Then another of the patrol cried:

"We are officers: seize their arms."

And a third:

"Gentlemen, we have got a warrant, to apprehend
you all, and as such we hope you will
go peaceably."

Just then, Smithers, distrusting further parley,
and believing, in his staunch way, in promptitude
before the conspirators could discover the
scantiness of the assailing numbers, or could
muster courage to use their arms, cried:

"Let me come forward."

And pushed towards the door of the inner
room, where Thistlewood stood thrusting with
a very long sword. The leader of the conspirators
instantly rushed forward and struck
Smithers through his right side. The constable
threw up his hands, his head fell back, he
staggered against Ruthven, cried "O  my God, I am
done!" and fell dead near the opening of the
stairs. Ellice held up his staff at Thistlewood,
and threatened to fire with the pistol in his right
hand, unless he instantly surrendered. The
lights were immediately dashed out, and a voice
cried in the darkness:

"Kill the———at once! Throw them
downstairs! Kill them!"

Then there were twenty or thirty pistol-shots
fired, and a tremendous headlong rush was made
at the stairs, driving the Bow-street men
backwards; the conspirators leaping down into the
manger through the holes in the floor, or by
the window, others firing at the officers on the
stairs or up through the manger, all making for
the archway in John-street. Tidd was caught
in the doorway, thrown on a dung-heap by
Ruthven, and disarmed. Davidson was
pursued and taken in John-street. Wright, a
patrol, was knocked down and stabbed by Ings,
who was caught by a watchman in Edgeware-
road after having fired at Brooks, one of the
officers who had attacked him with his cutlass.

In the mean time, the picquet of Foot Guards,
hearing pistol-shots in the stable, had dashed up
at the double, being met by a police-officer, who
shouted to them:

"Soldiers, soldiers! The doorway! The
stable!"

As Lieutenant Fitzclarence entered the door,
a man cut at him furiously with a sword, but
retreated before the soldiers, who then captured
four of the remaining conspirators. Thistlewood
had escaped before this in the first rush, firing
at Westcott, a constable, cutting at him, and
felIing him.

The prisoners taken were searched at the
Horse and Groom, and the loft was ransacked
for arms. The soldiers found several parcels of
bayonets, sharpened files, and pike-heads, a box
containing five hundred and sixty-five ball-
cartridges, fire-balls made of tow dipped in tar and
brimstone, and grenades full of cart-nails.

Brunt was seized the next day at his own
house, and was just despatching two baskets
full of grenades and fire-balls to some accomplice
living in the Borough. The same morning
Thistlewood was seized in bed in a room with
the shutters up on the ground floor of No. 8,
White-street, Finsbury-square. He was partly
dressed, and in his coat lying by his bedside
were found a silk sash, some bullets, and a ball-
cartridge. In Tidd's house, No. 5, Hole-in-
the-Wall-passage, were discovered a box of ball-
cartridges, grenades, flannel bags of powder, bags
of musket-balls, flints, pike-handles, rope yarn,
and tar.

Thistlewood and his gang (eleven in all) were
tried on the 17th of April, 1820, at the Sessions
House, Old Bailey. Mr. Curwood and Mr.
Adolphus appearing for the defence, Mr. Gurney,
Mr. Littledale, Mr. Reynolds, and Mr. Bolland,
with the Attorney and Solicitor-General, for the
prosecution.

At this trial it was clearly elicited that
towards the end of 1819 the prisoners Ings,
Brunt, and others, had long planned a
conspiracy, Thistlewood openly avowing that he
had shared in four or five revolutions. Shortly
before the funeral of the king they agreed to
assassinate all the ministers, if possible, at a
cabinet dinner. They decided that the Prince
Regent's family had worn the crown long
enough. The plot was always called by the
gang "the West End job." One night they
were debating several diabolical plans, when
Edwards (the spy) came in, and told Thistlewood
there was a cabinet dinner to be held the
following evening. Thistlewood, hardly believing
the possibility of such good news, said he
did not think it was true, but sent for a paper,
and read aloud the announcement, to the
universal rapture of the gang.

As for Brunt, he was nearly mad with joy.

"Now," he cried, with a ferocious oath, "I
begin to believe there is a God; for I've often
prayed those thieves might be got together
in order to give us a good opportunity to
destroy them, and now my prayer is answered."

Thistlewood, always calm, stern, and practical,
proposed an instant committee to arrange a fresh
plan. Singularly enough, they chose for their
chairman Adams, afterwards the informer. He
called Thistlewood to order, and expressed his
fears of a betrayal. The conspirators began to
swear like madmen at this, and Harrison, walking
up and down, fixed his eyes on Adams,
and said, with an oath:

"The next man that drops a word to cool
any one, and to prevent their going forward to
do the deed they had determined, I'll run him
through with a sword."

When called upon by the Clerk of the
Arraigns, Thistlewood denounced the spies and
informers as infamous liars and unreliable men,
and violently denounced the judges for their
servility and ambition, and Lords Casthreagh and
Sidmouth as privileged traitors, who lorded it
over the lives and property of the sovereign
people with barefaced impunity. He said,
in inflated and fanatical Ianguage:

"A few hours hence and I shall be no more;
but the nightly breeze which will whistle over
the silent grave that shall protect me from its
keenness will bear to your restless pillow the