THE RIOTS IN 1780, 

 BY AN EYE-WITNESS. 



As some of our grey-headed readers may have forgotton those 

 remarkable scenes, and others may never have seen a fair account of 

 them, they may not be unwilling to receive such an account from one 

 who was present in the scenes he describes. 



Lord George Gordon called on the members of the association of 

 which he was become the head, to meet him in St. George's Fields, 

 thence to proceed, in a body, to present a petition to parliament, pray- 

 ing they would not grant any relief to the Roman Catholics, or in 

 any way diminish the evils they suffered from the existing state of 

 the laws. The place of meeting exists no longer in the state it then 

 was in a line drawn from the Asylum to the Magdalen, there to the 

 King's Bench, along Newington Causeway to Fishmongers' Alms-- 

 houses, to the Dog and Duck, then existing where Bedlam now. stands, 

 on to the Staggs, on the road to Kennington and Vauxhall, and 

 passing behind the ground belonging to the asylum, inclosed a field 

 in which, at that time, there did not exist a single house. The obe- 

 lisk has been recently erected where it now stands. All the roads 

 which now meet around it were laid out, and the foot-ways on each 

 side of every road carefully separated by wooden rails from the turf, 

 appropriated to the feeding of cattle. The association was divided 

 into sections, named according to the quarter of the town in which 

 they lived, and the dictator directed that all the members of each 

 division should assemble in one division of the field, that every man 

 might be under the observation of his neighbour ; his lordship took 

 his own station near the obelisk, that he might be at hand to address 

 each division in its turn ; and I, having no object but that of a curious 

 observer, placed myself as near to him as I could get, with a design 

 to hear what he said. 



Having given his directions to all, he proceeded on his way along 

 the Borough-road to Southwark ; his followers fell into rows, of six 

 or more each, with tolerable order, proceeding through the City to- 

 wards Westminster. The men seemed all to belong to the lower 

 orders of tradesmen and working men, dressed in their Sunday 

 clothes, with clean linen, and well washed faces. As the gratification 

 of curiosity was my only motive for being there, having seen the 

 body set off, I passed over the West end, where I lived, thinking that I 

 should see more than I should by following the crowd. I walked on 

 till I met the cortege in Fleet Street, turned about, returning to my 

 own house, remaining there till the whole had passed in to West- 

 minster. 



The procession proceeded to Westminster, gradually filling Palace 

 Yard, Abingdon Street, some streets beyond, and every thing thence 

 up past Charing Cross several hours were occupied in doing this. 

 The time for the Houses of Parliament to meet was approaching 

 the members had to pass through this dense crowd ; in doing so, all 

 were insulted, and some injured in person ; and some had their 



