What a sight I came in for last night, my dear Little Mamma. The burning down of the Royal Exchange!! I write you a few lines this morning to put your mind at ease respecting me. Being so close to it, we were, as you may suppose, kept in a state of great excitement and alarm. It was splendidly awful to see the beautiful dome all in a blaze, and tumbling piece by piece into the flames below, and the bells chiming their last in the midst of the fire, and strange to say, the last tune they chimed was at twelve o’clock, and that tune was “There is na luck about the House.” It quite affected me to hear it, and it had a choking effect upon us all, for the bells literally dropped one by one as they were playing the tune. All that now remains of this once great work of Sir Thomas Gresham’s, are the pillars! What ages it took to build that which a few hours has consumed! The gentlemen here rendered all the assistance they could, and when they came home at six o’clock this morning, the frost was so hard, that their clothes were literally frozen upon them, and they waited to melt them before they could take them off. We ladies have never been in bed, and have been kept very busy making hot tea all the morning for the frozen men who have dropped in. The house has been thronged all the morning with Lloyd’s people. I shall be with you to-morrow, dearest; so more anon.
