Beckwith’s gunsmiths on Skinner Street, directly across Snow Hill from Godwin’s bookshop, was looted by rioters from the mass meeting at Spa Fields, Islington, which had been organised by the ultra-radical Spenceans and addressed by Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt and others. The rioters included James Watson, one of the Spencean leaders, but his trial, along with those of leading Spenceans, collapsed and John Cashman was the only person convicted.

See Locke, pp. 282-3. See laso Godwin's entry for 12 March 1817.