l, their consulting
several times at a bawdy-house in Moore-Fields, called the Russia House,
among many other rogueries, of setting houses on fire, that they might
gather the goods that were flung into the streets; and it is worth
considering how unsafe it is to have children play up and down this lewd
town. For these two boys, one is my Lady Montagu's (I know not what
Lady Montagu) son, and the other of good condition, were playing in
Moore-Fields, and one rogue, Gabriel Holmes, did come to them and
teach them to drink, and then to bring him plate and clothes from their
fathers' houses, and carry him into their houses, and leaving open the
doors for him, and at last were made of their conspiracy, and were at
the very burning of this house in Aldersgate Street, on Easter Sunday
at night last, and did gather up goods, as they had resolved before and
this Gabriel Holmes did advise to have had two houses set on fire, one
after another, that, while they were quenching of one, they might be
burning another. And it is pretty that G. Holmes did tell his fellows,
and these boys swore it, that he did set fire to a box of linen in the
Sheriffe, Sir Joseph Shelden's' house, while he was attending the fire
in Aldersgate Street, and the Sheriffe himself said that there was
a fire in his house, in a box of linen, at the same time, but cannot
conceive how this fellow should do it. The boys did swear against one
of them, that he had made it his part to pull the plug out of the engine
while it was a-playing; and it really was so. And goods they did carry
away, and the manner of the setting the house on fire was, that Holmes
did get to a cockpit; where, it seems, there was a publick cockpit,
and set fire to the straw in it, and hath a fire-ball at the end of the
straw, which did take fire, and so it prevailed, and burned the house;
and, among other things they carried away, he took six of the cocks that
were at the cockpit; and afterwards the boys told us how they had one
dressed, by the same token it was so hard they could not eat it. But
that which was most remarkable was the impudence of this Holmes, who
hath been arraigned often, and still got away; and on this business was
taken and broke loose just at Newgate Gate; and was last night luckily
taken about Bow, who got loose, and run into the river, and hid himself
in the rushes; and they pursued him with a dog, and the dog got him and
held him till he was taken. But the impudence of th