The poor lads seemed terribly agitated and cast down at their approaching fate, and shed abundance of tears. One after the other was led up to the fatal drop and cast off. I could not stop to see the end, but hurried away. I had seen hundreds of my fellow-creatures die, but I hoped that I might never again see any put to death as these were. After this I went down to Chatham to see how the ship was getting on, and then returned to London. I found the city in a complete state of uproar and confusion. It was on a Friday, the 2nd of June, when Tom and I made our way towards the Houses of Parliament, for I had heard that Lord George Gordon was going with a large body of people to present a protest against the repeal of any of the penal laws against the Roman Catholics. I wanted to see the fun. There must have been twenty thousand people at least, who arrived in three different bodies before the Houses of Parliament. Here they behaved very orderly, and dispersed after being addressed by some of the magistrates; but the mob in other places broke out into all sorts of excesses, and as we went home we found them busily employed in demolishing a Romish Chapel in Duke Street, near Lincoln's Inn Fields. They hauled out all the ornaments, and what they thought of no value they trampled under foot, but the rest they made off with. Several houses, either belonging to Romanists, or inhabited by persons supposed to be favourable to them, we saw completely gutted. The same sort of work went on for several days. At last I got so completely mixed up with one of the mobs that I could not get free of them. "Here, you look a likely man to lead us!" exclaimed a fellow standing near me. "Where shall we go next?" I did not answer him, but endeavoured to get away. This did not suit him. "What does the captain say?" he exclaimed. "To Sir George Saville's, to Sir George Saville's!" cried some one. "Hurrah for Sir George Saville's in Leicester Fields! He was the very man who brought the Romish Bill into Parliament. Down with his house, down with it!" shouted another fellow. "Lead on, captain--lead on!"