when a voice among them exclaimed, "Try fire!" Tar barrels, and other such combustibles, were immediately applied; a large bonfire speedily arose, and a hole was burnt in the door, through which the terrified gaoler flung the keys. The mob now poured in, leaving the doors open for the advantage of the other prisoners, who, of course, did not neglect this opportunity to escape. But the ringleaders steadily pursued their course to the apartment of Porteous, and broke through its locks and bars. What was their rage and disappointment to find it empty! The unhappy man, hearing the tumult and the shouts for his life, had endeavoured to save it by ascending the chimney, but his progress was arrested by an iron grating, which, as usual in prisons, was fixed across the vent. His place of concealment was too obvious for security; he was soon discovered, dragged down, and told to prepare for the death he had deserved; nor was the slightest attention shown either to his prayers for mercy, or to the offers of large sums of money with which he attempted to redeem his life. Yet with all this sternness of the rioters, there was, as before, a strange mixture of forbearance: Porteous was allowed to intrust his money and papers to a friend (a prisoner confined for debt) in behalf of his family; and one of the conspirators, a man of grave and reverend aspect, undertook the part of clergyman, and offered such spiritual exhortations as are proper to a dying man. They then led their victim towards the Grass Market, the usual scene of public executions, and which, being the place of his offence, they determined should be also the place of his punishment. He refused to walk; but they mounted him on the hands of two of the rioters clasped together, and forming what in Scotland is termed, I suppose from irony, "the King's "cushion." Such was their coolness, that, when Porteous dropped one of his slippers, they halted until it was picked up and replaced on his foot.*

Having reached the Grass Market, the rioters obtained a coil of ropes by breaking open a dealer's booth, and at

*This slight but characteristic incident was told Sir Walter Scott by the daughter of a lady who saw it from her window. Note to the Heart of Mid-Lothian, ch. vii.

the same time left a guinea in payment for it; another circumstance denoting that the ringleaders were by no means of the lowest class. Their next search was for the gallows; but these being removed to a distance, they seized a dyer's pole, and proceeded to the execution of their victim. His dying struggles were long, but unavailing; the rioters calmly watched till life was wholly extinct, and then, quietly drawing in their outposts, dispersed without noise. The arms which they had taken from the City Guards they now flung away the streets were left perfectly quiet; and at daybreak the scattered weapons and the suspended body formed the only tokens of the dreadful deed of that night.

The news of this outrage, being sent by express to the Government in London, was received with no small astonishment and indignation. A riot so deliberate, orderly, and well-conducted, as almost to mock the formalities of a judicial sentence, seemed so high a pitch of insolence, that, as the Lord Chief Justice Clerk declared, "there " is an end of Government if such practices are suffered "to escape punishment."* Queen Caroline, above all, was greatly irritated, looking upon the murder of Porteous as a direct insult to her person and authority. There is still a tradition in Scotland, that Her Majesty, in the first burst of her resentment, exclaimed to the Duke of Argyle, that, sooner than submit to such things, she would make Scotland a hunting field. "In that case, Madam," answered Argyle, with a profound bow, but with no courtly spirit, "I will take leave of your Majesty, and go down to my own country to get my hounds ready!"

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It was, however, Argyle's brother, the Earl of Isla, whom the Government immediately despatched to Edinburgh, with strict orders and full powers to detect, convict, and punish the offenders. But neither the rewards offered, nor the threats denounced, produced any disclosure. All the exertions of Isla ended only in collecting some vague rumours, which he could never trace to any authority, nor lead to any result. The popular feeling was evidently not for the murdered but for the murderers. I find in Isla's report to Walpole, "The most

To the Duke of Newcastle, September 16. 1736.

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shocking circumstance is, that it plainly appears the highflyers of our Scotch Church have made this in"famous murder a point of conscience. One of the "actors went straight away to a country church, where "the Sacrament was given to a vast crowd of people, as "the fashion is here, and there boasted what he had "done. All the lower rank of the people who had distinguished themselves by pretences to a superior sanctity talk of this murder as the hand of God doing 'justice; and my endeavours to punish murderers are "called grievous persecutions. I have conversed with "several of the parsons ; and, indeed, I could "hardly have given credit to the public reports of the 66 temper of these saints if I had not myself been witness "to it."* Thus was all search impeded, nor was any discovery made. Even at the present time, the origin of this singular conspiracy remains as much a mystery as ever. We can only conjecture that the ringleaders, whoever they might be, took care to leave Edinburgh, and even Scotland, as soon as their crime was perpetrated, and did not venture to return for some years; and we learn from Sir Walter Scott, that, in his younger days, the voice of common rumour pointed out certain individuals, though without any proof, who had returned from the East and West Indies in improved circumstances, as having fled abroad on account of the Porteous Mob. +

But though there had been no discovery, who could tolerate that there should be no punishment? In the next Session, a Bill was brought in for this object, framed in a violent and vindictive spirit, far unlike the usual moderation of the Minister, and probably the effect of the Queen's resentment. Having found no other victims to strike, it aimed its blow at the whole City of Edinburgh. It proposed to abolish the City Charter, rase the City gates, disband the City Guard, and declare the Provost, Mr. Wilson, incapable of again holding any public office. To support these angry enactments, witnesses were examined at the Bar of both Houses; but no new fact of

* To Sir Robert W pole, October 16. 1736.

† Tales of a Grand ather, Third Series, vol. ii. p. 177.

importance appeared. Some carelessness was certainly proved against the Provost, who had slighted previous warnings of the riots: but how unjust to condemn, how unwise to insult, the citizens at large! The Scottish Peers, however, and Members of Parliament, with that high national spirit which has ever so nobly marked the character of the Scottish people, combined almost as one man on this occasion. In the House of Lords, the Duke of Argyle made an eloquent speech, in which, after his usual panegyric on himself, he denounced the measure as contrary both to law and justice. In the Commons, the Lord Advocate (the celebrated Duncan Forbes) was not withheld by the trammels of office or the attachments of party from declaring similar sentiments. He was earnestly supported by Mr. Lindsay, member for Edinburgh, and by Lord Polwarth, son of the Scottish Earl of Marchmont, a young nobleman beginning to shine in the foremost ranks of Opposition; nor was the more experienced skill of Barnard and of Wyndham wanting. The measure speedily grew, as it deserved, unpopular, and on one occasion, in Committee, was carried only by the casting vote of the Chairman. Under these circumstances, Walpole, who, we may presume, had never heartily approved of the most obnoxious clauses, wisely consented to recede from them: one by one they were plucked out of the Bill; and it dwindled, at length, into an Act disabling Mr. Wilson from holding any future office, and imposing on the city a fine of 2,000l. for the benefit of Captain Porteous's widow. And thus, it was remarked at the time, all these fierce debates ended only in making the fortune of an old cook maid- such having been the

original calling of the worthy lady.

A clause, however, was added to the Bill, compelling the ministers of the Scottish Church to read a proclamation from the pulpit, once every month for the ensuing twelve, calling on their congregations to exert themselves to bring to justice the murderers of Porteous. This order was greatly resented by many of the clergy, who complained that their pulpits were thus indecorously made the scene of a hue and cry; while others, again, finding the proclamation mention "the Lords Temporal and "Spiritual in Parliament assembled," feared that they

might thus seem to acknowledge the legality of Bishops; an order of men they would seldom mention without insult and invective.

Another remarkable proceeding of this Session, was a plan to lower the interest of the National Debt by Sir John Barnard. From no one could it have come with greater weight. Were I called upon to name the man who in that century most honourably filled, and most highly adorned, the character of a British merchant, I should, without hesitation, answer, Sir John Barnard. Industrious, not grasping in his gains-liberal, not lavish, in his expenses- religious without austerity, and charitable without ostentation — neither unduly claiming kindred with the great nor yet veiling a secret envy under an apparent disdain, — he always maintained that calmness and self-command which is the essence of true dignity. His speeches were, like himself, full of sterling worth if his language was not always the most eloquent, his arguments never failed to be the most weighty. "In all matters of trade," says Speaker Onslow, "he had more sagacity, acuteness, force, and "closeness of reasoning, better and more practicable no❝tions, than almost any man I ever knew, with a dis"interestedness as to himself that no temptation of the "greatest profit, or very high stations (for such he might "have had), would have drawn him from the very retired "and humble life he generally chose to lead, not only for "the sake of his health, but the content of his mind, in "a moderate habitation in a neighbouring village to "London, from whence he only came as he was occa❝sionally called to any business of importance in the "City or in Parliament; in the first of which he was a "great magistrate, and in the other of true weight and "influence." As to the latter, indeed, another remarkable testimony was once borne by the very Minister whom he so keenly and steadily opposed. We are told that, as Sir Robert Walpole was one day riding with

* Benjamin Constant, in his remarkable production, "Adolphe," most truly describes: -"je ne sais qu'elle fougue destructive de la "considération qui ne se compose que du calme." (p. 173.)

† Speaker Onslow's Remarks. (Coxe's Walpole, vol. ii. p. 565.)