The Heart of Mid-Lothian - Penn State University

how they might be seized. In consequence of which, a
party of the Guard from the Canongate was agreed on
to march up at a certain hour, when a message should
be sent. The Sollicitor wrote a letter and gave it to one
of the town officers, ordered to attend Captain Maitland,
one of the town Captains, promoted to that command
since the unhappy accident, who, indeed, was extremely
diligent and active throughout the whole; and haveing
got Stirling and Braidwood apprehended, dispatched the
officer with the letter to the military in the Canongate,
who immediately begun their march, and by the time
the Sollicitor had half examined the said two persons in
the Burrow-room, where the Magistrates were present,
a party of fifty men, drums beating, marched into the
Parliament close, and drew up, which was the first thing
that struck a terror, and from that time forward, the
insolence was succeeded by fear.
“Stirling and Braidwood were immediately sent to the
Castle and imprisoned. That same night, Stoddart, the
smith, was seized, and he was committed to the Castle also;
as was likewise Traill, the journeyman wright, who were
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all severally examined, and denyed the least accession.
“In the meantime, the enquiry was going on, and it
haveing cast up in one of the declarations, that a hump’d
backed creature marched with a gun as one of the guards
to Porteus when he went up to the Lawn Markett, the
person who emitted this declaration was employed to
walk the streets to see if he could find him out; at last
he came to the Sollicitor and told him he had found him,
and that he was in a certain house. Whereupon a
warrand was issued out against him, and he was apprehended
and sent to the Castle, and he proved to be one
Birnie, a helper to the Countess of Weemys’s coachman.
“Thereafter, ane information was given in against William
M’Lauchlan, ffootman to the said Countess, he
haveing been very active in the mob; ffor sometime he
kept himself out of the way, but at last he was apprehended
and likewise committed to the Castle.
“And these were all the prisoners who were putt under
confinement in that place.
“There were other persons imprisoned in the Tolbooth
of Edinburgh, and severalls against whom warrands