In almost every street,
there was a battle; and in every quarter the muskets of the troops were
heard above the shouts and tumult of the mob. The firing began in the
Poultry, where the chain was drawn across the road, where nearly a score
of people were killed on the first discharge. Their bodies having been
hastily carried into St Mildred's Church by the soldiers, the latter
fired again, and following fast upon the crowd, who began to give way
when they saw the execution that was done, formed across Cheapside, and
charged them at the point of the bayonet.
The streets were now a dreadful spectacle. The shouts of the rabble,
the shrieks of women, the cries of the wounded, and the constant firing,
formed a deafening and an awful accompaniment to the sights which every
corner presented. Wherever the road was obstructed by the chains, there
the fighting and the loss of life were greatest; but there was hot work
and bloodshed in almost every leading thoroughfare.
At Holborn Bridge, and on Holborn Hill, the confusion was greater than
in any other part; for the crowd that poured out of the city in two
great streams, one by Ludgate Hill, and one by Newgate Street, united at
that spot, and formed a mass so dense, that at every volley the people
seemed to fall in heaps.
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