Mark Coleman Wallace PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

members ultimately resolved “That the Lodge room should be Let to the highest
bidder and for that purpose to advertise it in the Edinburgh News papers.” 50
Notwithstanding the Grand Lodge’s resolution, No. 8 Journeymen allowed the
meeting to take place on 5 December 1793. Lord Provost Thomas Elder,
accompanied by several constables, forcibly disbanded the assembly; shortly
thereafter, numerous members of the Friends were arrested and charged with
sedition. 51 On 7 December 1793, the Grand Lodge of Scotland held a meeting
to discuss the conduct of No. 8. During the meeting,
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it was Represented by the Substitute Grand Master that the Journeymen
Mason Lodge of Edinburgh…had subjected their Lodge to persons
calling themselves the “Friends of the People,” and wished to know how
the Grand Lodge would dispose of the matter. Whereupon it was
Resolved to call by public advertisement in the newspapers, a General
Meeting of the Grand Lodge to Consider the Matter, and ordered
Circular Letters should be sent to the whole members or Committee of
the Journeymen Mason Lodge requesting their attendance upon
Thursday next at seven o’clock in the Evening, which was accordingly
done, and cards sent to that effect. 52
Subsequently, the Grand Lodge suspended five members of No. 8 for
permitting the Friends to meet in their lodge. In an overt magnanimous gesture,
the Grand Lodge acknowledged that it would “repone the whole members, and
admit them to their free stations in the Lodge, they always behaving properly in
time coming agreeable to the rules of the Craft.” 53
50 Ibid.
51 Seggie, Journeymen Masons, 83-87. The members were also “sentenced to
transportation…for a period of fourteen years.”
52 Grand Lodge of Scotland Minutes, 7 December 1793.
53 Ibid.