Event Comment: Books of the Opera to be sold at the Theatre. Nothing under FULL PRICE can be taken. Opera not perform'd this season. [A riot this night in which the benches were torn up. Led by
Fitzpatrick against the abolishment of the custom of admitting at half-price after the third act. See previous disturbance at
Drury Lane. No more plays at cg until 3 March 1763 while repairs were being made to theatre. See
Gentleman's Magazine, Feb. 1763,
Historical Chronicle, Th. 24: A riot happened at
Covent Garden theatre occasioned by a demand being made for full prices at the opera
Artaxerxes. The mischief done was the greatest ever known on any occasion of the like kind; all the benches of the boxes and Pit being entirely tore up, the glasses and chandeliers broken, and the linings of the Boxes cut to pieces. The rashness of the rioters was so great, that they cut aWay the wooden pillars between the Boxes, so that if the inside of them had not been iron, they would have brought down the Galleries upon their heads. The damages done amount to at least #2000. Four persons concern'd in the riot have been committed to the gatehouse.
The Beauties of All Magazines Selected, for March 1763 (p. 142) reprinted from the
Ledger a humorous account of this riot as told by a sailor in fabricated seaman's language: As soon as the foresheet was clewed up...As to my 5s., why the owners are welcome to it towards repair, for you stripp'd plank, timbers, and scantlings,-you gutted her; she look'd like a
French prize, after a yard-arm engagement."