The Heart of Mid-Lothian - Penn State University

as it was chiefly his duty to have restrained. This suspicion,
which was perhaps much exaggerated, made a deep
impression on the minds of the populace; and when several
of the higher rank joined in a petition, recommending
Porteous to the mercy of the Crown, it was generally
supposed he owed their favour not to any conviction
of the hardship of his case, but to the fear of losing
a convenient accomplice in their debaucheries. It is
scarcely necessary to say how much this suspicion augmented
the people’s detestation of this obnoxious criminal,
as well as their fear of his escaping the sentence
pronounced against him.
While these arguments were stated and replied to, and
canvassed and supported, the hitherto silent expectation
of the people became changed into that deep and
agitating murmur, which is sent forth by the ocean before
the tempest begins to howl. The crowded populace,
as if their motions had corresponded with the unsettled
state of their minds, fluctuated to and fro without any
visible cause of impulse, like the agitation of the waters,
called by sailors the ground-swell. The news, which
The Heart of Mid-Lothian
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the magistrates had almost hesitated to communicate
to them, were at length announced, and spread among
the spectators with a rapidity like lightning. A reprieve
from the Secretary of State’s office, under the hand of
his Grace the Duke of Newcastle, had arrived, intimating
the pleasure of Queen Caroline (regent of the kingdom
during the absence of George II. on the Continent),
that the execution of the sentence of death pronounced
against John Porteous, late Captain-Lieutenant of the
City Guard of Edinburgh, present prisoner in the
Tolbooth of that city, be respited for six weeks from the
time appointed for his execution.
The assembled spectators of almost all degrees, whose
minds had been wound up to the pitch which we have
described, uttered a groan, or rather a roar of indignation
and disappointed revenge, similar to that of a tiger
from whom his meal has been rent by his keeper when
he was just about to devour it. This fierce exclamation
seemed to forbode some immediate explosion of popular
resentment, and, in fact, such had been expected by
the magistrates, and the necessary measures had been