A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV | Page 9

buffets of the world had so incensed that he was reckless what he did to spite the world. He soon got around him a small gang of agitators as ignorant and almost as crazy as himself, and he initiated them into a grand scheme for dealing a death-blow to all the ministers at once, and then seizing on the Bank, Mansion House, and Tower of London, and from these strongholds proclaiming the existence of a provisional government.
Now the whole notion of such a plot as this, and any possible success coming out of it, may seem, at first sight, too crazy to be accepted by any set of men, however ignorant or however wicked, who were not downright lunatics. But it is certain that Thistlewood did find a small number of men who were not actually lunatics, and who yet were ready to join with him and to risk their lives in his enterprise. The first act in the plot was to be the assassination of the King's ministers. One of the professional spies in the employment of the authorities, a man named Edwards, was already in communication with Thistlewood and his friends. The plot had been for a considerable time in preparation, and it was put off for a while because of the death of George the Third, and the hopes entertained by the conspirators that the new King might go back to the political principles of his earlier years, discard Lord Liverpool, Lord Sidmouth, and his other Tory advisers, and thus render it unnecessary for patriotic men to put them to death in order to save the country.
When, however, it became apparent that George the Fourth was to keep around him the ministers who had served him when he was Prince Regent, it was determined that the work must go on. Edwards, the spy, was able to make it known to Thistlewood that there was to be a dinner of the members of the Cabinet on February 23, 1820, and the opportunity was thought to be placed by a kindly fate in the hands of the conspirators. Meanwhile the minister at whose house the dinner was to take place, Lord {18} Harrowby, was kept fully informed of all that was going on, and he wisely resolved to take no public notice of the scheme until the day for the dinner should arrive, when the instruments of the wholesale murder-plot could be suddenly arrested at the moment of their attempt to carry out their design. Thistlewood and most of his companions had their headquarters in the garrets of a house in Cato Street, Edgware Road, and there it was arranged among them that they should remain until one or two of their accomplices, who were kept at watch for the purpose, should come to them and report that the doomed dinner-guests had assembled. Then the conspirators were to repair to the neighborhood of Lord Harrowby's house in Grosvenor Square. One of the outpost men was to knock at Lord Harrowby's door, and the moment the door was opened all the gang were to rush in and put the ministers to death. Lord Harrowby took good care not to have any guests that evening, but the outpost men of the conspiracy were deceived by the fact that a dinner-party was actually going on at the house of the Archbishop of York next door, and when they saw carriages arriving there they felt sure this was the dinner-party for which they were waiting. They waited there until the last of the guests appeared to have arrived, and then set out to give notice to Thistlewood and his companions. Before the outpost men had got back to Cato Street the police were already there, and an attempt was made to arrest the whole of the conspirators. A scuffle took place, in which Thistlewood stabbed one of the policemen to the heart. The constituted authorities had contrived to make almost as much of a bungle as the conspirators had done; the military force did not arrive in time, and Thistlewood and some of his accomplices succeeded, for the moment, in making their escape. It was only for the moment. Thistlewood was arrested next day. There was nothing heroic or dramatic about the manner of his capture. He had sought refuge at the house of a friend in Moorfields, and he was comfortably asleep in bed when the house was surrounded and he was made prisoner. He was put on trial soon after, and, {19} with four of his accomplices, was sentenced to death, and on May 1 the five were executed.
[Sidenote: 1820--The government and the conspiracy]
The evidence at the trial made it clear to any reasonable mind that the plot was confined altogether to the small knot of ignorant desperadoes who held their