tavern, and that they
had better go to the meetings. In a brief hour, therefore, the new
meeting-house where Dr. Priestley preached was broken into, and set on
fire; and in another brief hour the old meetinghouse sent up its flame
towards heaven likewise. The mob now sought the doctor at his house on
Fair Hill, but, timely warned, he and his family had taken refuge in
flight. His house now shared the fate of the meeting-houses: together
with the whole of his valuable library, his still more valuable
apparatus for philosophical experiments, and the furniture; it was
destroyed by fire. All this was done on the 14th of July, and it was
hoped that the mob would go no further. But, unfortunately, they had in
part been stimulated to these violences by strong drink, which had been
given them by some of the more respectable loyalists of the town. On
the morrow, therefore, the rabble of the town again sounded the cry
of "Church and King," and being joined by the rabble of the mining and
foundery districts in the neighbourhood, they resumed their dreadful
avocation. On that day the houses of Messrs. John Ryland, Taylor, and
Hutton, were destroyed; the magistrates making no effectual preparations
to stop the ravages. It does not appear that the mob had been furnished
with any drink on this day by the loyalist magnates of the town; but
they had extorted whole hogsheads of ale from Mr. Hutton to save his
house--though they afterwards destroyed it--and had moreover found
plenty of good wine in the cellars, and this incited them again to
action. On the following day no less than eight houses within the town,
and in its vicinity, wore destroyed, exclusive of the residence of Mr.
Coates, a Unitarian minister, which was plundered and damaged, but not
demolished. The following clay was Sunday, but it was no day of rest for
the rioters, except those who were too drunk to move; they went into the
country, it is true, but it was only to destroy chapels, and to plunder,
and burn clown houses. On this day, however, their work of destruction
was stopped. By the evening of the day, probably not finding sufficient
drink in the cellars of the Dissenters, they had begun to break open and
to destroy the houses of churchmen. They were busy in breaking open the
house of Dr. Withering, at some distance from the town, when the words
"light horse" sounded in their ears, and the whole mob melted away as if
by magic; when the light-horse appeared, not a sha