iring began in the
Poultry, where the chain was drawn across the road, where nearly a score
of people were killed on the first discharge. Their bodies having been
hastily carried into St Mildred's Church by the soldiers, the latter
fired again, and following fast upon the crowd, who began to give way
when they saw the execution that was done, formed across Cheapside, and
charged them at the point of the bayonet.

The streets were now a dreadful spectacle. The shouts of the rabble,
the shrieks of women, the cries of the wounded, and the constant firing,
formed a deafening and an awful accompaniment to the sights which every
corner presented. Wherever the road was obstructed by the chains, there
the fighting and the loss of life were greatest; but there was hot work
and bloodshed in almost every leading thoroughfare.

At Holborn Bridge, and on Holborn Hill, the confusion was greater than
in any other part; for the crowd that poured out of the city in two
great streams, one by Ludgate Hill, and one by Newgate Street, united at
that spot, and formed a mass so dense, that at every volley the people
seemed to fall in heaps. At this place a large detachment of soldiery
were posted, who fired, now up Fleet Market, now up Holborn, now up Snow
Hill--constantly raking the streets in each direction. At this place
too, several large fires were burning, so that all the terrors of that
terrible night seemed to be concentrated in one spot.

Full twenty times, the rioters, headed by one man who wielded an axe
in his right hand, and bestrode a brewer's horse of great size and
strength, caparisoned with fetters taken out of Newgate, which clanked
and jingled as he went, made an attempt to force a passage at this
point, and fire the vintner's house. Full twenty times they were
repulsed with loss of life, and still came back again; and though
the fellow at their head was marked and singled out by all, and was a
conspicuous object as the only rioter on horseback, not a man could
hit him. So surely as the smoke cleared away, so surely there was he;
calling hoarsely to his companions, brandishing his axe above his head,
and dashing on as though he bore a charmed life, and was proof against
ball and powder.

This man was Hugh; and in every part of the riot, he was seen. He headed
two attacks upon the Bank, helped to break open the Toll-houses on
Blackfriars Bridge, and cast the money into the street: fired two of the
prisons with his own ha