ABSTRACT
Party spirit, in politics, ran very high about this time in London – it was in the year 1780. 139 The ill success of the American war had put the people in ill humour; they were ready to believe any thing against ministry, and some who, for party purposes, desired to influence the minds of the people, circulated the most ridiculous reports, and excited the most absurd terrors. The populace were made to believe, that the French and the papists were secret favourites of government: a French invasion, the appearance of the French in London, is an old story almost worn out upon the imaginations of the good people of England; but now came a new, if not a more / plausible bugbear – the pope! It was confidently affirmed that the pope would soon be in London, he having been seen in disguise in a gold flowered night gown on St James’s parade at Bath. A poor gentleman who appeared at his door in his night gown had been actually taken by the Bath mob for the pope. And they had pursued him with shouts, and hunted him, till he was forced to scramble over a wall to escape from his pursuers. Ludicrous as this may appear, the farce, we all know, soon turned to tragedy. From the smallest beginnings, the mischief grew and spread; half-a-dozen people gathered in one street, and began the cry of – ‘No popery! – no papists! – no French!’ The idle joined the idle, and the discontented the discontented, and both were soon drawn in to assist the mischievous; and the cowardly, surprised at their own prowess, when joined with numbers, and when no one opposed them, grew bolder and bolder. Monday morning Mr Strachan / was insulted; Lord Mansfield treated it as a slight irregularity. 140 – Monday evening Lord Mansfield himself was insulted by the mob, they pulled down his house, and burnt his furniture. Newgate was attacked next, the keeper went to the Lord Mayor, and, at his return, he found the prison in a blaze; that night, the Fleet, and the King’s Bench, and popish chapels were on fire, and the glare of the conflagration reached the skies. I was heartily glad my father and mother were safe in the country. Mr Montenero and Berenice were preparing to go to a villa in Surry, which they a had just purchased, but they apprehended no danger for themselves, as they were inoffensive strangers, totally unconnected with party or politics. The fury of the mob had, hitherto been directed chiefly against papists, or persons supposed to favour their cause. The very day before Mr Montenero was to leave town, without any conceivable reason, suddenly a cry was raised against the Jews: unfortunately, / Jews rhymed to shoes; these words were hitched into a rhyme, and the cry was – ‘No Jews, no wooden shoes!’ 141 Thus, without any natural, civil, religious, moral, or political connection, the poor Jews came in remainder to the antient antigallican antipathy felt by English feet and English fancies against the French wooden shoes. Among the London populace, however, the Jews had a respectable body of friends, female friends, of noted influence in a mob – the orange women – who were most of them bound by gratitude to certain opulent Jews. It was then, and I believe it still continues to be, a customary mode of charity with the Jews, to purchase and distribute large quantities of oranges among the retail sellers, whether Jews or Christians. The orange women were thus become their staunch friends. One of them in particular, a warm-hearted Irish woman, whose barrow had, during the whole season, been continually replenished by Mr Montenerp’s bounty, and by Jacob’s / punctual care, now took her station on the steps of Mr Monten-ero’s house; she watched her opportunity, and when she saw the master appear in the hall, she left her barrow in charge with her boy, came up the steps, walked in, and addressed herself to him thus, in a dialect and tones b , as new almost to me as they seemed to be to Mr Montenero.
