The Gin Act was passed with a view to putting a stop to this sale, but without success, and the truth that people cannot be made sober by Act of Parliament was proved up to the hilt. The only result was to encourage a gang of informers who became the pest of the country. The Act came into force on September 29th, 1736, and as the date approached ballads and lamentations of “Mother Gin” were sung about the streets, the signs of the liquor shops were everywhere put into mourning, and mock ceremonies on the funeral of “Madam Gin” were carried out by the mob. To quote from the journals: “Last Wednesday, September 29th, several people made themselves very merry with the death of ‘Madam Gin,’ and some of both sexes got soundly drunk at her funeral, of which the mob made a formal procession with torches.”[118]
All over the country it was the same, and the Act was practically abortive. The selling of gin was carried on just the same, sometimes publicly in the shops, more often by hawkers who sold it about the streets in flasks and bottles under fictitious names. Some of these names were odd enough, such as “Cuckold’s Comfort,” “Make-Shift,” “The Ladies’ Delight,” “Colic and Gripe water,” and so forth. Sometimes the gin was coloured with a drop or two of pink fluid, and sold in bottles, labelled: “Take two or three spoonfuls of this four or five times a day, or as often as the fit takes you”. The Act was repealed seven years later; but the whole of its unpopularity now fell upon Walpole and the Queen-Regent, especially on the latter, who certainly had urged its passing, as she wished to abate the crying scandal of drunkenness. The Prince of Wales, in his quest for popularity, sided with the people, and was said to have been seen drinking gin publicly in one of the taverns the very day the Act came into force.
The most serious riot of all took place, not in London or the provinces, but in Edinburgh. Scotland, though quelled for a time after the abortive rising of 1715, was still restless under Hanoverian rule, and it needed but a spark to set the discontent in a blaze. Scotland had never been reconciled to the Act of Union, and the jealousy of any interference from England was strongly resented, even by many of those who refused to acknowledge James as their King. The Porteous Riots served to bring matters to a climax. These riots had their origin in a small matter. Two smugglers, named Robertson and Wilson, were arrested by the officers of the Crown for robbing a collector of customs, and lay in the Tolbooth, or city gaol of Edinburgh, under sentence of death. Hanging was the punishment for smuggling in those days, but practically the severity of the sentence rendered the Act inoperative, and smuggling was winked at by many honest Scots who regarded these imposts as an unjust aggression upon their ancient liberties. But in this case the Government determined to make an example. Great sympathy was felt for the prisoners by the people, and files were secretly conveyed to them from outside to aid their escape. The prisoners freed themselves from their manacles, and cut through a bar of the window. Wilson insisted on going first, but as he was a stout man he got fixed in the opening, and there remained, unable to move backwards or forwards. In this plight he was found in the morning, and the escape of the prisoners was defeated. Wilson was seized with self-reproach at the thought that, if it had not been for his wilfulness, Robertson, who was a younger and slimmer man, would have been saved, and he determined to do something to help him.
It was the custom in those days for condemned prisoners to be taken to the Tolbooth church the Sunday before their execution, and be preached at. Robertson and Wilson went as was customary, escorted by guards, but as they were coming out Wilson attacked the guards unexpectedly, and cried to Robertson to escape. In the confusion the latter managed to do so; he jumped over the pews, and was aided by the sympathetic congregation. The generous conduct of Wilson excited great popular sympathy, but Captain John Porteous, who was in command of the city guard, a rough and brutal man, especially resented the saving of one prisoner by the other, and determined that Wilson’s execution should take place the next day. In this decision he was hastened by a rumour that Wilson would be rescued from the gallows by the mob. He ordered a double guard around the scaffold, and was said to have forced the unfortunate victim to wear handcuffs much too small for him as he went to the place of execution, though the latter showed him his bruised and bleeding wrists, and protested against this barbarity. “It signifies little,” said Porteous brutally, “your pain will soon be at an end.” Wilson answered him in words that were afterwards remembered: “You know not how soon you yourself may have occasion to ask the mercy which you are now refusing to a fellow-creature. May God forgive you!”
THE OLD TOLBOOTH, EDINBURGH, TEMP. 1736.
From an old Print
Wilson was hanged by the neck on the gibbet erected in the Grassmarket, and the execution passed off quietly enough, though an enormous and threatening crowd had assembled. But when the body had hung on the gibbet for some time, some of the mob began to throw stones at the guards and a rush was made for the scaffold to cut down the body, either to give it decent burial or to see if it could be resuscitated. Porteous, who was a violent-tempered man and was said to be half-drunk, ordered the soldiers to fire upon the crowd and even stimulated them by snatching a musket from a soldier and firing it himself. Several persons were wounded, and six or seven killed on the spot. The firing was the signal for a general tumult; Porteous and his soldiers withdrew with difficulty to the guard-house, pursued by execrations and volleys of stones. Local feeling was wholly against Porteous; he was arrested for ordering the soldiers to fire upon the citizens, several of whom had taken no part in the tumult. His trial took place before the High Court of Justice in Edinburgh, and he was found guilty and condemned to death. He was to be hanged on September 8th, 1736, and meanwhile lay in the Tolbooth. He appealed to London, and the Queen-Regent in Council, taking into consideration the provocation which Porteous had received, ordered his reprieve.
When this reprieve arrived at Edinburgh from the Secretary of State’s Office, under the hand of the Duke of Newcastle, the agitation that arose was almost beyond belief. The people, who had been thirsting for the death of Porteous, were like tigers baulked of their prey, and determined to take the law into their own hands. There is little doubt that the Lord Provost and city authorities were aware of what was going to take place, and also the General in command of the troops at the Castle. They did nothing to prevent it, for their sympathies were with the people. The night after the Queen’s reprieve arrived in Edinburgh, a fierce mob arose as if by magic, armed with pikes, bayonets, Lochaber axes, and any arms they could find, and headed by a man dressed in woman’s clothes. The rioters made themselves masters of the gates of the city, disarmed the guard, and marched to the Tolbooth, with shouts of “Porteous! Porteous!” The unhappy man within, who was entertaining a party of boon companions on the cheerful news of his reprieve, saw the glare of the torches, heard the cries, and recognised in them the shout of his doom. His friends made off as fast as they could, the turnkeys were seized with panic and ran away, and many prisoners escaped. Porteous concealed himself in the chimney of his cell. For some time the old door of the Tolbooth, which was of stout oak, heavily clamped with iron, resisted the onslaughts of the rioters, but at last they burned it down, and leaping over the embers rushed into the prison in search of their prey. The miserable man was soon discovered, dragged from the chimney, carried outside and hanged in the sight of the mob from an improvised gibbet made of a barber’s pole. The crowd then dispersed as suddenly and mysteriously as it had assembled; the method and precision with which the ringleaders carried out their work, and the celerity with which they dispersed, showed there was method in this rough justice, and that it was rather the result of a conspiracy than an ordinary riot. The next morning not a sign remained of the night’s dread work except the body of Porteous hanging from the pole.
When the news reached London the Queen was furious at the insult which she conceived had been especially aimed at her authority as Regent, and gave vent to language which for vigour would have done credit to her exemplar, Queen Elizabeth. For the only time on record Caroline thoroughly lost her temper. She hastily summoned a council and proposed the wildest measures. The charter of Edinburgh, she said, must be withdrawn, the Provost must be incapacitated from ever holding office again, the commander of the garrison must be cashiered, and fines and imprisonment were to be the order of the day. The Duke of Argyll endeavoured to put in a moderating word on behalf of his countrymen. The Queen turned on him with fury, and said that sooner than brook such an insult she would make Scotland a hunting ground. “In that case, madam,” said the duke with a bow, “I will take leave of your Majesty, and go down to my own country to get my hounds ready.” Caroline recognised the covert threat in the duke’s words, and adjourned the council. Fortunately her anger was not of a kind to last long, and wiser counsels prevailed. The Scottish peers defended their countrymen in the House of Lords, and in the end a compromise was arrived at, by which the City of Edinburgh had to pay a nominal fine of £2,000, and the Provost was disgraced.