“His companions went away, perhaps to escort their good pastor and his family, whose lives would not have been secure against the ruffians coming to demolish their home and property. My father barred the doors, closed the shutters, made fast the house as securely as he could against the expected rioters, and then awaited their arrival. He has often described to me how he walked to and fro in the darkened rooms, chafing under the restriction which had been put on him and his friends. He was present when the mob broke in, and witnessed the plunder and destruction, and the incendiary fire by which the outrage was consummated. Lingering near the house, he saw a working man fill his apron with shoes, with which he made off. My father followed him, and, as soon as the thief was alone, collared him, and dragged him to the gaol, where he had the mortification to witness the man quietly relieved of his booty, and then suffered to depart, the keeper informing my father that he had had orders to take in no prisoners that night! The mob, which had begun by attacking dissenters as public enemies, burning down their chapels and their houses, and making spoil of their goods, soon expanded their views, and gave unmistakable signs that the distinction between dissenter and churchman had had its hour, and was to be superseded in favour of the doctrine now so well known, ‘La propriété, c’est un vol.’ When matters came to this pass the magistrates swore-in special constables. My father was one of this body; and, like his comrades, compendiously armed with half a mop-stick by way of truncheon, he marched with them to the defence of Baskerville House, in Birmingham, which was under attack by the mob. The special constables at first drove all before them, in spite of the immense disparity of numbers; but after a time, becoming separated in the _mêlée_, they sustained a total defeat. Some were very severely bruised, and one died of the injuries which he received in the fight. My father, although not conscious at the time of having received a blow, could not the next morning raise his arm. He was always of opinion that if they had had a flag, or some signal of that kind, round which they could have rallied, the fortune of the day would have been reversed.”