REMARKABLE RIOT AT EDINBURGH.
Such a degree of licentiousness prevailed over the whole nation, that the kingdom was filled with tumult and riots, which might have been prevented by proper regulations of the civil government in a due execution of the laws. The most remarkable of these disturbances happened at Edinburgh, on the seventh day of September. John Porteous, who commanded the guard paid by that city, a man of brutal disposition and abandoned morals, had, at the execution of a smuggler, been provoked by some insults from the populace to order his men, without using the previous formalities of the law, to fire with shot among the crowd; by which precipitate order several innocent persons lost their lives. Porteous was tried for murder, convicted, and received sentence of death; but the queen, as guardian of the realm, thought proper to indulge him with a reprieve. The common people of Edinburgh resented this lenity shown to a criminal, who was the object of their detestation. They remembered that pardons had been granted to divers military delinquents in that country, who had been condemned by legal trial. They seemed to think those were encouragements to oppression; they were fired by a national jealousy; they were stimulated by the relations and friends of those who had been murdered; and they resolved to wreak their vengeance on the author of that tragedy, by depriving him of life on the very day which the judges had fixed for his execution. Thus determined, they assembled in different bodies about ten o’clock at night. They blocked up the gates of the city, to prevent the admission of the troops that were quartered in the suburbs. They surprised and disarmed the town guards; they broke open the prison doors; dragged Porteous from thence to the place of execution; and, leaving him hanging by the neck on a dyer’s pole, quietly dispersed to their several habitations. This exploit was performed with such conduct and deliberation as seemed to be the result of a plan formed by some persons of consequence; it, therefore, became the object of a very severe inquiry.
RUPTURE BETWEEN THE CZARINA AND THE OTTOMAN PORTE.
During this summer a rupture happened between the Turks and the Russians, which last reduced the city of Azoph on the Black Sea, and overrun the greatest part of Crim Tartary. The czarina declared war against the Ottoman Porte, because the Tartars of the Crimea had made incursions upon her frontiers; and, when she complained of these disorders to the vizier, she received no satisfaction; besides, a large body of Tartars had, by order of that minister, marched through the Russian provinces in despite of the empress, and committed terrible havoc in their route. The emperor was obliged to engage as a party in this war, by a treaty offensive and defensive, which he had many years before concluded with the czarina. Yet, before he declared himself, he joined the maritime powers in offering his mediation to the sultan, who was very well disposed to peace; but the czarina insisted upon her retaining Azoph, which her forces had reduced; and this preliminary article being rejected, as dishonourable to the Ottoman empire, the court of Vienna began to make preparations for war. By this time all the belligerent powers in Italy had agreed to the preliminaries of peace concluded between the emperor and France. The duke of Lorraine had espoused the emperor’s eldest daughter, the archduchess Maria Theresa, and ceded Lorraine to France, even before he succeeded to Tuscany. Don Carlos was crowned king of Sicily; Stanislaus abdicated the crown of Poland; and Augustus was universally acknowledged sovereign of that kingdom. The preliminaries were approved and accepted by the diet of the empire; the king of Spain sent orders for his troops to evacuate Tuscany; and the provinces in Italy yielded to the house of Austria. Prince Eugene, who had managed the interest of the emperor on this occasion, did not live to see the happy fruits of this negotiation. He died at Vienna, in April, at the age of seventy-three, leaving behind him the character of an invincible hero and consummate politician. He was not long survived by count Staremberg, another Imperial general who ranked next to the prince in military reputation. About the same time Great Britain sustained a national loss in the death of lord chancellor Talbot, who, by his worth, probity, and acquired accomplishments, had dignified the great office to which he had been raised. He died universally lamented, in the month of February, at the age of fifty-two, and was succeeded on the bench by lord Hardwicke.
THE SESSION OF PARLIAMENT OPENED
The king being indisposed, in consequence of having been fatigued by a very tempestuous passage from Holland, the parliament was prorogued from the twenty-first day of January to the first of February, and then the session was opened by commission. The lord chancellor, as one of the peers authorised by this commission, made a speech in his majesty’s name to both houses. With respect to foreign affairs, he told them that the respective acts of cession being exchanged, and orders given for the evacuation and possession of the several countries and places by the powers concerned, according to the allotment and disposition of the preliminary articles, the great work of re-establishing the general tranquillity was far advanced; that, however, common prudence called upon them to be very attentive to the final conclusion of the new settlement. He said his majesty could not without surprise and concern observe the many contrivances and attempts carried on, in various shapes, and in different parts of the nation, tumultuously to resist and obstruct the execution of the laws, and to violate the peace of the kingdom. He observed, that the consideration of the height to which those audacious practices might rise, if not timely suppressed, afforded a melancholy prospect, and required particular attention, lest they should affect private persons in the quiet enjoyment of their property, as well as the general peace and good order of the whole. After the commons had agreed to an address, and heard counsel on some controverted elections, they proceeded to take the supply into consideration. They voted ten thousand men for the sea-service. They continued for the land-service the same number they had maintained in times of tranquillity, amounting to seventeen thousand seven hundred and four; but this measure was not adopted without opposition; the money was raised by the land and malt-taxes, reinforced with one million granted out of the sinking fund.