“Well thought of,” cried the lord mayor.  “I will go thither at once.  Do you stay here.  Your advice will be useful.  I will examine you touching the incendiary to-morrow—­that is, if we are any of us left alive, which I don’t expect.  Lord, Lord! what will become of us?” And with many similar ejaculations, he hurried off with the sheriffs, and the greater part of his attendants, and taking his way down Saint Michael’s-lane, soon reached the river-side.

By this time, the fire had approached the summit of Fish-street-hill, and here the overhanging stories of the houses coming so close together as almost to meet at the top, the flames speedily caught the other side, and spread the conflagration in that direction.  Two other houses were likewise discovered to be on fire in Crooked-lane, and in an incredibly short space the whole dense mass of habitations lying at the west side of Fish-street-hill, and between Crooked-lane and Eastcheap, were in flames, and threatening the venerable church of Saint Michael, which stood in the midst of them, with instant destruction.  To the astonishment of all who witnessed it, the conflagration seemed to proceed as rapidly against the wind, as with it, and to be approaching Thames-street, both by Pudding-lane and Saint Michael’s-lane.  A large stable, filled with straw and hay, at the back of the Star Inn, in Little Eastcheap, caught fire, and carrying the conflagration eastward, had already conveyed it as far as Botolph-lane.

It chanced that a poor Catholic priest, travelling from Douay to England, had landed that night, and taken up his quarters at the hotel above mentioned.  The landlord, who had been roused by the cries of fire, and alarmed by the rumours of incendiaries, immediately called to mind his guest, and dragging him from his room, thrust him, half-naked, into the street.  Announcing his conviction that the poor priest was an incendiary to the mob without, they seized him, and in spite of his protestations and explanations, which, being uttered in a foreign tongue, they could not comprehend, they were about to exercise summary punishment upon him, by hanging him to the sign-post before the landlord’s door, when they were diverted from their dreadful purpose by Solomon Eagle, who prevailed upon them to carry him to Newgate.

The conflagration had now assumed so terrific a character that it appalled even the stoutest spectator.  It has been mentioned, that for many weeks previous to the direful calamity, the weather had been remarkably dry and warm, a circumstance which had prepared the old wooden houses, abounding in this part of the city, for almost instantaneous ignition.  Added to this, if the incendiaries themselves had deposited combustible materials at certain spots to extend the conflagration, they could not have selected better places than accident had arranged.  All sorts of inflammable goods were contained in the shops and ware-houses,—­oil, hemp, flax, pitch, tar, cordage, sugar, wine, and spirits; and when any magazine of this sort caught fire, it spread the conflagration with tenfold rapidity.