REMARKABLE RIOT AT EDINBURGH.

Such a degree of licentiousness prevailed over the whole nation, that the kingdom was filled with tumult and riots, which might have been prevented by proper regulations of the civil government in a due execution of the laws. The most remarkable of these disturbances happened at Edinburgh, on the seventh day of September. John Porteous, who commanded the guard paid by that city, a man of brutal disposition and abandoned morals, had, at the execution of a smuggler, been provoked by some insults from the populace to order his men, without using the previous formalities of the law, to fire with shot among the crowd; by which precipitate order several innocent persons lost their lives. Porteous was tried for murder, convicted, and received sentence of death; but the queen, as guardian of the realm, thought proper to indulge him with a reprieve. The common people of Edinburgh resented this lenity shown to a criminal, who was the object of their detestation. They remembered that pardons had been granted to divers military delinquents in that country, who had been condemned by legal trial. They seemed to think those were encouragements to oppression; they were fired by a national jealousy; they were stimulated by the relations and friends of those who had been murdered; and they resolved to wreak their vengeance on the author of that tragedy, by depriving him of life on the very day which the judges had fixed for his execution. Thus determined, they assembled in different bodies about ten o’clock at night. They blocked up the gates of the city, to prevent the admission of the troops that were quartered in the suburbs. They surprised and disarmed the town guards; they broke open the prison doors; dragged Porteous from thence to the place of execution; and, leaving him hanging by the neck on a dyer’s pole, quietly dispersed to their several habitations. This exploit was performed with such conduct and deliberation as seemed to be the result of a plan formed by some persons of consequence; it, therefore, became the object of a very severe inquiry.