Never, perhaps, did any city, upon the approach of a foreign enemy, betray such symptoms of consternation and disorder, as did Edinburgh, on the 16th of September 1745, when it was understood that Prince Charles Edward, with his army of Highlanders, had reached a village three miles to the westward, unresisted by the civic corps in which the hapless city had placed its last hopes of defence. A regiment of dragoons, which had retreated on the previous day from Stirling, and another which happened to be encamped near Edinburgh, having joined their strengths to that of the town-guard and volunteers, had that forenoon marched boldly out of town, with the determined purpose of opposing the rebels, and saving the town; but after standing very bravely for a few hours at Corstorphine, the spectacle of a single Highlander, who rode up towards them and fired off his pistol, caused the whole of these gallant cavaliers to turn and fly; nor did they stop till they had left Edinburgh itself twenty miles behind. The precipitate flight of regular troops was the worst possible example for a body of raw, undisciplined citizens, who were too much accustomed to the secure comforts of their firesides, to have any relish for the horrors of an out-of-doors war with the unscrupulous mountaineers. The consequence was, that all retreated in confusion back to the city, where their pusillanimity was the subject of triumphant ridicule to the Jacobite party, and of shame and fear to the rest of the inhabitants. In this dilemma, as band after band poured through the West Port, and filled the ample area of the Grassmarket, the magistrates assembled in their council chamber, for the purpose of “wondering what was to be done.” The result of their deliberations was, that a full meeting of the inhabitants should be held, in order that they might be enabled to shape their course according to the general opinion. Orders were immediately given to this effect, and in the course of an hour, they found a respectable assemblage of citizens, prepared, in one of the churches of St Giles’s, to consider the important question of the defensibility of the town.