=10. Porteous Riots: 1736.=--Twelve years later the peace was again broken by a tumult at Edinburgh. One _Wilson_, a smuggler, lying under sentence of death for having taken part in a fray in which a Custom-house officer was killed, had won the sympathy of the people by the clever way in which he had managed the escape of a fellow-prisoner. When he was hanged at the Grass Market, the mob pelted the guard with stones. On this _Porteous_, _Captain_ of the _City Guard_, ordered his men to fire, and several innocent persons in the crowd were killed and wounded. _Porteous_ was tried, and condemned to death as a murderer, but a reprieve was sent down from London. Then the people, remembering the case of _Bushell_, determined to take the law into their own hands. On the evening before the day which had been fixed for the execution of the sentence, while Porteous was feasting with his friends to celebrate his escape from danger, they gathered in great numbers. To ensure against surprise they disarmed the city guard, took their weapons, and themselves guarded the gates, so as to prevent any tidings being carried to the regiment quartered in the suburbs. They then marched to the Tolbooth, formerly the Parliament-house, but now used as a prison. The door was so strong that it defied all their efforts to burst it open. They set fire to it, upon which the jailer threw out the keys. Leaving the doors open to let the other prisoners escape, they then went straight to Porteous' cell, dragged him out of the chimney where he was hiding, and carried him to the Grass Market, the place of public execution. There they hanged him to a dyer's pole, with a rope which they had taken from a dealer's stall on the way, and in payment for which they had left a guinea. They then dispersed, without noise or further violence. The ringleaders were never discovered, though all ministers of parishes were required to read from their pulpits once a month for a year a proclamation calling on their congregations to give them up. The Government brought in a Bill for disgracing the city by the loss of the charter and the razing of the gates. But this measure was not carried, and the only penalties inflicted were that _Wilson_, the Provost, was declared incapable of holding office in future, and that the city was fined 2,000_l._ for the benefit of Porteous' widow.