the multitude turned to private
dwellings. Several houses were pillaged and destroyed: but the smallness
of the booty disappointed the plunderers; and soon a rumour was spread
that the most valuable effects of the Papists had been placed under the
care of the foreign Ambassadors. To the savage and ignorant populace
the law of nations and the risk of bringing on their country the just
vengeance of all Europe were as nothing. The houses of the Ambassadors
were besieged. A great crowd assembled before Barillon's door in St.
James's Square. He, however, fared better than might have been expected.
For, though the government which he represented was held in abhorrence,
his liberal housekeeping and exact payments had made him personally
popular. Moreover he had taken the precaution of asking for a guard of
soldiers; and, as several men of rank, who hued near him, had done the
same, a considerable force was collected in the Square. The rioters,
therefore, when they were assured that no arms or priests were concealed
under his roof, left him unmolested. The Venetian Envoy was protected
by a detachment of troops: but the mansions occupied by the ministers
of the Elector Palatine and of the Grand Duke of Tuscany were destroyed.
One precious box the Tuscan minister was able to save from the
marauders. It contained nine volumes of memoirs, written in the hand of
James himself. These volumes reached France in safety, and, after
the lapse of more than a century, perished there in the havoc of a
revolution far more terrible than that from which they had escaped.
But some fragments still remain, and, though grievously mutilated,
and imbedded in great masses of childish fiction, well deserve to be
attentively studied.

The rich plate of the Chapel Royal had been deposited at Wild House,
near Lincoln's Inn Fields, the residence of the Spanish ambassador
Ronquillo. Ronquillo, conscious that he and his court had not deserved
ill of the English nation, had thought it unnecessary to ask for
soldiers: but the mob was not in a mood to make nice distinctions.
The name of Spain had long been associated in the public mind with the
Inquisition and the Armada, with the cruelties of Mary and the plots
against Elizabeth. Ronquillo had also made himself many enemies among
the common people by availing himself of his privilege to avoid the
necessity of paying his debts. His house was therefore sacked without
mercy; and a noble library, which he had col