om that moment the enemy was grappled with in grim earnest.

It was high time. No less than two unsuccessful attacks had been made
during that day upon the Bank of England, but precautions had been
taken, and the successes of Newgate were not repeated in Threadneedle
Street. The assailants were repulsed on each occasion by the military,
who occupied every avenue leading to the Bank. Had the attack upon the
Bank succeeded it is impossible to form any estimate of what the result
might have been. But it failed, and with that failure the whole
hideous agitation failed as well. But the crowning horror of the whole
episode was reserved for that final day of danger. In Holborn, where
riot raged fiercest, stood the distilleries of Mr. Langdale, a wealthy
Roman Catholic. The distilleries were attacked and fired. Rivers of
spirit ran in all the {208} conduits and blazed as they ran. Men,
drunk with liquor and maddened with excitement, kneeled to drink, and,
drinking, fell and died where they lay. By this time the soldiers were
acting vigorously, driving the rabble before them, shooting all who
resisted, as some did resist desperately. The fire that had grown
during the week was quenched at last in blood. On the Thursday morning
London was safe, comparatively quiet, almost itself again. The shops
indeed were still closed, but mutiny had lived its life. There was a
short, sharp struggle during the day in Fleet Street, between some of
the fanatics and the Guards, which was stamped out by repeated bayonet
charges which killed and wounded many. Everywhere were blackened
spaces, smouldering ruins, stains of blood, and broken weapons,
everywhere the signs of outrage and of conflict. But the incendiary
fires were quenched and with them the fire of insurrection. The riots
were at an end. The one wish of every one was to obliterate their
memory as speedily as might be. The stains of blood were quickly
removed from the walls of the Bank of England, from the roadway of
Blackfriars Bridge. The marks of musket shots were swiftly effaced
from the scarred buildings.

[Sidenote: 1780--Suppression of the Gordon Riots]

It was never fully known how far the rioters themselves suffered in the
suppression of the disorder. The official returns give lists of 285
direct deaths, and of 173 cases of serious wounds in the hospitals.
But this can only represent a small proportion of the actual
casualties. Many dead, many wounded, must