The news of an amnesty was joyfully received in the press-yard. One of the first acts of the prisoners so soon to be set free was to get in a poor fiddler, “whom they set to play tunes adapted to their treasonable ballads;.... but this was so shocking to the keepers that they turned the fiddler out.” Next the prisoners had a badger brought in, and baited him with dogs. Other already pardoned rebels came and paid ceremonious visits, such as Mr. Townley, who appeared with much pomp and splendour after his discharge from the Marshalsea. Several clergymen also visited; and a noted common council man, whose friends stood a bowl of punch that night in Captain Silk’s room. The State prisoners were soon “very busy in getting new rigging, and sending away their boxes and trunks; so that they looked like so many people removing from their lodgings and houses on quarter-day.” On July 4th a member of Parliament came to assure Mr. Grierson that the Act of Indemnity would surely pass in a few days. This occasioned great joy. A fortnight later the pardon was promulgated, and all the prisoners remaining were taken to Westminster to plead the Act, “where many were so very ungrateful that they refused to kneel or speak out in asking the king’s pardon till they were forced to it.”[101] According to this last-quoted writer, the rebels in Newgate were not of exemplary character. “Their daily practice in prison was profane swearing, drunkenness, gluttony, gaming, and lasciviousness.” That such was permitted speaks volumes as to the shameful negligence of prison rule in those unsettled times. There were other rebel prisoners, who do not seem to have benefited by this act of grace, and who remained much longer in prison. It is recorded in the ‘Weekly Journal’ of January 24th, 1727, that the King (George I.) had pardoned another batch of Jacobites, who had been capitally convicted in the first year of his reign for levying war against him. The pardoned traitors were Robert Stuart, of Appin; Alexander Macdonald, of Glencoe; Grant, of Glenmorrison; Maclimmin, of that Ilk; Mackenzie, of Fairburn; Mackenzie, of Dachmalnack; Chisholm, of Shatglass; Mackenzie, of Ballumakie; MacDougal, of Lorne; and two others, more notable than all the rest, “James, commonly called Lord, Ogilvie,” and “Robert Campbell, _alias_ Macgregor, commonly called Rob Roy.” They had been under durance in London, for it is added that “on Tuesday last they were carried from _Newgate_ to _Gravesend_, to be put on ship-board for transportation to Barbadoes.” Rob Roy marching handcuffed to Lord Ogilvie through the London streets from Newgate to the prison barge at Blackfriars, and thence to Gravesend, is an incident that has escaped the notice of Walter Scott, and all of Rob’s biographers. The barge-load of Highland chiefs, and of some thieves, seems, however, to have been pardoned, and allowed to return home.