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communion of the Established Church of Scotland that large class of dissenters, generally called Seceders. Much ill blood was excited, and great dissensions took place betwixt those clergymen who did, and those who did not, read the proclation. This controversy, like others, had its hour, during which little else was spoken of, until in due time the subject was worn threadbare and forgotten.

The origin of the Porteous Mob continued long to exercise the curiosity of those by whom the event was remembered, and from the extraordinary mixture of prudence and audacity with which the purpose of the multitude had been conceived and executed, as well as the impenetrable secrecy with which the enterprise was carried through, the public were much inclined to suspect that there had been among its actors men of rank and character, far superior to that belonging to the multitude who were the ostensible agents. Broken and imperfect stories were told of men in the disguise of women and of common artisans, whose manner betrayed a sex and manners different from what their garb announced.' Others laughed at these as unauthorized exaggerations, and contended that no class were so likely to frame or execute the plan for the murder of the police officer, as the populace to whom his official proceedings had rendered him obnoxious, and that

["The clothes which appeared under their different disguises, as well as the conduct and deliberation with which their plan was executed, bespoke many among them to be superior to the vulgar; and that the violence they committed proceeded not from the rash and unpremeditated concert of a rabble."—ARNOT, p. 207.]

the secrecy so wonderfully preserved on the occasion arose out of the constancy and fidelity which the Scottish people observe towards each other when engaged in a common cause. Nothing is, or probably ever will be, known with certainty on the subject; but it is understood, that several young men left Scotland in apprehension of the strict scrutiny which was made into that night's proceedings; and in your grandfather's younger days, the voice of fame pointed out individuals, who, long absent from that country, had returned from the East and West Indies in improved circumstances, as persons who had fled abroad on account of the Porteous Mob. One story of the origin of the conspiracy was stated to me with so much authority, and seemed in itself so simple and satisfactory that although the degree of proof, upon investigation, fell far short of what was necessary as full evidence, I cannot help considering it as the most probable account of the mysterious affair. A man, who long bore an excellent character, and filled a place of some trust as forester and carpenter to a gentleman of fortune in Fife, was affirmed to have made a confession on his death-bed, that he had been not only one of the actors in the hanging of Porteous, but one of the secret few by whom the deed was schemed and set on foot. Twelve persons of the village of Path-head-so this man's narrative was said to proceed-resolved that Porteous should die, to atone for the life of Wilson, with whom many of them had been connected by the ties of friendship and joint adventure in illicit trade, and

for the death of those shot at the execution. This vengeful band crossed the Forth by different ferries, and met together at a solitary place near the city, where they distributed the party which were to act in the business which they had in hand; and giving a beginning to the enterprise, soon saw it undertaken by the populace of the city, whose minds were precisely in that state of irritability which disposed them to follow the example of a few desperate men. According to this account, most of the original devisers of the scheme fled to foreign parts, the surprise of the usual authorities having occasioned some days to pass over ere the investigations of the affair were commenced. On making enquiry of the surviving family of this old man, they were found disposed to treat the rumoured confession as a fiction, and to allege that although he was of an age which seemed to support the story, and had gone abroad shortly after the Porteous Mob, yet he had never acknowledged any accession to it, but on the contrary, maintained his innocence when taxed, as he sometimes was, with having a concern in the affair. The report, however, though probably untrue in many of its circumstances, yet seems to give a very probable account of the origin of the riot in the vindictive purpose of a few resolute men, whose example was quickly followed by the multitude, already in a state of mind to catch fire from the slightest spark.

This extraordinary and mysterious outrage seems to be the only circumstance which can be interesting to you, as exclusively belonging to the history

of Scotland, betwixt the years immediately succeeding the civil war of 1715, and those preceding the last explosion of Jacobitism in that country, in

1745-6.

VOL. XXVI.

CHAPTER LXXV.

State of the Lowlands—Landlords and Tenants—State of Learning-Bad effect of Oaths of Office-Decay of the Feudal Authority of Landlords-State of the Highlands -Influence of the Chiefs over their Clans-Cameron of Lochiel and Fraser of Lovat-Unpopularity of the Two First Georges, and of Walpole's Administration-Marriage of the Chevalier de St George-Petty Intrigues among his Adherents- Character of Prince Charles Edward-Projected Invasion on his behalf, in 1744- The French Fleet dispersed-Resolution of Prince Charles to try his fortune in Scotland-he Embarks-and Lands at Moidart.-NOTE, Personal Appearance and Demeanour of Prince Charles.

[1736-1745.]

AFTER the temporary subjection of the Highlands in 1720, and the years immediately succeeding, had been in appearance completed, by the establishment of garrisons, the formation of military roads, and the general submission of the Highland clans who were most opposed to Government, Scotland enjoyed a certain degree of internal repose, if not of prosperity. To estimate the nature of this calm, we must look at the state of the country in two points of view, as it concerned the Highlands and the Lowlands.

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