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14 SCOTTISH ECCENTRICS
narratives of the proceedings of that and the following
day. The following account may be quoted at some length,
readers being left to discount for themselves some of the
exaggerated language in which it is couched and to make
what allowances they feel necessary for partisan feeling.
"Still more emboldened by this reinforcement of des-
perate confederates, the rioters proceeded in different de-
tachments to the houses of Justice Cox and Sir John
Fielding, as also to the public office in Bow Street and
the new prison, Clerkenwell; all of which they broke in
upon and gutted, liberating the prisoners in the latter
places, and thereby gaining fresh numbers and strength.
But the most daring act of all was their attacking the
splendid mansion of Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, 1 in
Bloomsbury Square. Having broken open the doors and
windows, they proceeded, as was their custom, to fling all
the rich and costly furniture into the street where it was
piled into heaps and burned, amid the most exulting yells.
The library, consisting of many thousands of volumes,
rare MSS, title-deeds, etc., together with a splendid
assortment of pictures — all were remorselessly destroyed.
And all this passed, too, in the presence of between 200
and 300 soldiers, and under the eye of the Lord Chief
Justice himself, who calmly permitted this destruction of
his property rather than expose the wretched criminals to
the vengeance of the military. At last, seeing preparations
made to fire the premises, and not knowing where the
conflagration might terminate, a magistrate read the Riot
Act; but without effect. The military were then reluc-
tantly ordered to fire; but although several men and
women were shot, the desperadoes did not cease the work
of destruction until nothing but the bare and smoking
walls were left standing. At this time the British metro-
polis may be said to have been entirely in the hands of a
lawless, reckless, and frenzied mob. The vilest of the
1 Another Scotsman — born at Perth in 1704. He declined the offer of the
Treasury to compensate him for the losses he had sustained by the actions of the
mob in the riots with which we are dealing.