And thou, great god of Aquavitae!
Wha sways the empire of this city
(When fou we’re sometimes capernoity),
Be thou prepared
To save us frae that black banditti,
The City Guard!
Robert Fergusson, The Daft Days
Captain John Porteous, a name memorable in the folklore of Edinburgh, as well as in the records of criminal jurisprudence, was the son of an Edinburgh tailor. His father wished him to follow this trade, but the youth had a wild propensity to dissipation which led him to The Scotch Dutch, an infantry corps long in the service of the States of Holland. Here he learned military discipline. Returning to his native city in the course of an idle and wandering life, his services were obtained by the magistrates of Edinburgh in the disturbed year of 1715 for disciplining their City Guard, in which he received a Captain’s commission.1 It was only by his military skill and his alert and resolute character as an officer of the police that he merited the position, for he was a man of profligate habits and a brutal husband. However, his harsh and fierce activity rendered him formidable to rioters and disturbers of the public peace.
The corps in which he held his command was a body of about one hundred and twenty soldiers divided into three Companies and regularly armed, clothed and embodied. They had the charge of preserving public order and were chiefly military veterans who had the benefit of working at their trades when off-duty. Acting as an armed police force, they repressed riots and street robberies. They also attended all public occasions where popular disturbance might be expected.
The Lord Provost of Edinburgh was, ex-officio, commander and Colonel of the corps, which might be increased to three hundred men when the times required it. No drum but theirs was allowed to sound on the High Street between the Luckenbooths and the Netherbow. The escapades of the celebrated poet Robert Fergusson sometimes led him into unpleasant rencontres with these conservators of public order. Indeed, he mentions them so often in his works that he may be termed their poet laureate.2 He thus admonishes his readers, based doubtless on his own experience:
Gude folk, as ye come frae the fair,
Bide yont frae this black squad:
There’s nae sic savages elsewhere
Allowed to wear cockad.
The soldiers of the City Guard were for the greater part Highlanders. Neither by birth nor education were they trained to endure the insults of the rabble, the truant schoolboys, or the idlers with whom they came into contact. The tempers of the old fellows were soured by the indignities which the mob heaped on them on many occasions and frequently might have required the soothing strains of the poet:
O soldiers! For your ain dear sakes,
For Scotland’s love, the Land o’ Cakes,
Gie not her bairns sic deadly paiks, [blows]
Nor be sae rude,
Wi’ firelock or Lochaber axe,
As spill their bluid!
On all occasions when a civic holiday encouraged riot and disorder, a skirmish with these veterans was a favourite recreation of the rabble of Edinburgh. Though the City Guard is now extinct there may still be seen, here and there, the spectre of an old grey-headed and bearded Highlander. His war-worn features appear below an old fashioned cocked-hat, bound with white tape instead of silver lace. His coat, waistcoat and breeches are of a muddy red and, though bent with age, he bears in a withered hand an ancient weapon. This is a Lochaber axe; a long pole with an axe at the extremity and a hook at the back of the hatchet.3
Such a phantom of former days still creeps round the statue of Charles II in Parliament Square, and one or two others are supposed to glide around the door of their Guardhouse in the Luckenbooths, when their ancient refuge in the High Street was demolished. Their last march to do duty at Hallowfair4 was most moving. On this joyous occasion, their fifes and drums had been wont to play the lively tune Jockey to the Fair, but on his final occasion the veterans moved slowly to the dirge of: the last time I cam’ ower the muir.5
This old Town Guard of Edinburgh with their grim and valiant corporal, John Dhu – the fiercest-looking fellow I ever saw – were in my boyhood the alternate to the terror and derision of the petulant brood of the High School. Kay’s caricatures6 have preserved the features of some of these warriors. In the preceding generation, when there was perpetual alarm over Jacobite activities and plots, pains were taken by the magistrates of Edinburgh to keep the City Guard in an effective state, but latterly their most dangerous service was to skirmish with the rabble on the King’s birthday.7
To Captain John Porteous, the honour of his Corps was a matter of high interest and personal importance. He was incensed with Wilson over the affront to his soldiers in liberating his companion. He was no less indignant at rumours of a rescue of Wilson from the gallows, and uttered threats which would later be recalled to his disadvantage. Porteous, despite his readiness to come to blows with the rabble, was entrusted by the Magistrates with the command of the soldiers at Wilson’s execution. He was ordered to guard the gallows and scaffold with all the disposable force that could be spared for that duty – about eighty men.
The Magistrates took a farther precaution which deeply affected Porteous’s pride; they requested the assistance of part of a regular infantry Regiment. The soldiers were not to attend the execution itself, but were to be drawn up on the High Street, the principal street of the City, as a display of force to intimidate the multitude. Captain Porteous deeply resented the introduction of these Welsh Fusiliers into the city, and their parading on a street where no beating drums but his own might be allowed. As he could not vent his ill-humour on the Magistrates, it increased his indignation at Wilson and all who supported him. This combination of jealousy and rage wrought a change in the man’s countenance and bearing, visible to all who saw him on the day when Wilson was to hang.
Porteous was about the middle size, strong and well made, with a military air. His complexion was brown, his face somewhat fretted with the scars of the smallpox, his eyes more languid than keen or fierce. On the present occasion, however, it seemed as if he were agitated by some evil demon. His step was irregular, his voice hollow, his countenance pale and his eyes staring. His speech was confused, indeed his whole appearance so disordered that many remarked he seemed to be fey, the state of those driven to their impending fate by an irresistible impulse.
One part of his conduct was particularly diabolical. When Wilson was delivered to him by the keeper of the Tolbooth to be conducted to the Grassmarket, Porteous, not satisfied with the usual precautions to prevent escape, ordered him to be manacled. This was justifiable, given his character and bodily strength, as well as from the fear of a rescue attempt. But the handcuffs being too small for the wrists of a man as big-boned as Wilson, were forced closed to the exquisite torture of the criminal. Wilson remonstrated against such barbarous usage, declaring that the pain distracted his thoughts from the meditation proper to his unhappy condition.
‘Your pain,’ replied Porteous, ‘will soon be at an end.’
‘And your cruelty is great,’ retorted Wilson, ‘You know not how soon you may be asking for mercy. God forgive you!’
These words, long afterwards remembered and quoted, were all that passed between Porteous and his prisoner. However, as they became generally known, they greatly increased the popular compassion for Wilson and the indignation against Porteous.
When the grim procession was completed, Wilson and his escort arrived at the scaffold in the Grassmarket. There appeared no sign of any attempt to rescue him. The multitude looked on with deeper interest than at ordinary executions; on the countenances of many was the stern, indignant expression with which the Cameronians had witnessed the execution of their brethren on that very spot.8 But there was no attempt at violence. Wilson himself seemed disposed to hasten over the space that divided time from eternity. The devotions, proper and usual on such occasions, were no sooner finished than he submitted to his fate. The sentence of the Law was executed.
When he had hung on the gibbet long enough to be totally deprived of life, a tumult arose among the multitude. Stones were thrown at Porteous and his guards. The mob continued to press forward with howls and threats. A young fellow in a sailor’s cap sprang onto the scaffold and cut the rope by which Wilson’s body was suspended. Others approached either to carry it off for burial, or perhaps to attempt resuscitation.
This appearance of insurrection against his authority sent Captain Porteous into a rage. He forgot that since the sentence had now been executed, it was his duty not to engage in hostilities with the mob, but to withdraw his men. Instead, he sprang from the scaffold and snatched a musket from one of his soldiers. Commanding his men to open fire, he set them an example by firing his weapon and shooting a man dead on the spot. Several soldiers obeyed his command; six or seven persons were killed and a great many more wounded.
The Captain then proceeded to withdraw his men towards their Guardhouse in the High Street, but the mob were not so much intimidated as incensed by what he had done. They pursued the soldiers with curses and volleys of stones. As they pressed on towards them, the rearmost soldiers turned and opened fire, again with fatal results. It is not known for certain whether Porteous ordered this second fusillade, but the odium of that whole fatal day attached to him and to him alone. Arriving at the Guardhouse, he dismissed his men and went to make his report to the Magistrates.
Apparently by this time Captain Porteous had begun to doubt the propriety of his own conduct, and the reception he met with from the Magistrates made him still more anxious to gloss it over. He denied that he had given orders to fire; he denied he himself had fired; he even produced the fusee9 which he carried as an Officer, for examination. It was found to be still loaded. Of three cartridges which he was seen putting into his pouch that morning, two were still there; a white handkerchief was thrust into the muzzle of the weapon and emerged unsoiled or blackened. To the defences based on these circumstances, however, it was pointed out that Porteous had not used his own weapon, but had been seen to take one from a soldier.
Among the many killed and wounded by the firing were several individuals of higher rank, observing the scene from upper windows. The common humanity of the soldiers had made them fire over the heads of the crowd, this proving fatal to several of those persons. The voice of public indignation was loud, and before tempers had time to cool, the trial of Captain Porteous for murder took place before the High Court of Justiciary.
After a long hearing, the jury had the difficult duty of balancing the evidence of witnesses. Many respectable persons testified to the prisoner commanding his soldiers to fire, and himself firing his fusée. Others swore that they saw the smoke and the flash and a man drop. On the other hand, testimony came from others who, though well-stationed, neither heard Porteous give orders to fire, nor saw him fire himself. On the contrary, they averred that the first shot had been fired by a soldier close by him. A great part of his defence was also founded on the turbulence of the crowd, which again witnesses represented differently. Some described a formidable riot, others the trifling disturbance usual on such occasions when the executioner and the men commissioned to protect him were routinely exposed to indignities.
Having considered their verdict, the jury found that that John Porteous fired a gun into the people assembled at the execution, and also that he gave orders to his soldiers to fire, resulting in many persons being killed or wounded. They also found that the Captain and his guards had been assaulted and wounded by stones thrown at them by the multitude.
The Lords of Justiciary passed sentence of death against Captain John Porteous. He was ordered to be hanged on a gibbet at the common place of execution on Wednesday, 8 September 1736. Furthermore, according to Scottish Law in cases of willful murder, all his movable property was forfeited to the King.10
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1 The first major Jacobite rising and the inconclusive, ie drawn, Battle of Sheriffmuir, where the rebels, led by the Earl of Mar, faced a Government army under John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, of whom vide infra. The battle was wittily summarised by Anon: ‘Some say that we wan, and some say that they wan, while some say that nane wan at a’, man; but we ran, and they ran and we… ach we a’ ran awa’ man!’.
2 Robert Fergusson (1750–1774): Scottish poet and inspiration to Burns.
3 This hook was to enable the bearer of the Lochaber axe to scale a gateway by grappling the top of the door and swinging himself up by the staff of his weapon. Scott.
4 A market held on Hallowmas, or All Saints Day (1 November) at Edinburgh where it was the occasion of a large cattle-market.
5 A song by Allan Ramsay (1686–1758).
6 See John Kay, A Series of Original Portraits, With Biographical Sketches and Illustrative Anecdotes (Edinburgh: A & C Black, 1877).
7 Of King George III: June 4th.
8 The Cameronian sect of Presbyterians were the strictest among the Scottish Covenanters. Founded by Richard Cameron (1648–1680), they fiercely opposed any alliance of Church and State. Cameron was killed in action at the skirmish of Aird’s Moss. The closest present day sect are the Free Presbyterians who, impressively, regard the Free Church of Scotland (the ‘Wee Frees’) as dangerous libertines.
9 A flintlock rifle.
10 The five signatures affixed to the death warrant of Captain Porteous were headed by Andrew Fletcher of Milton, the Lord Justice Clerk. It was dated 20 July 1736.