On the reading of the petition, Mr. Oglethorpe rose and spoke as follows:

"Sir, I am persuaded that this petition will be received in a manner befitting the unhappy case of the sufferers and the justice of this House. I can hardly suspect that any gentleman that has the honor of being a member of this House will hesitate in giving all the relief which we can to the number of unfortunate persons, who have been so much injured. Yet, because I have heard it whispered out of doors, that we ought not to receive this petition upon account, as is pretended, that the common seal is not affixed to it, I deem it necessary to take some notice of that objection, in case it should be started here. Sir, I must say that if there be any irregularity as to the affixing the seal of the Company to this petition, it is, in my opinion, so far from being an objection to our receiving the petition, that it is a very strong reason for it. If there be any fault in form, it is the fault of those who had the keeping of the common seal; and, as they may, perhaps, be of those against whom the complaints are made, and who may, upon inquiry, be found more or less amenable for the wrong, we are, therefore, to suspect that the withholding the seal may be with a view of preventing the truth's being brought to light; at any rate, we ought to discountenance and defeat such indirect practices with regard to the use of a common seal.

"For my own part, sir, I have been always for encouraging the design upon which this corporation was at first established; and looked upon it as a provident act of charity to let necessitous persons have the opportunity of borrowing money upon easier terms than they could have it elsewhere. Money, like other things, is but a commodity, and in the way of dealing, the use of it is looked upon to be worth as much as people can get for it. If this corporation let persons in limited circumstances have the use of money at a cheaper rate than individuals, brokers, or money lenders, would be willing to do, it was certainly a beneficent act. If they had demanded more than was elsewhere given, they would not have had applicants, and the design would not have proved good and useful; but the utility of it was most evident; and the better the design, and the more excellent the benefit, the more those persons deserve to be punished, who by their frauds have curtailed, if not now wholly cut off, these sources of furnishing assistance to the industrious and enterprising, and disappointed the public of reaping the benefit which might have accrued by an honest and faithful execution of so good an undertaking."[1]

[Footnote 1: History and Proceedings of the House of Commons, Vol.
VII. p. 154.]

Another subject in the parliamentary discussions of Oglethorpe which I shall mention, is his defence of the magistracy and town-guard of the city of Edinburgh against an arraignment in the House of Lords, for what was deemed the neglect of prompt and energetic measures for suppressing the riotous seizure and murder of Captain Porteous by an exasperated mob. The circumstances were these.

After the execution in the Grass-market, on the 14th of April, 1736, of one Andrew Wilson, a robber, the town-guard, which had been ordered out on the occasion, was insulted by rude and threatening speeches, and pelted with stones, by the mob. John Porteous, the captain, so resented the annoyance, that he commanded his men to fire over their heads, to intimidate them; and then, as their opposition became violent, he directed the guard to fire among them; whereby six persons were killed, and eleven severely wounded. For this he was prosecuted at the expense of the city, and condemned to die. But, a short reprieve having been obtained, the mob, determined to defeat it, assembled in the night preceding the seventh day of September, whereon he was to have been executed pursuant to the sentence, and, in a very riotous manner, seized and disarmed the city-guard, and possessed themselves of the town-gates, to prevent the admission of troops quartered in the suburbs. They then rushed to the Tolbooth prison; the doors of which not yielding to the force of their hammers, they consumed by fire, and then brought forth Porteous by violence, and hung him on a dyer's post, or frame, in the Grass-market, nigh the spot where the unfortunate people were killed.

The magistrates, attended with several of the burgesses, attempted to quell the riot and disperse the mob, but were pelted with stones, and threatened to be fired upon if they did not retire.

This insult of the sovereign authority was too flagrant to be overlooked. Proclamations, with rewards of two hundred pounds sterling, were issued for apprehending the rioters, and, when the Parliament met, vigorous measures were taken in the affair. The Lord Provost was ordered up to London in custody; the magistrates summoned to answer the indictment, and a bill was introduced into the House of Commons "to disable Alexander Wilson, Esq., the principal magistrate during the riots, from ever after holding any office of magistracy in Edinburgh or Great Britain; to subject him to imprisonment for a year; to abolish the town guard, and to take away the gates of the nether Bowport of the city." Oglethorpe objected to the first reading of the bill, and it encountered his vigorous opposition. He engaged in a warm defence of the magistrates, and of the guard, declaring that there was no dereliction of duty on the part of the magistrates and of the guard, but they were overpowered by numbers, and thrown into actual jeopardy by the desperation of the mob. Hence the penalties of the bill would be the punishment of misfortune, not of crime.

In consequence of the stand which he thus took, and the interest made by others in the House of Commons, the bill was altered in its most essential circumstances, and, instead of the rigorous inflictions, "mercy rejoiced against judgment," and the city was fined the sum of two thousand pounds, to be applied to the relief and support of the widow of Porteous.[1]

[Footnote 1: See Appendix VIII.]