‘How long will ye quietly and cowardly suffer yourselves to be imposed upon and half-starved by a set of mercenary slaves and Government hirelings? Can you still suffer them to proceed in their extensive monopolies while your children are crying for bread? No! let them not exist a day longer. We are the sovereignty; rise then from your lethargy. Be at the Corn Market on Monday.’ By means of these placards, and handbills to the same effect, a mob of over a thousand was collected in Mark Lane by nine a.m., and their number was doubled in another hour. They hissed and pelted the corn factors; but, about eleven a.m., when they began to break windows, the Lord Mayor appeared upon the spot. In vain he assured them that their behaviour could in no way affect the market. They only yelled at him, ‘Cheap bread!’ ‘Birmingham and Nottingham for ever!’ ‘Three loaves for eighteen-pence,’ etc. They even hissed the Lord Mayor and smashed the windows close by him. This was more than he could bear, and he ordered the Riot Act to be read. The constables charged the mob, who, of course, fled, and the Lord Mayor returned to the Mansion House. They only went to other parts of the City, and, when night fell, they began smashing windows, etc. At last, fear of their firing the City induced the authorities to invoke the assistance of some Volunteers and Militia, and by their efforts the mob was driven over London Bridge into Southwark, where they rendered the night lively by breaking windows, etc. For a day or two there was peace; but on the morning and during the day and night of the 18th of September the mob had it all their own way, breaking windows and pillaging. A royal proclamation was issued, calling on the civil authorities to suppress these riots, which was done at last by means of cavalry and Volunteers, but only after the mob having two more days’ uncontrolled possession of London. But the people in the country were not so quickly satisfied; their wages were smaller than those of their London brethren, and they proportionately felt the pinch more acutely. In some instances they were put down by force, in others the price of bread was lowered; but it is impossible at this time to take up a newspaper and not find some notice of or allusion to a food riot. The importation of foreign corn supplied the deficiency of the English crops, and bread was moderately cheap; but in 1815, probably with a view to assuage the agricultural distress then prevalent, a measure was proposed and passed by which foreign corn was to be prohibited, except when wheat had reached 80_s._ a quarter—a price considered by the great body of consumers as exorbitant. A resolution was passed ‘That it is the opinion of the Committee that any sort of foreign corn, meal, or flour, which may by law be imported into the United Kingdom shall at all times be allowed to be brought into the United Kingdom, and to be warehoused there, without payment of any duty whatever.’