Ossian Collection > Scottish eccentrics

LORD GEORGE GORDON 17
Doctors' Commons, the Exchange, the Pay-Office, in
short every repository of treasure and office of record,
men of every party and persuasion bitterly lamented the
rise and progress of the bloody and fatal insurrection, and
execrated the authors of it. Had the Bank and public
offices been the first objects of attack, instead of the jails
and houses of private individuals, there is not the smallest
reason to doubt of their success. . . . The regulars and
militia poured into the city in such numbers during the
night of Wednesday, and the morning of Thursday, that,
on the latter day, order was in a great measure restored;
but the alarm of the inhabitants was so great that every
door remained shut. So speedily and effectually, however,
did the strict exercise of authority subdue the spirit of
tumult that on Friday the shops once more were opened
and business resumed its usual course."
So terminated the Gordon Riots. No figures are avail-
able showing the total cost of the damages done, or the
total casualties suffered. A military return of the killed
and wounded for whom they were responsible totalled
458. But this list is, of course, exclusive of those who
perished by accident or by their own folly and infatuation.
"Great numbers", we are told, "died from sheer inebria-
tion, especially at the distilleries of the unfortunate Mr
Langdale, from which the unrectified spirits ran down the
middle of the streets, was taken up in pailfuls, and held
to the mouths of the deluded multitude, many of whom
dropt down dead on the spot, and were burned or buried
in the ruins." To the death-roll falls to be added the toll
which the Law now proceeded to take. Eighty-five were
tried at the Old Bailey — thirty-five capitally convicted,
forty-three acquitted, seventeen respited, and eighteen
executed. At St. Margaret's Hill forty were tried under
special commission, of whom about twenty were executed.
Besides these, several of the rioters were afterwards from
time to time apprehended, tried, and executed in various
parts of the country. Amongst those convicted at the Old
Bailey, but afterwards respited, was the common hangman,
c