nd state, as by law established; he recommended harmony
and mutual affection among all protestants of the nation, as the great
security of that happy establishment; and signified his intention to
visit his German dominions. Accordingly, the parliament was no sooner
prorogued than he set out for Hanover, after having appointed the queen
regent in his absence.

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 sever