Cornish Characters and Strange EventsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Cornish Characters and Strange Events
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Cornwall (England : County) -- Biography; Cornwall (England : County) -- History; Legends -- England -- Cornwall (County)
Accordingly on July 1st a body of them marched down the Strand, and
reaching the house broke in the door and "levell'd their rage against
the house and goods of the caitif, whom they looked on as the author
of the villainy exercised on their brother Tar. Accordingly they went
to work as if they were breaking up a ship, and in a trice unrigg'd
the house from top to bottom. The movables were thrown out of the
windows or doors to their comrades in the street, where, a bonfire
being made, they were burnt, but with so much decency and order, so
little confusion, that notwithstanding the crowd gather'd together on
this occasion, a child of five years old might have crossed the street
in the thickest of them without the least danger.
"The neighbours, too, though their houses were not absolutely free from
danger of fire by the sparks flying from the bonfire, were so little
alarm'd at this riot that they stood at their doors, and look'd out of
their windows, with as little concern, and perhaps more glee and mirth,
than if they had been at a droll in Bartholomew Fair, seeing the painted
scene of the renoun'd Troy Town in flames." After the house had been
completely gutted, and not before, the guards came from the Savoy,
which, by the way, was not above a good stone's throw from the scene of
action, whereupon the sailors withdrew, unarrested and unpursued. If
matters had remained here it would have been well, but unhappily this
first performance whetted the appetites of the sailors for another, and
they resolved on sacking another house a few doors from that they had
gutted, which also did not bear a good character.
Accordingly next evening, being Sunday, they returned, and proceeded
to treat this second house in the same manner as the first "without so
much as the least interruption, till they had full timely notice to
get off before the guards arrived, who came, as before, too late, that
one would have been tempted to imagine they came too late on purpose.
"A regular bonfire then having been made as before, all the goods of
the house were triumphantly convey'd into it; and if the finding of
bundles and effects of any of the actors would have aggravated their
guilt, numbers might have been seized with the goods upon them,
between the house and the bonfire, where they were all carefully
destroy'd, to avoid any slur or suspicion of pillage for private use.
This was carry'd to such an exactness that a little boy, who perhaps
thought no great harm to save a gilt cage out of the fire for his bird
at home, was discover'd carrying it off, when the leaders of the mob
took it from him and threw it into the fire, and his age alone
protected him from severe punishment. Nothing, in short, was imbezzled
or diverted, except an old gown or petticoat, thrown at a hackney
coachman's head as a reward for a dutiful Huzza, as he drove by.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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