you’d find your way about in the dark after a little practice. pray don’t allow any sweethearts; they may be swings and captain rocks in disguise, and their pretended flames turn out real. i’ve misgivings about the maids. tie them up and taste their liver, before they eat it themselves—i mean the house-dogs; but my agitation makes me unconnected. the scoundrels often poison them, before they attempt robbery and arson. keep the cattle in the cowhouse for fear of their being houghed and hamstrung. surely there were great defects somewhere. the houses could not have been properly protected—if they had been watched as well as they were lighted—but it is too late to cast any blame on individuals. a paltry spirit of economy has been our bane. a few shillings would have purchased a watch-dog; and one or two geese in each house might have saved the capitol of the constitution! but the incendiary knew how to choose his time—an adjournment when there were none sitting.
i say incendiary, because no doubt can exist in any cool mind, that enters into the conflagration. i transcribe conclusive extracts from several papers, the editors of which i know to be upright men, and they all write on one side.
“we are confidently informed,” says the beacon,
[pg 84]
“that a quantity of tar-barrels was purchased at no. 2, high-street, shadwell, about ten o’clock on the morning of the fire. there was abundant time before six a.m., for removing the combustibles to westminster. the purchaser was a short, squat, down-looking man, and the name on his cart was i. burns.”
“trifling circumstances,” says the sentinel, “sometimes point to great results. our own opinion is formed. we have made it our business to examine the guys in preparation for the impending anniversary of the gunpowder plot, and we affirm that every one of the effigies bore a striking resemblance to some member or other of assemblies we need not name. these are signs of the times.”
“we should be loth,” says the detector, “to impute the late calamity to any particular party: but we may reasonably inquire what relative stake in the country is possessed by the whigs and the tories. the english language may be taken as a fair standard. the first may lay claim to perri-wig, scratch-wig, tie-wig, bob-wig, in short, the whole family of the perruques, with whig-maleery. the latter, not to mention other good things, have a vested right in oratory, history, territory, and victory. can a man of common patriotism have a doubt which side it is his interest to adhere to?”
