At ten o’clock in the morning, on Friday, the 2nd of June, 1780, thousands of petitioners assembled in St George’s Fields. They came to demand the repeal of an act that had granted civil rights to English Roman Catholics. Lord George Gordon, a Member of Parliament and brother to the Duke of Gordon, had undertaken to deliver their petition to Parliament. Before both Houses, the multitude pressed against the doors. The front ranks sought only to make their plea heard; others forced blue cockades upon the members, compelled them to shout “No Popery,” and roughly jostled them. After the Commons rejected, by a division of 192 votes to 6, a motion demanding the immediate consideration of the petition, the gathering broke into roving bands that fell upon Catholic chapels.
George Mascal was not yet at the heart of this affair. He was an apothecary of Oxford Street. Yet it was his trial, a month later, that laid bare the sediment left behind by the mob: no single, incontrovertible accusation, but gestures glimpsed from afar, shouts attributed by each man to another, and a city where terror had rendered every bystander suspect.
The outrages raged for several days. On Sunday, Roman Catholic houses and chapels in Moorfields were laid waste. On Monday, bands turned upon the dwellings of those accused of having informed against them or effected their arrest. On Tuesday, the 6th of June, the gates of Newgate were assailed. The attackers demanded the enlargement of the prisoners; when the keeper, Matthew Akerman, refused, they shattered the casements and doors, hurled furniture against the house, and set it ablaze. The flames spread to the chapel and thence to the wards. Borrow records that some three hundred felons escaped, among them four condemned to death.
That selfsame night, the town residence of Lord Mansfield, in Bloomsbury Square, was pillaged and consigned to the flames. Among the effects cast into the street were the volumes of his law library, manuscripts, and private papers. The military intervened; several inhabitants were killed or wounded. By morning, the shops remained shuttered and the streets bore the scars of the conflagrations. Borrow’s account supplies a published reckoning of the dead and wounded, whilst acknowledging the impossibility of counting those who perished beneath the smoking ruins or from drinking the fiery spirits flowing from a plundered distillery.
Mascal was arraigned for having taken part in the attack upon Mansfield’s house. At the trial, Richard Ingram deposed that he had arrived in Bloomsbury Square about half past one in the morning. He had known the apothecary for several years. Before the mansion, he saw furniture and books thrown into the blaze, whilst men, women, and children passed in and out of the dwelling. Mascal stood near the door, one hand resting upon the shoulder of a lad who was about to cast a book into the fire. Ingram conceived that he was encouraging him.
The witness returned some fifteen minutes later. This time, Mascal wore a blue cockade. Ingram told him that Lord George would obtain the repeal of the act. Mascal replied that he would not, and proceeded to denounce Ingram as a spy. Certain persons in the knot jostled the witness. The altercation drew the attention of the throng. When the soldiers arrived, Ingram heard Mascal call out, “Huzza, boys, come on!” then pull off his hat and shout “No Popery.” Later, a small troop approached bearing a blue flag, asking whither they should go. Ingram fancied he heard Mascal answer, “The Duke! The Duke!” He also deposed to a remark concerning the Bank of England and a sum of one million. His recollections placed the prisoner in the crowd, within reach of the flames and the clamour; yet the words he ascribed to him hung entirely upon what he had been able to catch amidst the general uproar.
Sir Thomas Mills, who had been inside Mansfield’s residence, presented a different portrait. He had first conveyed Lady Mansfield and other ladies out of the premises. When he returned, the officer of the guards informed him that he could not act without a magistrate. The mob then dragged Mills toward the fire. A voice called out that Mascal would protect him. Mills was rescued, and subsequently beheld the apothecary amidst the clamour and destruction. He marked him upon the steps of the mansion, yet admitted he could not swear to having heard him speak or seen him lay a hand to the mischief. “He appeared active,” he concluded.
The defence urged the jury to distinguish mere presence from criminal participation. Mascal admitted that he had repaired to the square and witnessed the fire. He declared that he had deplored it. His defence rested likewise upon his standing: he had lived as a substantial householder, he said, and had no cause to head a rabble of young boys and pickpockets. He assailed the credit of Ingram, whom he painted as an avowed enemy, observing that between the 7th and the 17th of June, this man had preferred no charge against him. Whence this delay? He announced witnesses prepared to contradict the allegations laid to his charge. He then attacked Mills, asserting that upon another occasion, five affidavits had contradicted that witness’s testimony. The Chief Baron, Sir John Skynner, interposed. This line of defence was inadmissible. Mascal was brought back to that night in Bloomsbury Square, to his leaving his house about one in the morning, and to that curiosity which, he maintained, made no man an incendiary.
John Cowper, a neighbouring cheesemonger, testified that he stood within a few paces of Mascal. He had heard him exclaim, “Good God! What a pity!” as the furniture was flung into the street. Cowper had not seen him address the rioters. Mrs Wood confirmed that he had lamented the destruction of the property and demeaned himself quietly. John Robinson stated that he had remained upwards of an hour upon the square without seeing Mascal take any part in the fire or hold discourse with the mob. William Crutch, who had entered the house to render assistance, had not seen him there, though other men were busily engaged.
The narratives could not be reconciled as to what it meant merely to be present. Ingram linked a gesture, a cockade, and spoken words to the encouragement of a riot. Mills saw an active figure, yet could name no overt act. The witnesses for the defence depicted an onlooker grieving over the scene before his eyes. The trial did not seek to reconstruct the whole of that London night; it narrowed the question to a single man, a house in flames, and a few fugitive minutes of which no two men retained the selfsame impression.
Mascal committed his fortune, his character, and his life into the hands of the jury. The trial lasted seven hours. The jurors did not even retire from the box: they returned a verdict of not guilty. A burst of applause shook the hall. The judge instantly checked it, admonishing the assembly that a verdict must never be turned into a pageant. Mascal offered his thanks to the jury and the court. Chief Baron Skynner replied that the court was bound to bestow whatever time was requisite to sift out the truth, whether the issue proved to be an acquittal or a conviction.
This verdict did not stay the remaining trials. Borrow recounts the fates of sundry men and women condemned for pulling down houses, stealing goods, or participating in unlawful assemblies. He notes that several were executed in the very streets where their crimes had been committed. He also records fifty acquittals out of eighty-four prisoners tried for London and Middlesex. On the 10th of July, a week after Mascal’s acquittal, Lord Loughborough delivered a charge to the grand jury upon the late outrages, drawing a sharp distinction between the constitutional right to petition and the criminal pretence of overawing Parliament by force. The courts pursued their appointed course; the apothecary, for his part, had stepped down from the dock a free man.