108 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
English supremacy. No sooner, therefore, were the articles made public, in the month of
October 1706, than a universal clamour and uproar ensued. The outer Parliament House
and the adjoining square were crowded with an excited multitude, who testified their
displeasure at the Duke of Queensberry, the Commissioner, and all who favoured the
Union. On the 23d of the month, hhe populace proceeded to more violent acts of
hostility against the promoters of the scheme. They attacked the house of Sir Patrick
Johnston, their representative in Parliament, formerly a great favourite when Provost of
the city, and he narrowly escaped falling a victim to their fury. From this they proceeded
to other acts of violence, till they had the city completely at their mercy, and were only
prevented blocking up the ports by the Duke ordering out the military to take possession
of the Nether Bow Port, and other of the most important points in the city.
Three
regiments of foot were on constant duty; guards were stationed in the Parliament Close and
the Weigh-house, as well as at the Nether Bow ; a strong battalion protected the Abbey ;
a troop of horse-guards regularly attended the Cornmissioner, and none but members were
allowed to enter the Parliament Close towards evening, on such days as the house was
sitting. His Grace, the Commissioner, walked from the Parliament House, between
a double file of musketeers to his coach, which waited at the Cross ; and he was driven
from thence at full gallop to his residence at the Palace, hooted, cursed, and pelted by the
rabble.
The mob were fully as zealous in the demonstration of their good will as of their
displeasure. The Duke of Hamilton, whose apartments were also in the Palace, was an
especial object of favour, and was nightly escorted down the Canongate by several hundreds
of them cheering him,*and commending his fidelity. It was on one of these occasions, after
seeing the Duke home, that the excited rabble proceeded to the house of the city member,
when he so narrowly escaped their fury.’ Fortunately, however, for Scotland the popular
clamour was unavailing for the purpose of preventing the Union of the two kingdoms, though
the corrupt means by which many of the votes in Parliament were secured, was sufficient
to have justified any amount of distrust and apposition. A curious ornamental summerhouse
is pointed out in the pleasure grounds attached to Moray House, in the Canongate,
where the commissioners at length assembled to affix their clignatures to the Treaty of Union.
But the mob, faithful to the last in their resolution to avert what was then regarded as the
surrender of national independence,‘ pursued them to this retired rendezvous, and that
important national act is believed to have been finally signed and sealed in a ‘‘ high shop,”
or cellar, No. 177 High Street, nearly opposite to the Tron Church.2 This interesting
locality, which still remains, had formed one of the chief haunts of the unionists during the
progress of that measure, and continued to be known, almost to our own day, by the name
of the Union Cellar. On the 16th of January 1707, the Scottish Parliament assembled for
the last time in its old hall in the Parliament Close, and having finally adjusted the Articles
of Union, it was dissolved by the Duke of Queensberry, the King’s Commissioner, never
again to meet as a National Assembly+
The general discontent which resulted from this measure, and the irritation produced by
The Commissioner, and all who abetted him, were kept in terror of their lives.
.
Lockhart’s Mem., 1799, p. 229-229.
a Tales of a Grandfather, vol. vi. p. 327.
Smollett’s Hist., p. 469. Arnot, p. 1S9.
HISTORICAL INCIDENTS AFTER THE RESTORA TION. rog
the presence of a host of English tax-gatherers who speedily thereafter overran the whole
of Scotland, were mainly influential in directing anew the thoughts of the people to the
exiled family of the Stuarts. Edinburgh, however, took no share in the rising of 1715.
The magistrates exerted themselves to p t the city in an effective state of defence. The
walls and gates were immediately repaired and fortified. The sluice at the east end of the
North Loch was dammed up, and trenches made at various accessible points, The cityguard
was augmented, the trained bands armed, and four hundred men ordered to be raised
and maintained at the city’s expense.
These measures saved the capital from any concern in this rash enterprise, beyond an
ineffectual attempt upon the Castle. A party of the insurgents marched towards Edinburgh,
but finding it in vain to attempt an assault, they repaired to Leith, and fortified the
citadel. This they were speedily compelled to evacuate, on the approach of the Duke of
Argyle’s forces ; and after a feeble struggle, this ill-concerted rising was suppressed, and
tranquillity restored to the country.
The year 1736 is rendered memorable in the annals of the city by the famous Porteous
mob. The accounts already furnished of some of the more serious tumults that have
from time to time occurred in the Scottish capital, must have sufKced to show the daring
character of the populace, and their hearty co-operation in any such deed of violence. Yet
the cool and determined manner in which this act of popular vengeance was effected has
probably never been equalled.
The incidents of this remarkable transaction have been rendered so familiar by the
striking narrative of Scott (in all its most important features strictly true), that a very
hasty sketch will suffice. Captain John Porteous, the commander ‘of the city-guard, having
occasion to quell some disturbances at the execution of one Wilsdn, a smuggler, rashly
ordered his soldiers to fire among the crowd, by which six were killed, and eleven wounded,
including females, and some of the spectators from the neighbouring windows. Porteous
was tried and condemned for murder, but reprieved by Queen Caroline, who was then acting
as Regent, in the absence of her husband, George II., at Hanover.
The people, who had regarded Wilson in the light of a victim to the oppressive excise
laws and other fruits of the hated Union, were exasperated at the pardon of one who had
murdered so many of their fellow-citizens, and determined that he should not escape. Many
people, it is said, assembled from the country to join in the enterprise. The leaders of the
mob were disguised in various ways, some of them in female attire. They surprised the
town-guard, armed themselves with their weapons, and then forcing the door of the Tolbooth,
by setting it on fire, they dragged from thence the unhappy object of their vengeance,
and led him to the scene of his crime, the ordinary place of execution, in the Grassmarket.
It was intended at first to have erected the gallows and executed him there with greater
formality, but the ringleaders found th!s project attended with too serious a loss of time,
and he was hastily suspended from a dyer’s pole, over the entrance to Hunter’s Close, in
the south-east corner of the Grassmarket. As soon as their purpose was effected, the
rioters threw away their weapons and quietly dispersed.
Notwithstanding the most searching investigations instituted, and the imprisonment
of various parties on suspicion of being concerned in this violent deed, no person was convicted
for i’t, and no discovery ever made concerning any of its perpetrators. The order,
