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Untitled Article
at a neighbouring manufactory ; and the proprietor told me that they brought all back but two . In the course of two hours , the prisoners were all released ( who threw off their jaiWress , and were at once supplied with Clothes by their friends ); the tread-mill was consumed ; and the governor ' s house set on fire . The rioters then proceeded , probably in divisions , to destroy the toll-bars in the neighbourhood , and Lawford ' s Gate , the house of correction in Gloucestershire . The Bishop ' s Palace was the next object of one party ; but there the mob , between six and seven , received a check from a spirited body of the inhabitants , ( some of my younger friends among them , ) with a magistrate or two at their head ; and but for the want of support from the military , the Palace would have been preserved . It was not actually set on fire till past ten , I think . During the first attack there , the rioters in the Square began , after completing the plundering of the cellars , to set the Mansion-house on fire , as well as some of the adjoining dwellings . They then , I believe , proceeded ( about eleven ) to the burning of the Custom-bouse , and soon commenced that series of reckless and savage incendiarism , and abandoned destruction and plunder , which , without the slightest reference to persons or party , and without the slightest interruption ,
was pursued , in a regular succession of houses , till two sides of the Square , ( which is about 550 feet each way , ) became one fearful heap of ruins . Half an hour ' s notice was usually ( if not uniformly ) given of the intention of the burners ; and the agents of the older wretches were often mere lads . In the conflagration of the Custom-house , several of the wretched beings
were seen perishing in the flames ; and many more were burnt in other houses ; while the dreadful sight of the extending fires , and the brutal scenes of drunkenness and savage triumph in the area of the Square , (* ave a character to that night which mak < s one shudder to think of its details , and which those who personally witnessed them feel to be melancholy and horrid in the extreme .
But the alarm was not confined to the region of the Square . Persons who seemed to be leaders had held a council in the entrance of the Jail , at which the course of their proceedings was settled ; and from the Mansionhouse , and the Bishop ' Palace , it was understood that they had purposed to proceed to Sheriff Lax ' s , on the East side of Park Street , and thence to Alderman Daniel ' s , in Berkeley Square , and to Alderman Fripp ' s .
Besides these , which I think there is reason to believe were really marked by the rioters , many were threatened , and in other cases conjectures were magnified into threats , so that before the usual hour of sleep , the alarm extended in various directions , and to great numbers of families . The
situation of the houses on the East of Park Street , and on the threatened side of Berkeley Square rendered the alarm there very reasonable ; and great numbers themselves removed , or sent away their valuables . As my house , in Great George Street , is a separate one , and not on its own account likely to be an object of the mob , it was the receptacle of various articles ,
Untitled Article
848 Onthe Bristol Riots .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1831, page 848, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2604/page/52/
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