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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 277: TRIAL OF LORD GEORGE GORDON AND THE RIOTERS.
By Edward Farr
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

TRIAL OF LORD GEORGE GORDON AND THE RIOTERS.

Immediately after the riots had subsided, Lord George Gordon was apprehended upon a warrant from the secretary of state, and after a brief examination before several lords of the privy council, was committed to the Tower on a charge of high-treason. While he was immured within the walls of his prison, during the month of July, the vengeance of the law fell upon those of the rioters which had been captured in then lawless depredations. No less than fifty-nine were capitally convicted, and twenty were executed: the rest were transported for life. Lord George was not tried till the month of January, 1781, when he was acquitted; his counsel showing that he was insane, and the jury conceiving that his case did not amount to high-treason. He afterwards gave undoubted proof of his insanity by turning Jew! Finally, he died in Newgate, where he was imprisoned for various libels on foreign potentates.