act,
seized him and took from him his pistols. It was not thought he had any
particular enmity against Mr. Percival, but that he would have
assassinated any other of His Majesty's Ministers had they fallen in his
way at the time. He said he had been a fortnight making up his mind to
this bloody deed. He bought his pistols from a well-known gunmaker in
Fleet-street, and so desirous was he that they could be depended upon,
that he went to Primrose Hill, in the outskirts of London, to try them.
It was said that he had his coat altered, and a capacious and readily
accessible pocket made in it; in which pocket, in fact, the discharged
pistol was found. Bellingham to the last maintained his contumacious and
determined character. He justified his frightful deed, and expressed
himself resigned to his fate and prepared to meet it. His atrocious act
caused a great sensation in the town. The news that it had been
perpetrated, had, however, scarcely reached us in Liverpool before we
heard of his trial and execution. He was tried on the 16th of May and
executed on the 18th. Short shriving was then the mode!

In Suffolk-street, which runs out of Duke-street, there once dwelt a
droll person named Peter Tyrer. He let out coaches and horses for hire.
Many funny stories were current about him. I recollect one to the effect
that a customer of his, a gentleman residing in Duke-street, complained
several times that Peter had supplied him with a coach so stiff in the
springs as to be quite unpleasant to ride in it. The next time a coach
was sent for by this gentleman, Peter sent him a hearse! On being asked
his reason for so doing, his reply was that "so many people had ridden in
that vehicle and never made any complaint, that he supposed it must be a
very comfortable conveyance."

CHAPTER IV.

Before I exhaust my recollections of Duke-street and its celebrities, I
ought not to omit mention of a worthy gentleman who resided in it, and
whose name occupied the attention of the public in many ways, in all
honourable to himself, as a man, a soldier, and a citizen. I refer to
Colonel Bolton, whose mansion in Duke-street, between Suffolk-street and
Kent-street (called after, and by Mr. Kent, who lived at the corner of
the street, and who also named the streets adjacent after the southern
counties), was in bye-gone years the head-quarters of the Tory party in
Liverpool, in election times. From the balcony of that house, whe