Currie?s, and Dewar?s Closes on the north side of
the market, were all doomed to destruction by the
late City Improvement Act.
In the vicinity of the first-named alley, whose
distinctive title implied its former respectability as a
paved close, was a tenement, dated 1634, with a
fine antique window of oak and ornamental leaden
tracery, and an adjacent turnpike stair has the
THE CORN EXCHANGE, GRASSMARKET.
of December, 1793, so many members of the
memorable British Convention were seized and
made prisoners, with several English delegates,
when holding a political meeting for revolutionary
purposes and correspondence with the
French Republic.
In these transactions and meetings, Robert
Watt, a wine merchant, and David Downie, became
God . for , all . his . Giftis,? and the initials,
?L B. G. EL? .
In Currie?s Close was an ancient door, only two
feet nine inches broad, with the halfdefaced
legend :
GOD . GIVES THE . . . . RES . . . .
and the initials, ? G. B.? and ?? B. F,? and a shield
charged with a chevron and something like a boar?s
head in base.
In 1763 such a diversion as cockfighting was
utterly unknown in Edinburgh, but in twenty years
after, regular matches or maim, as they were technically
termed, were held, and a regular cockpit for
this school of gambling and cruelty was built in
the Grassmarket, and there it was that, on the 12th
death for high treason. After the dispersion of
the British Convention in the Grassmarket, they
became active members of a ? Committee of
Union,? to collect the sense of the nation, and of
another body styled the Committee of Ways and
Means,? of which Downie, who was a goldsmith in
the Parliament Close, and an office-bearer of his
corporation, was appointed treasurer. In unison
With the London Convention, the ?? Friends of the
People ? in Edinburgh had lost all hope of redress
for their alleged .political wrongs by constitutional
means, and designs of a dangerous nature were
considered-wild schemes, of which Watt was the
active promoter.
Their first attempt was to suborn the Hopetoun
Fencibles, then at Dalkeith, and under orders for
England, but they failed to excite mutiny ; yet a
plan was formed by which it was expected that the
Castle and city would both fall into the hands of
the Friends of the People, who were secretly arming.
The design was this :-
?A fire was to be raised near the excise office,
which would require the attendance of the soldiers,
who were to be met on their way by a body of the
THE WHITE HART INN, GRASSMARKET.
committee of ? Sense and Money? was formed to
procure them. Two smiths, named Robert Orrock
and William Brown, who had enrolled, received
orders to make 4,000 pikes, some of which were
actually completed, delivered to Watt, and paid
for by Downie in his capacity as treasurer.
Meanwhile the trials of Skirving, Margarot, and
. Gerald, had taken place, for complicity to a certain
to issue from the West Bow, confine the soldiers
between two forces, and cut off all retreat. The
Castle was next to be attempted, the judges and
magistrates were to be,seized, and all the public
banks to be secured. A proclamation was then
to be issued, ordering all farmers to bring in their
grain to the market as usual, and enjoining all
country gentlemen unfriendly to the cause to keep
within their houses, or three miles of them, under
penalty of death. Then an address was to be sent
to his Majesty, commanding him to put an end to
the war, to change his ministers, or take the consequences
! ? Similar events were to take place in
Dublin and London on the same night
Before this startling scheme could be effected,
arms of all descriptions were necessary, and a third
until about the 15th of May, 1794 that Watt and
Downie were apprehended. On that day it chanced
that two sheriff officers when searching the house
of the former for the secreted goods of a bankrupt,
found some pikes, which they conveyed to the
sheriff?s chambers. A warrant was issued to search
the whole premises, and in the cellars a form of
types from which the address to the troops had
been printed, and a great quantity of pikes, were
discovered, while in the house, thirty-three in
various stages of completion were found. Hence,
early on the morning of June and, Watt, Downie,
and. Orrock, were conveyed from the old Tolbooth
to the Castle, as State prisoners, and lodged in the
strong apartment above the portcullis.
True bills of indictment being found against
