the Custom House, and told the fifty officers
stationed there to "move out." The officers
instantly began to remove the books and
valuable papers, and the plate and pictures
brought from the Mansion House. When the
robbers came, one of the officers said:

"This is the king's house—that good king!"

A ringleader answered, roughly:
"Never mind the king! Go it!"

There was a furious rush, like the sea over a
broken dyke, and in a moment every room
was full. Desks were broken open, and the
combustibles spread. The long room and the
lower offices were fired simultaneously. This
greediness for destruction led to the death of at
least fifty rioters. The upper rooms were full of
men; many were on the roof, having escaped
from an adjoining house, where they had been
in imminent danger. The reckless villains above,
intent on plunder and drinking, were
unconscious of their companions setting fire to the
rooms below. A large party sitting down to
supper in the housekeeper's room were all shut
in by the fire, and burnt to death. Three
dropped from the roof; one unhappy man rolled
into a reservoir of boiling lead formed by the
roof of the portico. He lay there writhing
and screaming till death came. Another, half
crushed on the pavement, had just strength
enough to exclaim to a gentleman, who ran up
in pity:

"Oh, that I had taken my wife's advice, and
never come to Bristol! But I was persuaded,
and sent for."

When at last the roof fell into the vortex of
fire, a half-burnt man came through one of the
end windows, and fell headlong into the street.
A party of rioters instantly carried the body to
the Royal Oak public-house in Princes-street,
and threatened to burn the house if the door
was not opened. They told the landlord they
should call for the body the next morning. The
north side of the square was now a great wall
of fire. The western side was also all alight
except two houses, from which all the inflammable
furniture had been cautiously removed.
The Excise Office at the west corner, the Custom
House, and the Customs bonding warehouse,
were soon wrapped in tumultuous hurricanes of
rolling and billowing flame. The spirits, bursting
from the cellars, ran like lava in burning rivers;
the casks exploded like cannon as the hoops
gave way. At the house of Mr. Strong, an
exulting blackguard seated himself on the sill of a
drawing-room window, cheering the mob, and
shouting, "The king and reform!" Here was
the protest again with a vengeance! Presently
the flames swept over him, and he fell on the
spikes of the court wall below, to the
infinite delight of his companions, who seemed
to regard the accident as the most delicious
practical joke. In one house the wretches,
seeing a lady fainting as the windows were
crashed in, advised the gentleman who was
carrying her off to let her stay and be
burnt.

While the houses were every moment thundering
down, the flames roaring, the red smoke
waving up to heaven, these thieves, mad-drunk
now, and crazed with a hellish spirit of destruction,
shouted and danced, and waved bottles
and crowbars, as the walls, roofs, beams, and
burning ceilings fell around them. In the
centre of the square, under the statue of
William the Third, costly tables and settees, rich
with coloured satins, were spread with the
rarest wine and the richest food. Thieves,
murderers, and vile women sat there at the
most loathsome revels, cursing and shouting
obscene imprecations; to these tables the tired
incendiaries retired from time to time for
refreshment, and to still further heighten their
madness. In other parts of the square smoke-
stained rioters were selling by auction for a
mere trifle the more valuable furniture—silver
teapots for a shilling, feather-beds for half-
a-crown. One rascal, failing to part with a
handsome mahogany chair for a shilling, cried,
"What, nobody bid a tizzy!" and instantly
dashed it to pieces.

During this hideous carnival (horrible as the
French revolutionary scenes, yet without their
redeeming points) the firemen were prevented
getting to their engines. Hundreds of anti-
reform merchants were kept at home by letters
informing them that their houses would be
soon burnt. In various parts of the city
rioters called and demanded drink or money,
crying:

"Look at the fires blazing; there shall soon
be more of them!"

At a tavern in St. John-street, four men
dashed in a window and drank three pints
of raw spirits between them. Before daybreak
on Monday the rioters were reinforced by
parties of bludgeon-men from Stapleton,and from
the Kingswood, Wells, Bath, and Bedminster
roads. Most of these men threatened to destroy
all turnpikes and churches. They sometimes
cried to passing travellers:

"Well, you shall pass this time, but you
have rode long enough, it will be our turn
soon."

At three o'clock A.M. the mayor again tried
to rouse infatuated Colonel Brereton, who was
found in bed at the house of a friend in Unity-
street. The colonel asked, listlessly, "Are the
riots still going on?—are they still burning?"
he said. "Men and horses were jaded, and
could do nothing against such a mob."
Captain Warrington said, "There was a great
screw loose somewhere," and declared the
troops should not fire upon the people. The
insane colonel was at last, however, so strongly
urged, that he let the troops go.

The clock struck five as the Dragoons
charged through a mob of about seven hundred
persons in front of a burning warehouse in
Princes-street. The people cheered the soldiers,
held up bottles of spirits to them, and shouted:

"The king and reform!"

Some of the rioters withdrew; others were
busy destroying Mr. Claxton's house. Colonel
Brereton still thought nothing effectual could be