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XII. It was natural that Protestant Dissenters should prefer claims to a participation of those concessions so liberally made to the Roman Catholics. Accordingly, in 1779, many disabilities were removed from their ministers and schoolmasters; who were required only to take the customary oaths to Government, and to subscribe a declaration, couched in general terms, that they are Christians and Protestants, believing the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as commonly received among reformed churches, and acknowledging them as the rule of their doctrine and practice, and as the revealed will of God.

XIII. Thus, a mild and liberal government proceeded in extending indulgences, so far as reason warranted, to all whose sentiments varied from those of the established faith. But, while meditating a grant of similar concessions to the Roman Catholics of Scotland, their intentions were defeated by the outcry and insurrection of a bigoted and infuriate mob.

The first association, pretending to support the Protestant religion, consisted of a miserable handful of thirteen clerks, or other persons exercising mean trades, headed by a merchant, a goldsmith, and the teacher of an hospital. By so trifling a spark is a conflagration kindled. By this despicable club was excited a spirit of outrage which treated with severity the persons and property of several Roman Catholics in

Edinburgh and Glasgow, and in other parts of Scotland. At the same juncture, a small sơciety, equally contemptible, was formed in London, composed of obscure men, corresponding with the Edinburgh council, and arrogating to themselves the pompous title of the "Protestant Association for guarding the Interests of Religion."

XIV. These elements of insurrection required only a hand sufficiently able or daring to raise them into flame; and, where mischief is the object, enthusiasm supplies the place of ability. Lord George Gordon, a madman and a fanatic, assembled forty thousand persons in St. George's Fields, under pretence of petitioning Parliament for the repeal of those acts recently passed in favour of the Roman Catholics. This nobleman possessed so little pretension in point of morals, to lead a body of religious complainants, that his excess of dissipation drew forth from his friend and fellow-libertine Wilkes, the sarcastic reflection, "Nulla meretrix displicuit, præter Babylonicam."

The infuriated populace, wearing blue cockades, inscribed with the watchword "No Popery!" advanced in four divisions to the House of Commons. Three of these bodies passed over the three bridges, and the Scots Presbyterians covered the rear. Lord George, the demon of the storm, frequently issued forth from the

House, where he sate as a senator, and urged the rabble to persevere in insisting upon their demands. His frantic violence received some check from General Murray; who threatened, if the mob should advance further, to plunge his sword into the nobleman's bosom. The petition, on being presented, was rejected by a majority of 192 to 6. A mob once raised is not easily quelled or dispersed: they seldom restrain themselves to those objects, legitimate or specious, under pretence of which they were collected: nor can all the real or affected patriotism or moderation of their demagogues, prevent their rushing into the wildest excesses. In the evening, the four divisions coalescing, burnt the Romish chapels belonging to the Sardinian and Bavarian ambassadors. Continuing their devastation, they were joined by other plunderers the ball of mischief increased as it rolled along; and lawless atrocity leaguing itself with religious frenzy, the devastation became more wide-spread and destructive. Under pretence of liberating several rioters who had been committed to Newgate, that prison was consigned to the flames. The King's Bench, the New Compter, the Fleet, the toll-houses on Blackfriars Bridge, Langdale's distillery in Holborn, the houses of many Catholics, and of persons suspected of favouring them, were all wrapt at once in conflagration; and among the suf

ferers, Sir George Saville, and the venerable Earl of Mansfield, whose liberality of sentiment had marked him out to the vengeance of the fanatics, sustained severe losses.

Thirty-six fires blazing at one time, and in different parts of the metropolis, presented a dreadful evidence of popular fury. Anxiety and uncertainty respecting the extent of the danger, augmented the alarm of sober citizens: while, during the whole night, the tremendous outcries of the authors of these horrible scenes, blended with the dreadful reports of soldiers' muskets, firing in platoons, excited the gloomiest bodings: and it appeared that the reign of anarchy and of universal desolation had arrived. Many of the rioters lost their lives, by the fire of the soldiery, drunkenness at the distilleries, or by the sentence of the law and it was with extreme difficulty, that Lord George Gordon, who had acted so weak and wicked a part in these outrages, escaped.

The cry of "No Popery!" employed as a watchword on this occasion, was, with the great body, a pretence for tumult and plunder: for (to use the words of Lord Loughborough), "what concern had dislike to the Catholic religion with assailing the magistrates, releasing felons, destroying the source of public credit, and laying in ashes the capital of the Protestant faith "

Two years before, when the act so obnoxious to this mob had passed, it had excited few fears and no tumults: for it sanctioned no principles inimical to the security of the Protestant faith; but merely removed some penalties, enacted in times of greater danger, or less tolerant legislation; and by the change of circumstances became unnecessary and oppressive. When the tumults were suppressed, the House of Commons framed several resolutions, tending to allay the apprehensions of well-meaning, but unwise alarmists, by assuring them that the bill in question did not authorize the imagined danger; and that they might rely on the unremitting attention of their representatives, in watching over the Protestant religion. In confirmation of this assurance, the House of Lords directed an inquiry to be made into the number of Papists in England and Wales: which evinced that the increase since the former census, in 1767, was not greater than might have been expected from the general advance of population *.

XV. It is incidental to the blindness or fatuity of man, to search for grounds of alarm amongst matters the most harmless; while objects of real apprehension are overlooked, or perhaps encouraged. At this time the religious principles

* Number of Papists in 1767, 67,916.

1780, 69,317.

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