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]