic body, no less than of that of a royal personage, was undertaken by the Government. Lord George attempted to justify all that he had written. Count Cagliostro, he averred, had been persecuted by a faction in Paris, of which the queen was the head; and although acquitted by the Parliament of Paris, Count d’Adhemar, the French ambassador, had continued to vilify him by inserting infamous paragraphs about him in the ‘Courrier de l’Europe,’ a French paper published in London. “Count d’Adhemar,” said Lord George, “was a low man of no family; but being plausible and clever, had pushed himself forward to the notice of men in authority; in short, what Jenkinson was in Britain, d’Adhemar was in France.” This allusion to Lord Hawkesbury[199] caused a great laugh in the court. Lord George went on to indulge in very scurrilous abuse of Marie Antoinette. He said he was charged with libelling the Queen of France, whereas that was impossible, as her character was well known in every street in Paris. He could only compare her to Catherine of Russia. “He was proceeding in this strain,” says the report of the trial, “when the court was compelled to interfere, and the Attorney-General told him he was a disgrace to the name of Briton.”

Although Lord George contended that what he had published was no libel, as it contained nothing but truth of Count Cagliostro, who had as much right as Count d’Adhemar, or any other foreigner, to the protection of the laws, the jury promptly returned a verdict of guilty on this count. The court then passed sentence, and addressed his lordship in scathing terms. The judge told him that his “petition” was calculated to excite insurrection, discontent, and sedition, and that he might make a better use of Bible phraseology than employ it for the wicked purpose of undermining the laws of his country. “One is sorry,” remarked Mr. Justice Ashurst, “that you, descended of an illustrious line of ancestors, should have so much dishonoured your family ... that you should prefer the mean ambition of being popular among thieves and pickpockets, and to stand as the champion of mischief, anarchy, and confusion.” As to the second libel, the judge charged the prisoner with endeavouring to rekindle animosities between the two nations, France and England, now once more at peace, by personal abuse of the sovereign of one of them. He (Lord George) had insulted her most Christian Majesty, and it was highly necessary to repress an offence of so dangerous a nature. As his crime consisted of two parts, Lord George Gordon must be subjected to two different sentences. For the first, the publication of the “prisoners’ petition,” the judge awarded him three years’ imprisonment in Newgate. For the second offence, being “trespasses, contempts, and misdemeanours against the royal consort of his most Christian Majesty,” the sentence was a fine of £500, with a farther imprisonment in Newgate at the termination of the other three; and in addition he was required to give security for fourteen years for his good behaviour, himself in £10,000, and two sureties of £2500 each.

Lord George Gordon remained in Newgate till his death, from gaol-fever, in 1793. He made two or three ineffectual attempts to put in his bail, but they were objected to as insufficient. It was thought to the last that the government and his friends sought pretences to keep him in confinement and out of mischief. His somewhat premature death must have been a relief to them. But it can hardly be denied that hard measure was meted out to him, and if he escaped too easily at his first trial, he was too heavily punished at the second. It is impossible to absolve him from responsibility for the outrages committed by the rioters in 1780, although he was doubtless shocked at their excesses. Lord George could not have foreseen the terrible consequences which would follow his rash agitation, and little knew how dangerous were the elements of disturbance he unchained. But it can hardly be denied that he meant well. Had he lived a century later, he would probably have found a more legitimate outlet for his peculiar tendencies, and would have figured as an ardent philanthropist and platform orator, instead of as a criminal in the dock.

Two more facts must be mentioned concerning these riots and the successful attacks on Newgate. The first is with regard to the prison keys. I find it recorded in Southey’s Commonplace Book (Book iv. p. 371), that on draining the basin in St. James’s Square for the purpose of erecting a statue of King William IV. there, the keys of Newgate were found at the bottom. These keys had been stolen at the fire in 1780, and thrown in here. A quantity of iron chains and fetters were recovered at the same time. The second fact is the probable extent of the damage done, as shown by the amount required for repairs. This must have been about £20,000. I see by the report of a Committee of the House of Commons, dated May 16, 1782, that a sum of £10,000 had been voted to meet the repairs of Newgate, and again in February 1783, at a Court of Common Council, a motion was made to petition Parliament for the grant of a further sum of £10,000 to complete these repairs.

END OF VOL. I.

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