very prevalent
at that time, and vulgarly termed the jail fever.

Lord George Gordon, remaining in his prison in the Tower until Monday
the fifth of February in the following year, was on that day solemnly
tried at Westminster for High Treason. Of this crime he was, after a
patient investigation, declared Not Guilty; upon the ground that there
was no proof of his having called the multitude together with any
traitorous or unlawful intentions. Yet so many people were there, still,
to whom those riots taught no lesson of reproof or moderation, that a
public subscription was set on foot in Scotland to defray the cost of
his defence.

For seven years afterwards he remained, at the strong intercession of
his friends, comparatively quiet; saving that he, every now and then,
took occasion to display his zeal for the Protestant faith in some
extravagant proceeding which was the delight of its enemies; and saving,
besides, that he was formally excommunicated by the Archbishop of
Canterbury, for refusing to appear as a witness in the Ecclesiastical
Court when cited for that purpose. In the year 1788 he was stimulated by
some new insanity to write and publish an injurious pamphlet, reflecting
on the Queen of France, in very violent terms. Being indicted for the
libel, and (after various strange demonstrations in court) found guilty,
he fled into Holland in place of appearing to receive sentence: from
whence, as the quiet burgomasters of Amsterdam had no relish for his
company, he was sent home again with all speed. Arriving in the month of
July at Harwich, and going thence to Birmingham, he made in the latter
place, in August, a public profession of the Jewish religion; and
figured there as a Jew until he was arrested, and brought back to London
to receive the sentence he had evaded. By virtue of this sentence he
was, in the month of December, cast into Newgate for five years and ten
months, and required besides to pay a large fine, and to furnish heavy
securities for his future good behaviour.

After addressing, in the midsummer of the following year, an appeal to
the commiseration of the National Assembly of France, which the English
minister refused to sanction, he composed himself to undergo his full
term of punishment; and suffering his beard to grow nearly to his waist,
and conforming in all respects to the ceremonies of his new religion, he
applied himself to the study of history, and occasionally to the art
of painting