With news of Wilkes's conviction and imprisonment,…
May 1768 CE
Over the next two weeks numbers had increased daily.
On May 10 as many as fifteen thousand people have gathered near the prison.
They begin chanting "Wilkes and Liberty", "No Liberty, No King", and "Damn the King! Damn the Government! Damn the Justices!" outside the prison.
Concerned about the intent of the crowd, four Justices of the peace from Surrey ask for military protection.
A detachment of the Horse Grenadier Guards is sent to the prison.
When the troops arrived, people shout insults at the soldiers.
A particularly obnoxious man wearing a red coat repeatedly goads the troops.
After a unit of soldiers is sent to apprehend him, he is chased to a barn.
One of the soldiers shoots a person inside wearing a red coat.
However, the victim turns out to be an innocent young man named William Allen who worked at the farm.
He is buried in the churchyard at Newington where a monument was erected to his memory.
The news of the death only inflames the crowd, and the situation is made worse when the JPs address the restless mob ordering it to disperse.
Fearing that the situation is rapidly deteriorating and an attempt will be made to free Wilkes, the Riot Act is read while a call is made for more soldiers (from the 3rd regiment of Foot guards).
The crowd grows restless; stones are pelted at the soldiers who open fire.
Some fire into the crowd but others fire over the heads.
Several people are killed (as many as eleven in contemporary sources) including a passer-by who is struck by bullets that had been fired over the crowd.
At least fifteen people are wounded.
With the outbreak of shooting, the crowd rapidly breaks up but word of the killings quickly spreads, triggering fierce riots throughout the capital.
Benjamin Franklin, who is in London at the time, reports of "sawyers destroying saw-mills; sailors unrigging all the outward bound ships [...] Watermen destroying private boats and threatening bridges."
The crisis is so severe, it is rumored that the king contemplates abdication.
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