THEY were not the less disconcerted, when one of the gentlemen, turning to Lord George, spoke thus — in a loud voice that they might hear him well, but quite coolly and collectedly:
‘You may tell these people, if you please, my lord, that I am General Conway of whom they have heard;* and that I oppose this petition, and all their proceedings, and yours. I am a soldier, you may tell them, and I will protect the freedom of this place with my sword. You see, my lord, that the members of this House are all in arms to-day; you know that the entrance to it is a narrow one; you cannot be ignorant that there are men within these walls who are determined to defend that pass to the last, and before whom many lives must fall if your adherents persevere. Have a care what you do.’
‘And my Lord George,’ said the other gentleman, addressing him in like manner, ‘I desire them to hear this, from me — Colonel Gordon — your near relation.* If a man among this crowd, whose uproar strikes us deaf, crosses the threshold of the House of Commons, I swear to run my sword that moment — not into his, but into your body!’*
* Field Marshal Henry Seymour Conway (1721-1795), a brother of the 1st Marquess of Hertford. His cousin Horace Walpole, the novelist, was a son of Sir Robert Walpole, recognised today as the country’s first Prime Minister. Conway assumed that the crowd of protesters would know his name with good reason: he had been Secretary of State for the Northern Department (i.e. Home Secretary) in 1766-1768, Leader of the House of Commons in 1765-1768, Secretary of State for the Southern Department (i.e. Foreign Secretary) in 1765-1766, and Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1755–1757; before that, he had served with distinction in the British army during the War of Austrian Succession, at Dettingen in June 1743 and Fontenoy in May 1745, going on to face Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden in April 1746.
* General William Gordon (1736-1816), who was Lord George Gordon’s uncle.
* Dickens’s telling of the tale drew almost verbatim on reports in The Political Magazine and Parliamentary, Naval, Military, and Literary Journal for June 1780. The mob backed away but went on a spree lasting several days of arson and vandalism, targeting the homes and churches of Roman Catholics but also breaking open gaols and attacking the Bank of England. About 450 were killed or wounded before the army managed to restore order.