The Queen’s pardon reached Edinburgh so early as Thursday, the 2nd of September. The riot happened on the night of Tuesday, the 7th—the night previous to the day on which the execution was to have taken place, and after a sufficient time had elapsed for the preparation of the scheme. Many of the rioters came from counties so distant, that the news of the reprieve could not have reached them in a less space; and perhaps the intelligence would not have been so speedily communicated in those postless and coachless days, had not the popular interest in the matter been so universal. Taking every thing into consideration, it may indeed astonish us that the conspiracy was so rapidly matured as it _was_, not to speak of a single afternoon! It may be noticed, that some papers have lately come to light, by which it appears the plot was not of that dark and mysterious character which the accounts of the times and the Author of “Waverley” make it. Information had been given to the council at least _thirty-six hours_ before the tumult burst forth; and at a meeting late on the previous evening, when the information was taken into consideration, the council pronounced the reports in circulation to be merely _cadies’ clatters_, (gossip of street-porters,) unworthy of regard. The incidents of the riot, from the mob’s entering the city at the West Port to Butler’s desertion of the scene at midnight, are all given very correctly by the novelist. It is said to be absolutely true that the rioters seized and detained a person of Butler’s profession, for the purpose related in the novel. This happened, however, when they had got half way to the gallows, at the head of the West Bow. Porteous was twice drawn up and let down again before the deed was accomplished—first, to bind his hands, and secondly, in order to put something over his face. In the morning his body was found hanging, by the public functionaries of the city, and was buried the same day in the neighbouring churchyard of Greyfriars. It was on the south side of the Grassmarket that he was hanged.