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Updated: May 3, 2025
There was young Singlesword, that stickit the Laird of Ballencleuch, and Captain Hackum, the Englishman, that killed Lady Colgrain's gudeman, and the Master of Saint Clair, that shot the twa Shaws,* and mony mair in my time to be sure they were gentle blood, and had their kin to speak for them And there was Jock Porteous the other day I'se warrant there's mercy, an folk could win at it."
After a long and patient hearing, the jury had the difficult duty of balancing the positive evidence of many persons, and those of respectability, who deposed positively to the prisoner's commanding his soldiers to fire, and himself firing his piece, of which some swore that they saw the smoke and flash, and beheld a man drop at whom it was pointed, with the negative testimony of others, who, though well stationed for seeing what had passed, neither heard Porteous give orders to fire, nor saw him fire himself; but, on the contrary, averred that the first shot was fired by a soldier who stood close by him.
Wilson remonstrated against such barbarous usage, declaring that the pain distracted his thoughts from the subjects of meditation proper to his unhappy condition. "It signifies little," replied Captain Porteous; "your pain will soon be at an end." "Your cruelty is great," answered the sufferer.
John Porteous, one of the captains of the Edinburgh City Guard, was son of Stephen Porteous, a tailor in Canongate. The father held a fair character, and was esteemed a good honest man in the whole conduct of his life, his greatest misfortune was his having such a son as John.
In the meanwhile the excessive indignation of the Council of Regency, at the slight put upon their authority by the murder of Porteous, had dictated measures, in which their own extreme desire of detecting the actors in that conspiracy were consulted in preference to the temper of the people and the character of their churchmen.
In the presentation of an earlier period in Scotland, the opening of the eighteenth century, when all punitive measures were primitive and the lawless social elements seethed with restless discontent, Scott had a fine chance: and at the very opening, in describing the violent putting to death of Captain Porteous, he skilfully prepares the way for the general picture to be given.
Both parties in Parliament backed his application, and on August 28 a delay of justice for six weeks was granted. Indignation was intense. An intended attack on the Tolbooth, where Porteous lay, had been matter of rumour three days earlier: the prisoner should have been placed in the Castle.
The verdict of the jury sufficiently shows how the evidence preponderated in their minds. It declared that John Porteous fired a gun among the people assembled at the execution; that he gave orders to his soldiers to fire, by which many persons were killed and wounded; but, at the same time, that the prisoner and his guard had been wounded and beaten, by stones thrown at them by the multitude.
The sullen, ruthless crowd of dour Scots, the grey rugged houses lit up by the glare of the torches, the irresistible storming of the Tolbooth, the abject helplessness of Porteous in the hands of his enemies, the austere and judicial self-restraint of the people, who did their work as those who were serving justice, their care to provide a minister for the criminal's last devotions, and their quiet dispersal after the execution all this remains unto to-day the most powerful description of lynch law in fiction.
Porteous was tried and condemned naturally by Scotch law, and many, if not most, of the English advocates of the Bill seemed to find it hard to put it out of their heads that because the trial was not conducted in accordance with the principles of English legislation it could possibly be a fair or a just trial.
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