unorganised pillage, and on the other emboldened by the wavering
conduct of the authorities, sent a deputation provided with carts and
all necessary gear to clear out two or three big provision stores in
the centre of the town, leaving papers with the shop managers
promising to pay the price of them: and also in the part of the town
where they were strongest they took possession of several bakers'
shops and set men at work in them for the benefit of the people;--all
of which was done with little or no disturbance, the police assisting
in keeping order at the sack of the stores, as they would have done
at a big fire.

"But at this last stroke the reactionaries were so alarmed, that they
were, determined to force the executive into action. The newspapers
next day all blazed into the fury of frightened people, and
threatened the people, the Government, and everybody they could think
of, unless 'order were at once restored.' A deputation of leading
commercial people waited on the Government and told them that if they
did not at once arrest the Committee of Public Safety, they
themselves would gather a body of men, arm them, and fall on 'the
incendiaries,' as they called them.

"They, together with a number of the newspaper editors, had a long
interview with the heads of the Government and two or three military
men, the deftest in their art that the country could furnish. The
deputation came away from that interview, says a contemporary eye-
witness, smiling and satisfied, and said no more about raising an
anti-popular army, but that afternoon left London with their families
for their country seats or elsewhere.

"The next morning the Government proclaimed a state of siege in