110 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
regularity, and determined resolution with which it was effected, as well as the secrecy so
successfully maintained, led to the supposition that its leaders must have been of a higher
rank than those usually concerned in popular tumults ; but recent disclosures, resting on
the authority of an intelligent old man, have revealed the chief agent in this daring act
of popular vengeance. Alexander Richmond, according to the narrator, was the son of
a respectable nurseryman at Foulbriggs, near the West Port. He was bred a baker, and,
about the time of the Porteous mob, was a wild and daring lad, who took a prominent
share in all the riotings of the period. On the night of Porteous’s execution, he was sent
early to bed, and deprived of his clothes by his father, who dreaded that his son, as usual,
would involve himself in the turbulent movements that were threatened. But the lad got
hold of his sister’s clothes, and making his escape by a window, joined the mob and took
a prominent part in breaking into the Tolbooth, and in all their other proceedings. On
the passage of the rioters down the West Bow, he entered a shop, from the counter of
which he lifted a coil of rope, and threw down a half guinea he had brought out with him.
With this the wretched Porteous was suspended from the dyer’s pole ; and immediately
thereafter Richmond returned by the West Port to his father’s house. Proclamations
were issued against him at the time as a suspected party, on which he went to eea, and
after an absence of many years, he returned to Leith, and became master of a merchant
vessel.
Richmond disclosed his share in the Porteous mob to a few trustworthy friends, among
whom was the narrator of this account. He made money in his new mode of life, and his
heirs, in the female line, are still a1ive.l
Queen Caroline was highly exasperated on learning of this act of contempt for her
exercise of the royal prerogative. The Lord Provost was imprisoned, and not admitted to
bail for three weeks. A bill was brought into Parliament, and carried through the House
of Lords, for incapacitating him from ever holding any magisterial office in Great Britain,
and for confining him in prison a full year. This bill also enacted the demolition of the
Nether Bow Port, and the disbanding of the city-guard. The Scottish members, however,
exerted themselves effectually in opposing this unjust measure when it was sent down to
the House of Commons, and by their means it was shorn of its most objectionable clauses,
and the whole commuted to a fiqe of 2,2000, imposed on the city for behalf of the Captain’s
widow. Even when thus modified, the bill was only carried by the casting vote of the
chairman, and Porteous’s widow, on account of previous favours shown her by the magistrates,
accepted of m 0 0 in full.
From this period, till the eventful year 1745, nothing remarkable occurs in the history
of Edinburgh. On thk report of the landing of Prince Charles, the city-guard was increased,
and a portion of the royal forces brought into th_e neighbourhood of the city. The town
walls were hastily repaired, and ditches thrown up for additional defence. Upon the approach
of the Prince’s forces, which had crossed the Forth above Stirling, the King’s troops,
along with the city-guard, were posted at Corstorphine and Coltbridge, and a volunteer force
was raised to aid in repelling the rebels. But citizens and soldiers were alike lukewarm in
the Hanoverian cause, or terror-stricken at the sight of the Highland host. The whole
force fled precipitately on their appearance, and communicated such a panic to the citizens,
1 Illustrations of Qeikie’s Etchinpa, p. 8.
