Allan Ramsay. [A biography.] - National Library of Scotland

ALLAN RAMSAY 31
of the thousands of spectators who day by day thronged
the purlieus of the hall where the national assembly met.
Of the rage, brooding and deep, or loud and outspoken,
according to temperament, which prevailed amongst the
Edinburgh people at the mere idea of Union with the
hated 'Southrons,' he must have been a witness. Nay,
he may have been an onlooker, if not a participant, in
that riot which occurred after all was over,—after Lord-
Chancellor Seafield had uttered his brutal mof^ ' There
is the end o' an auld sang,' which gathered up for him
the gall of a nation's execration for a century to come
and after the Commissioners of both nations had retired
to sign the Treaty of Union. Not, however, to any of
the halls of Court did they retire, but to a dingy cellar
(still existing) of a house, 177 High Street, opposite the
Tron Church—being nearly torn limb from limb in
getting there. Then the mob, suddenly realising that
now or never they must
' Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen,'
besieged the cellar, intending to execute Jeddart justice
or Lynch law on those they esteemed traitors to their
country. Fortunately there was another means of egress
the party hastily took flight to an arbour in the garden
of Moray House, where the remaining signatures were
appended, and whence all the Commissioners fled post-
haste to England, bearing with them the signed copy of
the Treaty.
That stirring time, so pregnant with mighty issues, a
time when the weal or the woe of the future British
Empire trembled in the balance,—for what of achievement
could England alone have accomplished, with
; ;