"The door sank down again; it settled deeper in the cinders, tottered, yielded, was down.
"As they shouted again they fell back for a moment and left a clear space about the fire that lay between them and the gaol entry. Hugh leaped upon the blazing heap, and scattering a train of sparks into the air, and making the dark lobby glitter with those that hung upon his dress, dashed into the gaol.
"The hangman followed. And then so many rushed upon their track that the fire got trodden down and thinly strewed about the street; but there was no need of it now, for, inside and out, the prison was in flames."
The rioters celebrated the capture of Newgate in roaring style. They commanded and compelled the citizens all around the place to illuminate their houses from bottom to top, as if for a glorious national event, and at a time of public gayety and joy. "When this last task had been achieved the shouts and cries grew fainter; the clank of the fetters, which had resounded on all sides as the prisoners escaped, was heard no more; all the noises of the crowd subsided into a hoarse and sullen murmur as it passed into the distance; and when the human tide had rolled away, a melancholy heap of smoking ruins marked the spot where it had lately chafed and roared." Among the spectators of the capture of Newgate was the poet Crabbe, then a young man seeking his fortune in London, and he has left a description of it in his journal. Dr. Johnson records the fact that "on Wednesday I walked with Dr. Scott (Lord Stowell) to look at Newgate and found it in ruins, with the fire yet glowing. As I went by, the Protestants were plundering the Sessions House in the Old Bailey. There were not, I believe, a hundred; but they did their work at leisure, in full security, without sentinels, without trepidation, as men lawfully employed, in full day."
At the period of the Gordon Riots, Newgate was in the course of reconstruction. The present prison was designed by George Dance, R. A., the architect of the Mansion House and other public buildings. The famous Lord Mayor Beckford, father of the author of "Vathek," laid the foundation stone on May 23, 1770, this being his last public act. Work seems to have progressed slowly on it, for the newer portion was only in part completed when the Gordon mob stormed the older sections. This event served as a warning, however. Within two years Newgate was in stronger shape than ever; and substantially in the shape which, after the passage of more than a century, it still presents to the world.