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rather see it fairly buried, than so to enjoy it, when they can neither justly punish nor acquit persons accused; and, after having delivered their own judgment upon as full and free debates and consideration as they are capable of, to be further pressed, looks too like an importunity that former times have not been so unhappy as to meet with, and they little expected from this House of Commons. And their lordships are confident that House intended no attempt upon their lordships' judicature. Other arguments were used against the first part of the Commons' assertion.

"As to the second part of the assertion, that it was unprecedented, their lordships evinced the contrary by the precedent of 12 Jacobi, produced and urged for the denial of a Confer ence to the House of Commons upon the point of Imposition, the darling subject of debates in that House, and whereon they might best of any thing insist to confer. Their lordships doubted not, if they had taken time, more precedents would occur; but one was sufficient to destroy their general assertion.

"The Commons hereupon, vid. Sir Robert Atkins, Mr. Waller, sir Thomas Meares, and sir Francis Goodrick, by turns, told us, "It would be too great a disregard to what we had so fully offered, to make any present answer or give their own sense to what their lordships had delivered; besides, they were not provided nor instructed to discourse this matter now, being unexpected; and that they conceived a Conference ought regularly to have been de-, sired by the Lords before this Free Conference, that they might have been convinced with the Lords' reasons, or had some point issued to treat and confer upon."

"To that the Lords replied, "That they were not now to dispute that; the Commons, having agreed to a Free Conference, allowed it to be regular, and they doubted not many precedents warranted it; but, if they had conceived otherwise, the House of Commons might have declined it."

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"The Commons acknowledged, They had had it in debate in their House; but finding that, if they had refused us a Free Conference, they had done the same thing they took exception at in our proceedings, they had agreed to our desire; and, insisting again that they were not provided to confer upon what we had argued so largely, they desired leave to resort to their house, to acquaint the Commous with the particulars delivered by the Lords, and receive their directions; and according to what further order they should receive, they would attend their lordships.'

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rence; but were so well assured of our just and warranted proceedings, that they might see we were ready to assert them by arguments, precedents, and debate. If the Commons were not now ready, the failing was not on our part and they might use their liberty; concluding, that we had, by this Conference, manifested our desires of closing with a fair correspondence, when we undertook a Free Conference on the sudden, upon some disadvantage.' And so, with mutual expressions of kindness, we parted; the Commons desiring to have the liberty to peruse the Journal of 12 Jacobi, wherein the precedent is that was cited by their lordships; which we promised them.

But the whole of this dispute was put an end to by the king's coming, on the following day, to the House of Lords and proroguing the Parliament.

On the 25th of October, 1667, Mr. Tayleur, in a subsequent session, exhibits another Petition, with Articles of Impeachment arnexed, against the lord viscount Mordaunt ; which were read, and Mr. Tayleur was called in and affirmed he was ready to make out the matter contained therein.-A Committee is appointed to consider of this Petition and Articles, and to examine, what new matter is in them, not contained in the Articles and Petition formerly exhibited, and to state what that new matter is, and the progress and proceedings in this business in the former session.-This committee are ordered, on the 7th of December, to compare those Articles with the former; and on the 14th of December, they are directed to hear and examine witnesses on behalf of the lord Mordaunt, and all others concerned, before they make their report.

"The direction to the Committee to examine, what new matter is in this Petition and Articles, not contained in those formerly exhibited, implies, that it could be only in this new matter, that the House could be now interested

every thing, which was alleged in the former Petition and Articles, remaining in the state, in which it was interrupted by the prorogation; and, as far as that complaint extended, liable to be proceeded in whenever the Commons should please, without any further enquiry or examination. In the first volume of Grey's Debates, page 3, it is expressly stated, that it is only the new matter of the Petition and Articles, which was referred to the committee." 4 Hatsell.

+"Nothing further appears in the Journal relating to this matter; it should seem (from what lord Danby says, in his speech in the court of king's bench on the 27th of May 1682, which is reported in the State Trials, vol. II. p. 744) that about this time, lord Mordaunt was advised to take out a pardon from the king for these offences." 4 Hatsell.

"The House of Commons impeached the lord viscount Mordaunt, constable of Windsor

castle, for imprisoning Mr. Tayleur, who intended to stand for one of the burgesses for Windsor; which I mention, because the said Tayleur was a prisoner for debt in the town prison, when he intended to stand for a member of this parliament, and was taken thence by the lord Mordaunt's soldiers, to be put in hold in the castle; which lets us a little into the truth of the archdeacon's rich and wise men before spoken of. The Impeachment of the lord Mordaunt, who was the king's ser

vant, disgusted the king, according to Echard, though Tayleur was his servant also. The greatest importance of it was, that it caused a misunderstanding between the two Houses, which lasted to the end of the sessions, when the Speaker, Turner, made a speech of unconscionable length, February the 8th, at which time the king also spoke almost as long; and then the lord Roberts, lord privy-seal, prorogued the parliament to the 10th day of October." Oldmixon.

224. EXAMINATIONS concerning the FIRING of LONDON: 18 CHARLES II. A. D. 1666.*

UPON the second of September 1666, the fire began in London at one Farryner's house, a baker, in Pudding-lane, between the hours of one and two in the morning, and continued burning until the 6th of September following; consuming, as by the Surveyors appears in print, 375 acres within the walls of the city of London, and 63 acres 3 roods without the walls. There remains 75 acres 3 roods yet standing

* From a Pamphlet, entitled, "A True and "Faithful Account of the several Informa"tions exhibited to the Hon. Committee ap"pointed by the Parliament to enquire into "the late dreadful Firing of the City of "London. Together with other Informa"tions touching the Insolency of Popish "Priests and Jesuits; and the Increase of "Popery, brought to the Hon. Committee ap"pointed by the Parliament for that purpose.

"Printed in the Year 1667."

How this calamity was brought upon the City of London will probably never be ascertained. The following is Burnet's account of

the matter:

within the walls unburnt. Eighty-nine parish
churches, besides chapels, burnt.
Eleven pa-
rishes within the walls yet standing. Houses
burnt, 13,200.
Per JONAS MOORE,

RALPH GATRIX, Surveyors.

Upon the 18th of September, 1666, the Parliament came together: And upon the 25th of full of it. That which is still a great secret is, whether it was casual, or raised on design. The English fleet had landed on the Vly, an island lying near the Texell, and had burnt it; upon which some came to De Witt, and offered a revenge, that, if they were assisted, they would set London on fire. He rejected the proposition: for he said, he would not make the breach wider, nor the quarrel irreconcilable. He said, it was brought him by one of the Labadists, as sent to them by some others. He made no father reflections on the matter till

the city was burnt. Then he began to suspect intended to draw him into it, and to lay the there had been a design, and that they bad odium of it upon the Dutch. But he could "To compleat the miseries of this year: the hear no news of those who had sent that propoplague was so sunk in London, that the inha-sition to him. In the April before, some combitants began to return to it, and brought with mon-wealths-men were found in a plot, and them a great deal of manufacture, which was lying on the hands of the clothiers and others, now in the second year of the war, in which trade and all other consumptions were very low. It was reckoned, that a peace must come next winter. The merchants were upon that preparing to go to market as soon as possible. The summer had been the dryest that was known of some years, And London being for the most part built of timber filled up with plaister, all was extreme dry. On the second of September a fire broke out, that raged for three days, as if it had a commission to devour every thing that was in its way. On the fourth day it stopt in the midst of very combustible

matter.

"I will not enlarge on the extent nor the destruction made by the fire: many books are

hanged; who at their execution confessed, they had been spoken to, to assist in a design of burning London on the second of September. This was printed in the gazette of that week, which I myself read. Now the fire breaking out on the second made all people conclude, that there was a design some time before on foot for doing it.

One Hubert, a French Papist, was seized on "The Papists were generally charged with it. in Essex, as he was getting out of the way in great confusion. He confessed, he had begun the fire, and persisted in his confession to his death, for he was hanged upon no other evidence but that of his own confession. It is whole matter, that he was thought mad. Yet true, he gave so broken an account of the he was blindfolded, and carried to several

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on Saturday night, that so the cisterns might be all full by Sunday morning, there being a more than ordinary consumption of water on that day. There was one Grant, a papist, under whose name sir William Petty published his Observations on the Bills of Mortality : He had some time before applied himself to Lloyd, who had great credit with the countess of Clarendon; and said, he could raise that estate considerably, if she would make him a trustee for her. His schemes were probable : And he was made one of the board that governed that matter: And by that he had a right to come as often as he pleased, to view their works at Islington. He went thither the Saturday before the fire broke out, and called for the key of the place where the heads of the pipes were, and turned all the cocks that were then open, and stopt the water, and went away, and carried the keys with him. So when the fire broke out next morning, they opened the pipes in the streets to find water, but there was none. And some hours were lost

places of the city: and then, his eyes being opened, he was asked, if that was the place: and he being carried to wrong places, after he looked round about for some time, he said, that was not the place: but when he was brought to the place where it first broke out, he affirmed that was the true place. And Tillotson told me, that Howell, then the recorder of London, was with him, and had much discourse with him; and that he concluded, it was impossible that it could be a melancholy dream: the horror of the fact, and the terror of death, and perhaps some engagements in confession, might put him in such disorder, that it was not possible to draw a clear account of any thing from him, but of what related to himself. Tillotson, who believed that the city was burnt on design, told me a circumstance that made the Papists cmploying such a crazed man in such a service more credible. Langhorn, the Popish counsellor at law, who for many years passed for a Protestant, was dispatching a half-witted man to manage elections in Kent before the Re-in sending to Islington, where the door was to storation. Tillotson, being present, and observing what a sort of man he was, asked Langhorn, how he could employ him in such services. Langhorn answered, it was a maxim with him in dangerous services to employ none but half-witted men, if they could be but secret and obey orders: for if they should change their minds, and turn informers instead of agents, it would be easy to discredit them, and to carry off the weight of any discoveries they could make, by shewing they were madınen, and so not like to be trusted in critical things. "The most extraordinary passage, though it is but a presumption, was told me by Dr. Lloyd and the countess of Clarendon. The latter had a great estate in the New River that is brought from Ware to London, which is brought together at Islington, where there is a great room full of pipes that convey it through all the streets of London. The constant order of that matter was, to set all the pipes a running

be broke open, and the cocks turned. And it was long before the water got to London. Grant indeed denied that he had turned the cocks. But the officer of the works affirmed, that he had, according to order, set them all a running, and that no person had got the keys from him, besides Grant who confessed he had carried away the keys, but pretended he did it without design. There were many other stories set about, as that the papists in several places had asked, if there was no news of the burning of London, and that it was talked of in many parts beyond sea, long before the news could get thither from London. In this matter I was much determined by what sir Thomas Littleton, the father, told me. He was a man of a strong head, and sound judgment. He had just as much knowledge in trade, history, the disposition of Europe, and the constitution of England, as served to feed and direct his own thoughts, and no more, He lived all

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Ordered, That Mr. Davies, sir Tho. Higgins, Mr. St. John, sir Richard Franklin, sir Tho. Tompkins, Mr. Devereux, Mr. Millard, Mr. Lewis, Mr. Dodswell, sir James Thyn, Sir

the summer long in London, where I was his next neighbour, and had for seven years a constant and daily conversation with him. He was Treasurer of the navy in conjunction with Osborn, who was afterwards Lord Treasurer, who supplanted him in that post, and got it all into his own hands. He had a very bad opinion of the king; and thought, that he had worse intentions than his brother, but that he had a more dexterous way of covering and managing them; only his laziness made him less earnest in prosecuting them. He had generally the character of the ablest parliament man in his time. His chief estate lay in the city, not far from the place where the fire broke out, though it did not turn that way. He was one of the committee of the House of Commons, that examined all the presumptions of the city's being burnt on design: And he often assured me, that there was no clear presumption made out about it, and that many stories, which were published with good assurance, came to nothing upon a strict examination. He was at that time, that the inquiry was made, in employment at court. So, whether that biassed him, or not, I cannot tell. There was so great a diversity of opinions in the matter, that I must leave it under the same uncertainty in which I found it. If the French and Dutch had been at that time designing an impression elsewhere, it might have been more reasonable to suppose it was done on design to distract our affairs. But it fell out at a dead time when no advantage could be made of it. And it did not seem probable, that the Papists had engaged in the design, merely to impoverish and ruin the nation; for they had nothing ready then to graft upon the confusion that this put all the people in. Above twelve thousand houses were burnt down, with the greatest part of the furniture and merchandize that was in them. All means used to stop it proved ineffectual; tho' the blowing up of houses was the most effectual of any. But the wind was so high, that fleaks of fire and burning matter were carried in the air cross several streets. So that the fire spread not only in the next neighbourhood, but at a great distance. The king and the duke were almost all the day long on horseback with the guards, seeing to all that could

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WM. GOLDESBROUGH, Cler. Dom. Com. forementioned orders of the house, did meet in The honourable committee, according to the the Speaker's chamber, and having chosen Sir Robert Brooke for their chairman, proceeded to receive many considerable informations from

divers credible persons, about the matter wherewith they were intrusted, and thereupon did at last agree that sir Robert Brook should make the ensuing Report to the honourable House of Commons.

be done, either for quenching the fire, or for carrying off persons and goods to the fields all about London. The most astonishing circumstance of that dreadful conflagration was, that, notwithstanding the great destruction that was made, and the great confusion in the streets, I could never hear of any one person that was either burnt, or trodden to death. The king was never observed to be so much struck with any thing in his whole life, as with this. But the citizens were not so well satisfied with the duke's behaviour. They thought he looked too gay, and too little concerned. A jealousy of bis being concerned in it was spread about with great industry, but with very little appearance of truth. Yet it grew to be gradually believed, chiefly after he owned he was a Papist." Burnet.

"It was upon the first day of that September, in the dismal year of 1666 (in which many prodigies were expected and so many really fell out) that that memorable and terrible fire brake out in London, which begun about midnight, or nearer the morning of Sunday, in a baker's house at the end of Thames-street next the Tower, there being many little narrow al leys and very poor houses about the place where it first appeared; and then finding such store of combustible materials, as that street is always furnished with in timber-houses, the fire prevailed so powerfully, that that whole street and the neighbourhood was in so short a time turned to ashes, that few persons had time to save and preserve any of their goods; but were a heap of people almost as dead with the sudden distraction, as the ruins were which they sustained. The magistrates of the city assem bled quickly together, and with the usual reme dies of buckets, which they were provided with: but the fire was too ravenous to be ex tinguished with such quantities of water as those instruments could apply to it, and fastened still upon new materials before it had destroyed the old. And though it raged furiously all that day, to that degree that all men stood amazed, as spectators only, no man knowing what remedy to apply, nor the magistrates what orders to give: yet it kept within some compass, burned what was next, and laid bold only on both sides; and the greatest appreben

THE REPORT OF SIR ROBERT BROOK, Chairman to the Committee that was appointed by the House of Commons to inquire into the Firing of the City of London; made the 22nd January, 1667.

In a letter from Alanson, of the 23rd of August, 1666, New Stile, written from one Dural to a gentleman in lodging in the house of one of the ministers of the French Church in London, called M. Herault, there were these expressions :

“Pray acquaint me with the truth of certain news which is common in this country, that a fire from heaven is fallen upon a city called Belke, situated on the side of the River of Thames, where a world of people have been killed and burnt, and houses also consumed" which seemed a word of Cabal, cast out by some that were knowing, and others that might be ignorant of the signification of it.

Mrs. Elizabeth Styles informs, That in April last, in an eager discourse she had with a French

sion was of the lower, and all considerations entered upon how to secure that place.

"But in the night the wind changed and carried the danger from thence, but with so great and irresistible violence, that as it kept the English and Dutch fleets from grappling when they were so near each other, so it scattered the fire from pursuing the line it was in with all its force, and spread it over the city: so that they who went late to bed at a great distance from any place where the fire prevailed, were awakened before morning with their own house's being in a flame; and whilst endeavour was used to quench that, other houses were discovered to be burning, which were near no place from whence they could imagine the fire could come; all which kindled another fire in the breasts of men, almost as dangerous as that within their houses.

"Monday morning produced first a jealousy and then an universal conclusion, that this fire came not by chance, nor did they care where it began; but the breaking out in several places at so great distance from each other made it evident, that it was by conspiracy and combination. And this determination could not hold long without discovery of the wicked authors, who were concluded to be all the Dutch and all the French in the town, though they had inhabited the same places above twenty years. All of that kind, or if they were strangers, of what nation soever, were laid hold of; and after all the ill usage that can consist in words, and some blows and kicks, they were thrown into prison. And shortly after, the same conclusion comprehended all the Roman Catholics, who were in the same predicament of guilt and danger, and quickly found that their only safety consisted in keeping within doors; and yet some of them, and of quality, were taken by force out of their houses and carried to prison.

servant of sir Vere Fan, he hastily replied, You English maids will like the Frenchmen better when there is not a house left between TempleBar and London-Bridge. To which she answered, I hope your eyes will never see that: he replyed, This will come to pass between Jung and October.

William Tisdale informs, That he being about Martins, with Fitz-harris an Irish Papist, heard the beginning of July at the Greyhound in St. him say, there would be a sad desolation in September, in November a worse, in December all would be united into one. Whereupon be asked him, where this desolation would be? he answered, in London.

with Mr. Langhorne of the Middle-Temple, Mr. Light of Ratcliff, having some discourse Barrister, (reputed a zealous papist) about February 15 last, after some discourse in disputation about religion, he took him by the hand, and said to him, You expect great things in 1666, and think that Rome will be destroyed, but what if it be London.

"When this rage spread as far as the fire, and every hour brought reports of some bloody effects of it, worse than in truth there were, the king distributed many of the privy council into several quarters of the city, to prevent, by their authorities, those inhumanities which he heard were committed. In the mean time, even they or any other person thought it not safe to declare, "That they believed that the fire came by accident, or that it was not a Plot of the Dutch and the French and Papists to burn the city;" which was so generally believed, and in the best company, that he who said the contrary was suspected for a conspirator, or at best a favourer of them. It could not be conceived how a house that was distant a mile from any part of the fire, could suddenly be in a flame, without some particular malice; and this case fell out every hour. When a man at the farthest end of Bread-street had made a shift to get out of his house his best and most portable goods, because the fire had approached near them; he no sooner had secured them, as he thought, in some friend's house in Holborn, which was believed a safe distance, but he saw that very house, and none else near it, in a sudden flame. Nor did there want in this woeful distemper, the testimony of witnesses who saw this villainy committed, and apprehended men who they were ready to swear threw fireballs into houses, which were presently burning.

"The lord Hollis and lord Ashley, who had their quarters signed about Newgate Market and the streets adjacent, bad many brought to them in custody for crimes of this nature; and saw, within a very little distance from the place where they were, the people gathered together in great disorder; and as they came nearer saw a man in the middle of them without a hat or cloak, pulled and hauled and very ill used, whom they knew to be a servant to the Portu

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