E was an ugly drop two hundred feet to Boulder Creek, in the gulch below. A shout from one of the party in advance brought us quickly to his side. Looking in the direction he pointed, we saw far below us the body of a man lying half covered by the snow on the rocks. Ten minutes' hard climbing and we stood on the spot and there lay the judge-dead a bundle of toys grasped tightly to his breast; to the heart, a few hours ago so full of love for every one. Gentle, kindhearted, easy-going Judge Woods was dead. Battling through the storm on a mission of love to a little child, he must have lost his way and fallen over the cliff. In the height of the storm he had "crossed the range "and gone before that higher court into the presence of the Great Judge. From The Scottish Review. THE PORTEOUS RIOT. (From Original MSS. in the Record Office.) THE best accounts of the Porteous Riot, which, though not an important event in Scottish history, was one of the strangest incidents which took place in Scotland during last century, are those given by Sir Walter Scott in the "Heart of Midlothian" and in the "Tales of a Grandfather." In addition to the ordinary sources of information, and those oral traditions which he had heard in his youth, Scott was in possession of a manuscript, "Memorial concerning the Murder of Captain Porteous," which is printed in the notes to the "Heart of Midlothian." The original of this interesting document, which consists of an account of the attempts made by the crown council in Scotland to discover the murderers of Porteous, is preserved in the Public Record Office, along with a number of other papers relating to this mysterious affair. The most important of these papers are, in addition to the "Memorial " of which Scott had a copy, a "Narrative" of the riot, drawn up, apparently, by an Edinburgh magistrate, and differing somewhat from Sir Walter Scott's account; the petition of Porteous, praying for a reprieve, to which his signature, written in a clear, though rather shaky, hand, is appended; a petition in his favor signed by a number of peers and gentlemen of position; and, most valuable of all, a collection of letters by the lord justice clerk of Scotland, the Duke of Newcastle, the Earl of Ilay, General Moyle, who was in command of a regiment in Edinburgh at the time of the riot, General Wade, and others. From the documents some additional facts may be learned regarding that extraordinary outrage, which so highly irritated the government of the day, and the authors of which were never discovered in spite of the strenuous and long continued exertions which were made for the purpose of bringing them to justice. The facts which led to the Porteous Riot may be shortly stated. Two criminals, Wilson and Robertson by name, who had been sentenced to death for robbery, were, on the Sunday before the day fixed for their execution, taken to hear service; and Robertson, by the help of his fellowprisoner, succeeded in making his escape from the church. The building was crowded; but no attempt was made by any of the congregation to stop the fugitive. "Not a person," Provost Wilson of Edinburgh writes to Mr. Lindsay, member for the city, "put out their hand to stop Robertson. On the contrary, everybody made way for him." This refusal to support the officers of the law did not merely arise from unwillingness to interfere with a man who was flying for his life, but was also occasioned by the fact that the robbery of which he had been convicted, was the robbery of a collector of customs, an offence which, at that time, was regarded in Scotland as venial, if not actually praiseworthy. The feeling which had prompted the onlookers to connive at the escape of Robertson rendered Wilson an object of sympathy; and the authorities feared that an attempt would be made to rescue him from the hands of the hangman. To prevent this, the scaffold was surrounded by an armed band of the City Guard, under the command of Captain John Porteous. What took place is well known. A rescue was not attempted; but after the execution the mob became excited, and stones were thrown at Porteous and his men, who retaliated by firing on the people. Several persons were killed, and many were wounded. Among those slain on the spot, or who soon after died of their wounds, were shopkeepers, domestic servants, both men and women, and respectable working men, who were present merely as peaceable spectators of the execution. The conduct of Porteous was bitterly resented; and the anger of the citizens increased, as day by day they heard of persons dying from the wounds which they had received. The execution of Wilson took place on the 14th of April, 1736; and on the 19th solicitor general was Charles Erskine of Tinwald. These four politicians practi. cally controlled of July Porteous was arraigned, on a was Duncan Forbes of Culloden, and the charge of murder, before the High Court of Justiciary, the supreme criminal tribunal in Scotland. The charge against him was the administration of twofold: first, causing the men under his Scotland. But they had to contend command to fire upon the crowd, and sec- against a vigorous opposition, especially ondly, firing with his own hand and killing from the Scottish peers, which had been one of the crowd, a man named Charles growing in strength ever since the genHusband. His defence was that he had eral election of 1734. In that year, at neither ordered his men to fire, nor fired the election of the sixteen representative himself, but had merely threatened the peers, a riot had been expected, and a reg people when they became unruly. Twenty-iment of soldiers was drawn up in the eight witnesses were examined for the courtyard of Holyrood Palace, to the prosecution, merchants of the city, profes- great indignation of the opposition candisional men, servants, and young men of dates, who protested that an attempt was fashion, who had witnessed the scene being made to intimidate them by military from the windows of the lofty tenements force. The ministerial candidates were of the Grassmarket, at that time an aris- all chosen, but months after, when Parlia. tocratic quarter of Edinburgh. The effect ment met, the feeling was as bitter as of this evidence was to prove that Porteous ever, and long debates took place regardhad urged his men to fire. "Fire, and ing illegal methods which were said to be damned to you," were the words which have been employed at the election. "The several witnesses swore they had heard eyes of all England," says Tindal, "and, him use. There was also strong evidence indeed, of a great part of Europe, were to the effect that he had snatched a fire- now fixed upon the proceedings of the lock from one of the guard and discharged | House of Peers with regard to the election it at Husband. The testimony of the of the Scotch peers. These debates witnesses for the defence, sixteen in num- came to nothing, but the influence of the ber, was mainly that they had not heard government was from that time so much any orders to fire, and had not seen Por- weakened in Scotland that, though anxteous himself discharge a musket. The ious to support the authority of the law by jury brought in a verdict of guilty, and saving Porteous, whose offence they rePorteous was sentenced to be hanged on garded as merely an excess of zeal in the Wednesday, the 8th of September. performance of his duty, the ministers were afraid to grant the prayer of his petition. Another petition was therefore prepared at the same time, which the ministry privately agreed to support, on condition that the opposition as well as the friends of the government should sign it. This condition, which was kept as a profound secret at the time, was insisted on lest the opposition should make political capital out of the reprieve of Porteous, which, it was well known, would be highly unpopular in Scotland. Signatures were, therefore, eagerly canvassed for, and the petition bears the names of about fifty persons of high social position, of whom no less than fifteen were peers. The sentence was heard with immense satisfaction in Edinburgh, for the citizens regarded Porteous simply as a brutal murderer. But he was advised to appeal to Queen Caroline, who, owing to the king's absence on the Continent, represented the crown at this time. The petition which Porteous addressed to her Majesty might have been disregarded, but it was backed up by another and more influential application for mercy. It is perhaps unnecessary to mention that, in 1736, Walpole was struggling against that powerful combination which, a few years later, succeeded in driving him from office; but the events which led to the respite of Porteous, as disclosed in the official papers in the Record Office, can hardly be understood without some explanation of the position of the ministry in Scotland. The chief adviser of Walpole regarding Scottish affairs was Archibald Campbell, Earl of Ilay and brother of John, Duke of Argyle and Greenwich. Andrew Fletcher of Milton, the lord justice clerk of Scotland, an acute lawyer and an able politician, acted as the confidential correspondent of Lord Ilay. The lord advocate Owing, probably, to the time which had been occupied in obtaining signatures, it was not until the 25th of August that the petitions were finally sent up to London. On that day, the lord justice clerk writes to the Duke of Newcastle: "At the desire of persons of quality and distinction, I have taken the liberty of troubling your Grace with the enclosed petition to her Majesty, in favor of John Porteous, now under sentence of death, together with a petition from himself to the queen, and it SE is their request your Grace may present | was enacted is well known. Every trav 66 The scene on which the Porteous Riot the troops, and, by taking a circuitous rout, managed to find his way to the officer's quarters, which he did not reach, however, until 10.45. Moyle had already heard of the riot, and had his men assem. bled under arms; but when Lindsay, who he afterwards hinted was not quite sober, made his appearance, the general raised a difficulty. As the gates of the city were locked, he "refused," says the "Narrative," " to allow any man to march without a warrant from the lord justice clerk, or a lord of justiciary, who happened then to be all out of town." This hesitation and loss of time, as will afterwards appear, in all probability cost Porteous his life. In a letter to the Duke of Newcastle, written two days later, Moyle says that he was in bed, at a quarter past ten, when one of his officers came to him and said he heard that there was a great disturbance in the city. He at once ordered the regiment to be roused, and while he was dressing Lindsay arrived. After explaining that he did not choose to force the gates without a warrant, he goes on to say: "Knowing that the justice clerk lived but two miles out of the town, I desired Mr. Lindsay to write immediately to him for his directions what he would have the troops do, and sent the letter by my own servant, who galloped all the way. My Lord being in bed, he got no answer from him till nearly one of the clock. The letter was directed to Mr. Lindsay, so I never saw the answer, and long before it came the poor man was hanged by the mob. By what I since hear he was executed before Mr. Lindsay came to my house, for they got him out of prison a little after ten." his tortures, at the same time cutting him over the head, and burning his foot that had the shoe off with a torch. Thus they used him three times, so that he was near expiring when they hung him up the last time." It was at a quarter to twelve o'clock, according to the " Narrative," that the execution, or rather murder, took place. When all was over "several attempts," says this account, 66 were made to take down the body, but the mob beat every one who made such a proposal, till about daybreak a few members of the Council, and some neighbors, got the body taken down and laid it in the Greyfriars Church." It is almost certain that if General Moyle had made up his mind to act without a written warrant, and had, as soon as he received the message from the magistrates, forced his way into the city, the mob would not have succeeded in their object. The request for assistance reached him at about a quarter to eleven. men were ready. He was quite mistaken in supposing that Porteous was "got out of prison a little after ten." The mob was then engaged in driving away the In the mean time the mob was attacking magistrates, and in attempting to break the Tolbooth. The magistrates attempted into the prison with sledge-hammers and to disperse the rioters, who, having pro- axes, and it was some time before the door vided themselves with ammunition by was set on fire. It was only a few hunbreaking open the shop "of one Alexander dred yards from the Canongate to the Dunning," threatened to fire, and drove scene of the riot, and an hour at least away both the magistrates and the City passed before an entrance was effected Guard. The assault on the prison contin- into the Tolbooth. There can therefore ued for an hour before the door, which be little doubt that, even allowing for was at last destroyed by fire, was broken some delay at the Netherbow Port, the in. Porteous was speedily found, and troops could have passed up the High hurried up the Lawnmarket, and down by Street and reached the Tolbooth in time the Westbow into the Grassmarket. The to prevent the tragedy, which, as we have justice clerk, writing to the Duke of New-seen, was not completed till nearly midcastle, describes the scene "of that un-night- that is, about an hour and a half heard-of cruel action, so far as I have yet been able to discover." All was hurry and confusion as the wretched victim was dragged to his doom. "On his way he lost one of his shoes, which they would not suffer him to put on." He was loaded with curses and abuse until the spot was reached where he had, nearly five months before, committed the rash act for which he was now to suffer. There he was hanged with every species of cruelty. "He humbly implored," says the justice clerk, "time to make a short prayer, which they refused; and on lifting up his hands, one of them struck him over the arm with a Lochaber axe and broke his arm. And they hung him up; and, after he had hung about four minutes, they cut him down in order to augment his terrors and increase after the general received the message from the magistrates. But it was perhaps natural that an English officer, with the knowledge that he might have, if bloodshed ensued, to stand his trial, like Porteous, before a jury of Edinburgh citizens, should hesitate to act without a regular warrant from some civil authority. When morning came all was quiet. The dead body of Porteous, discolored by blows, and with the neck and one arm broken, lay in the ancient church of the Greyfriars. The weapons which the rioters had used lay scattered along the West bow and the Grassmarket, and at the Tolbooth the charred and battered door way alone showed that another had been added to the long roll of violent deeds which its venerable walls had witnessed. Soon all hope of discovering and pun. ishing the rioters was abandoned, and the blame for this failure of justice was laid on the magistrates. General Wade writes to the Duke of Newcastle on the 4th of November, sending a list of persons confined in the Castle as concerned in the murder, "Since the arrival of Lord Ilay, for before I do not find there was any en quiry made upon them by the magistrates, who, by the best information I have been able to procure, not only permitted the murder to be committed (which they might easily have prevented) but suffered all who were conscious of their guilt to make their escapes; and I fear it will be difficult to find a jury who will not acquit those who are now prisoners." In the list sent by General Wade six persons are named; but only two trials took place, and in both cases the accused were acquitted. The lord justice clerk, General Moyle, | ence in the mob complete evidence was The story of the Porteous Riot was heard with emotions of violent resentment in London; and the queen, in particular, could hardly find words strong enough to express her indignation. "It is still recorded in popular tradition," says Sir Walter Scott, "that her Majesty in the height of her displeasure, told the celebrated John, Duke of Argyle, that sooner than submit to such an insult (the execu tion of Porteous) she would make Scotland a hunting-field. In that case, madam,' answered that high-spirited nobleman, with a profound bow, 'I will take leave of your Majesty, and go down to my own country to get my hounds ready.' The im port of the reply had more than met the ear." The royal anger found vent in a bill of pains and penalties against the city of Edinburgh, which was brought into the House of Lords, when Parliament met in February, 1737. By this measure it was proposed to disable the provost from holding any office in Great Britain, and to imprison him; to abolish the City Guard and to remove the gate of the Netherbow. The extreme severity of this measure, and the personal feeling displayed by Queen Caroline have often been spoken of with astonishment, and are, indeed, hardly to be accounted for by mere zeal for the maintenance of law and order. But the explanation may possibly be found in the contents of the private letters which had been sent from Edinburgh at the time of the riot. For instance, the lord justice |