Even of the three hundred prisoners who had escaped from Newgate, there
were some--a few, but there were some--who sought their jailers out and
delivered themselves up: preferring imprisonment and punishment to the
horrors of such another night as the last. Many of the convicts, drawn
back to their old place of captivity by some indescribable attraction,
or by a desire to exult over it in its downfall and glut their revenge
by seeing it in ashes, actually went back in broad noon, and loitered
about the cells. Fifty were retaken at one time on this next day, within
the prison walls; but their fate did not deter others, for there they
went in spite of everything, and there they were taken in twos and
threes, twice or thrice a day, all through the week. Of the fifty just
mentioned, some were occupied in endeavouring to rekindle the fire; but
in general they seemed to have no object in view but to prowl and lounge
about the old place: being often found asleep in the ruins, or sitting
talking there, or even eating and drinking, as in a choice retreat.
Besides the notices on the gates of the Fleet and the King's Bench,
many similar announcements were left, before one o'clock at noon, at
the houses of private individuals; and further, the mob proclaimed their
intention of seizing on the Bank, the Mint, the Arsenal at Woolwich, and
the Royal Palaces.
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