have been carried away by
friends and hidden in hurried graves, or nursed in secret to recovery.
Many, too, perished at Blackfriars Bridge, or were hideously consumed
in the flames that rose from the burning of Langdale's distilleries.
But if the number of those who suffered remains an unknown quantity, it
is not difficult to approximate to the destructive power of the
disturbances. The cost of the whole bad business has been estimated at
at least 180,000 pounds. To that amount an imbecile insanity had
despoiled London. But the imbecile insanity had incurred a deeper
debt. In the wild trials that followed upon the panic and the violence
forty-nine {209} men were condemned to death for their share in the
riot, and twenty-nine of these actually suffered the last penalty of
the law. It was not, in the eyes of some, a heavy sacrifice to pay.
It did not seem a heavy sacrifice in the eyes of John Wilkes, who
declared that if he were intrusted with sovereign power not a single
rioter should be left alive to boast of, or to plead for forgiveness
for, his offence. But Lord George Gordon was not worth the life of one
man, not to speak of nine-and-twenty.

The folly of the Administration did not end with their victory. On the
9th they did what they ought to have done long before, and arrested
Lord George Gordon. But even this necessary belated act of justice
they performed in the most foolish fashion. Everything that the pomp
and ceremonial of arrest and arraignment could do was done to exalt
Lord George in the eyes of the mob and swell his importance. He was
conveyed to the Tower of London. Though the rising was thoroughly
stamped out, and there was practically no chance of any attempt being
made to rescue the prisoner, Lord George was escorted to the Tower by a
numerous military force in broad daylight, with an amount of display
that gave him the dignity of a hero and a martyr. To add to the
absurdity of the whole business, the poor crazy gentleman was solemnly
tried for high treason. Many months later, in the early February of
the next year, 1781, when the riots were a thing of the past, and their
terrible memory had been largely effaced, George Gordon was brought to
the Bar of the Court of King's Bench for his trial. His wits had not
mended during his confinement. He had been very angry because he
thought that he was prevented from seeing his friends. His anger
deepened when he learned that no friends had desi