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Updated: May 3, 2025
It might be there supposed, that upon the whole matter, Captain Porteous was in the exercise of a trust delegated to him by the lawful civil authority; that he had been assaulted by the populace, and several of his men hurt; and that, in finally repelling force by force, his conduct could be fairly imputed to no other motive than self-defence in the discharge of his duty.
"I fancy," said Ratcliffe, with one of his familiar sneers, "the lassie thinks that naebody has een but hersell Didna I see when Gentle Geordie was seeking to get other folk out of the Tolbooth forby Jock Porteous? but ye are of my mind, hinny better sit and rue, than flit and rue ye needna look in my face sae amazed. I ken mair things than that, maybe."
He had been suspended on the gibbet so long as to be totally deprived of life, when at once, as if occasioned by some newly received impulse, there arose a tumult among the multitude. Many stones were thrown at Porteous and his guards; some mischief was done; and the mob continued to press forward with whoops, shrieks, howls, and exclamations.
It seemed to be understood that either Leaycraft or the Porteous crowd stood ready to support the market; and in place of the ultimatum story a feeling began to gain ground that the expected report would indicate a falling off in the "visible," and that it was quite on the cards that the market might even advance another point.
Forbes of Culloden, later President of the Court of Session, and, far more than the butcher Cumberland, the victor over the rising of 1745, believed in the innocence of Captain Green, wore mourning for him, attended the funeral at the risk of his own life, and, when the Porteous Riot was discussed in Parliament, rose in his place and attested his conviction that the captain was wrongfully done to death.
In short, there was much heart-burning, discontent, and disaffection, occasioned by these ill-considered measures.* * The magistrates were closely interrogated before the House of Peers, concerning the particulars of the Porteous Mob, and the patois in which these functionaries made their answers, sounded strange in the ears of the Southern nobles.
The pious, sturdy Cameronian father and the two clearly contrasted sisters: Butler, the clergyman lover; the saddle-maker, Saddletree, for an amusing, long-winded bore; the quaint Laird Dumbledikes; the soldiers of fortune, George Wilson and his mate; that other soldier, Porteous; the gang of evildoers with Madge in the van a wonderful creation, she, only surpassed by the better known Meg the high personages clustered about the Queen: loquacious Mrs.
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.
These words, long afterwards quoted and remembered, were all that passed between Porteous and his prisoner; but as they took air, and became known to the people, they greatly increased the popular compassion for Wilson, and excited a proportionate degree of indignation against Porteous; against whom, as strict, and even violent in the discharge of his unpopular office, the common people had some real, and many imaginary causes of complaint.
It would be dangerous, you must be aware, to keep up the correspondence; for all would guess that the husband of Effie was the what shall I call myself? the slayer of Porteous." Hard-hearted light man! thought Jeanie to what a character she has intrusted her happiness! She has sown the wind, and maun reap the whirlwind.
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