r eyes turned towards the Bank of England and were planning to
cut the pipes which provided London with water. With a little more
laxity on the part of authority, and a few more successes on the part
of the mob, it is possible that Lord George Gordon might have found
himself a puppet Caesar on the shields of Protestant Praetorians.

[Sidenote: 1780--Stern action by the authorities]

That nothing even approaching to this did happen was largely due to the
courage and the determination of the Sovereign. The Administration
vacillated. The Privy Council, facing an agitation of whose extent and
popularity it was unaware, feared to commit itself. George felt no
such fear. Where authority fell back paralyzed in the presence of a
new, unknown, and daily increasing peril, he came forward and asserted
himself after a fashion worthy of a king. If the Privy Council would
not act with him, then he would act without them. He would lead out
his Guards himself and charge the rioters at their head. The courage
which had shown itself at Dettingen, the courage which had been
displayed by generations of rough German {207} electors and Italian
princes, showed itself gallantly now and saved the city. The King
lamented the weakness of the magistrates, but at least there was one,
he said, who would do his duty, and he touched his breast with his
hand. George the Third is not a heroic figure in history, but just at
that moment he bore himself with a royal honor which ranked him with
Leonidas or Horatius. If there are to be kings at all, that is how
kings ought to behave. George was fortunate in finding a man to stand
by him and to lend to his soldierly courage the support of the law.
Wedderburn, the Attorney-General, declared, with all the authority of
his high position, that in cases where the civil power was unable to
restrain arson and outrage, it was the duty of all persons, civil as
well as military, to use all means in their power to deal with the
danger. The reading of the Riot Act was nugatory in such exceptional
conditions, and it became the duty of the military to attack the
rioters. Thus supported, the King ordered Wedderburn to write at once
to Lord Amherst, the Commander-in-Chief, authorizing him to employ the
military without waiting for authority from the civil powers.
Wedderburn, who in a few days was to become Chief Justice and Lord
Loughborough, wrote the order, kneeling upon one knee at the council
table, and fr