ABSTRACT
The proceedings at the Calthorpe Arms started on Monday, May 20th shortly after eleven o’clock in the morning. Mr John Jeffery, of Well Street, Gray’s Inn Lane, a cabinet maker, was working in a second floor front room in Calthorpe Street, four doors down from Mr Stallwood’s, so that he had a good view of the affray. He described the arrival of the hustings, Mee’s speech and heard the cry ‘take the tops off the spears’ and a voice call ‘as we would the King’s head’. He heard Mee exhort the crowd to be peaceable. Jeffery saw the man carrying the American flag and saw a man in a frock coat point to the flag and shout ‘Be firm, liberty or death, down with the police.’
