teen perfons; that the three firft or principal of thefe, so far as may be judged from apparent rank or condition, were, a merchant, a goldsmith, and a teacher of the poor in an hofpital; that the remainder were either men exercifing mean trades, or else writingclerks, fome ferving in countinghoufes, and others in public of/fices; excepting only the thirteenth, who being yet an apprentice, filled, notwithstanding, the important office of fecretary to the committee. Such were the redoubted champions, who undertook the protection and defence of an established national religion; already guarantied and fortified, not only by its invincible truth and holiness, but by laws, habits, length of poffeffion, public opinion, and the united force of a whole empire.

The wretched people who were thus marked out as the objects of public execration and vengeance, apprehending the most fatal confequences from the dangerous fpirit now raised, thought it prudent and neceffary, early in the year 1779, to acquaint Lord North, through fome of the northern members of parliament, that chufing rather to facrifice their own future cafe and advantage, than to endanger the immediate peace of their country, they would accordingly refrain from any application to the legislature, for the expected, and fo much wifhed for indulgence. And hoping to affuage the fury and rage of the multitude, the letter written upon the subject by thefe gentlemen to the minifter, including that refolution, and act of forbearance on their fide, which totally removed every new object

of jealoufy and difcontent, was published in the news-papers.

No conceffion could, however, allay the fury of that outrageous zeal which was now let loofe. For fome time the Roman Catholics had been fubjected, in open daylight, and in the public ftreets, to contumelious treatment and fhocking threats, from the enraged rab. ble. Magiftracy probably did not imagine to what lengths they might proceed. As the deftined time of vengeance drew near, feveral days. previous notice was publicly given, by an infinite number of incendiary letters and hand-bills, which were difperfed through every part of Edinburgh, not only specifying time, place, and object, but calling upon, or fummoning, the affistance of the people in the enter prize.

This public announcement of a dangerous defign, did not produce a greater alarm, or any measure of prevention; and was followed by feveral light attacks with ftones, and other miffile weapons, which feemed only calculated to feel the courage, and to excite the rage of the populace, and which went no farther than the breaking of windows, or other fimilar mifchiefs; which were all paffed over in the fame manner.

On the appointed day, Feb. 2d. the firft and great object of attack, was houfe, in which the principal Roman Catholic clergyman, or bishop, along with feveral other families of that perfuafion, dwelt; one room or floor of which had been defigned and prepared for a place of worfhip, or private chapel, as being more commodious than another of the fame pature, and fituated like

wife

wife in a private dwelling-house, which they had for many years occupied in another part of the town. Although it appears that this room had been deftined for the use, to which it was not then applied, a year before any thing was agitated in parliament for the relief of the Roman Catholics, yet the zealots of that party, in order to inflame the people, reprefented this building as the immediate confequence of that indulgence; and held it out as a new and fignal inftance of the intolerable pride and daring fpirit of popery, which, on the first gleam of hope or favour, had thus at once burst through all the boundaries of decency and difcretion, and ventured equally to infult the nation and the Proteftant religion, by erecting in the metropolis, and in the face of both, this pompous place of worship, and oftentatious difplay of its triumph, in which it was publicly to exhibit all its fuperftitions and pageantries.

The people were accordingly particularly called upon, in thofe incendiary letters which we have noticed, to meet at Leith Wynd, in order to pull down that Pillar of Popery lately erected there." It is to be obferved that the house, which carried no appearance with out fide of its containing any place of worship whatever, was inhabited by four families, befides that of the clergyman's; and that the room laid out for a chapel is reprefented as being only 34 feet in length. This houfe was violently affaulted, and fet on fire, and the flames continued until the noon of the following day. The inhabitants with difficulty escaped with their lives.

During the demolition of this

main "Pillar of Popery," a detachment from the main body were difpatched to the Old Chapel, in a place called Black Friars Wynd. The houfe which had the ill fortune of containing that place of worship, was inhabited by feveral families of trades-people, whofe property and effects, as well as the infide of the house and chapel, were totally deftroyed. Here a confiderable library belonging to the Roman Catholic bishop was alfo deftroyed or carried away. The rioters afterwards directed their violence against the Catholics in other parts of the town; and totally deftroyed the ftock in trade and effects of two or three tradesmen of that profeffion; few houfes being inhabited by them, as their number was very inconsiderable, and confifting chiefly of poor Highlanders, the lowest and most indigent of the people. One or

two ladies of fashion of that communion were threatened and in

fulted, and obliged to take refuge in the cafle.

It is difagreeable to enter into the detail of these favage diforders, which continued with little or no effectual refiftance from magiftracy for fome days. Some of their attempts, as they were more wicked, appeared more fuitable to their courage, than the hunting out of their obfcure retreats a handful of miferable people. They now extended their views to the punishment or deftruction of those gentlemen, of whatever rank, or religion, who had been fuppofed to favour, or in any degree to afford their countenance, to the late defign of obtaining a relaxation of the popery laws. The failure of fuccefs which attended their efforts,

on

on this enlargement of design and object, ferved, however, greatly to damp the fpirit of future enterprize. Their first fury was directed to the house of Profeffor Robertson, the celebrated hiftorian, and to that of Mr. Crosbie, an eminent advocate; who ftanding high, if not at the head of his profeffion, was fill more diftinguished by the excellency of his character and difpofition. The enlightened views and liberal fentiments of the first of thefe gentlemen, which rendered him an enemy to all perfecution, rendered him an object of it to the deluded populace; and the fecond had fubmitted to the crime of being profeffionally employed as counfel by that people, and of having accordingly drawn up the bill, which their reprefentatives had intended to prefent to parliament. The mob found the houfes of thefe gentlemen to well armed, and guarded with fo determined a refolution by their numerous friends, that they refrained from proceeding to extremities; and retired, without any farther outrage than the breaking of fome windows.

Thefe attempts feemed to alarm the magiftracy; as it did not seem now eafy to determine, to what farther lengths the malice of zeal might be carried, nor to what extent the objects of its revenge might be multiplied. They accordingly ordered fome troops of dragoons into the town, who, with detachments from the Duke of Buccleugh's regiment of fencibles, formed chains across the ftreets and paffes. But the fame weakness or inertnefs on the fide of the civil government still c

con

tinued; and the foldiers, ftanding with arms in their hands, on this odious and painful duty, were most shamefully pelted with ftones, and grievously wounded by the mob.

in

At length, on the last day of the week, a proclamation of a fingular nature was published by the magistracy. In that piece, the Lord Provoft affures the people, that no repeal of the penal ftatutes against papists should take place. The past riots are attributed to the apprehenfions, fears, and diftreffed minds of well-meaning people. But they are formed, that," after this public affurance, the magiftra es will take the moft vigorous measures for repreffing any tumultuous or riotous meetings of the populace, which may hereafter arife; being fatisfied that any future diforders will proceed only from the wicked views of bad and defigning men." A claufe which feems to imply the ftrange conceffion, that the magifirates had not hitherto done their duty in fuppreffing the riots; and the no lefs extraordinary propofition, that the paft diforders proceeded from good and well-difpofed people.

The

The example of Edinburgh was in fome degree copied in Glafgow; but the conduct of the magiftrates in that great trading city was widely different. objects of perfecution being few in the latter, and being almost wholly, as for the greater part they were in the former, compofed of poor and, laborious people, who were even deftitute of a clergyman of their own profeffion, the fury of the populace was firft and principally directed to a Mr.

Bagnal,

Bagnal, an English Roman Catholic; who being a native of Staffordshire, had introduced the art peculiar to his own country into Glasgow, where he had eftablifhed, and for feveral years conducted a confiderable manufactory of flone ware. The mob burned his houfes; totally deftroyed his manufactory and stock in trade; and obliged himfelf and his family to fly for their lives into the fields. But the laudable measures purfued by the magiftrates and principal inhabituns for reftoring the public peace and tranquillity were fo effica. cious, that the mischief went no farther, and order and fecurity were foon restored. Being alfo, at the fame time, equally afhamed and concerned, that the character and government of fo extenfively commercial a city fhould fuffer under the imputation and difgrace of fuch an act of outrage and perfecution, they feemed willing, fo far as it could be done, to obliterate every trace of it from the memory. Bagnal was accordingly fpeedily acquainted, that he fhould be reimbursed for every part of his loffes to the uttermoft farthing; and feveral of the principal inhabitants, including refpectable names among the clergy, acquired no fmall honour, by the attention and tendernefs which the wife and family of the fufferer experienced from them, during the immediate preffure of their terror and diftrefs.

Thefe matters were of courfe agitated more than once in parliament during that feffion; and a patriotic member of the house of commons was upon the point of bringing in a bill for affording

compenfation and relief to the fufferers, until the minifter gave an affurance, that the matter would be privately fettled to their fatisfaction. Upon these occafions, the conduct of the magiftracy of Edinburgh underwent no fmall degree of animadverfion and the affumption of the chief magiftrate, in venturing to answer. in his proclamation for the future conduct and measures to be purfued or adopted by the Britifh legiflature, was particularly and feverely reprehended. Neither did the minifters, nor parliament itself, escape a fhare of that cenfure, which was upon this occafion freely adminiftered by one or two members of the oppofition; who obferved, that it was too near and too cruel an infult, fo foon after the immenfe facrifices which we had made to the falfe pretence of fupporting the fupremacy and dignity of the British legiflature in every part of the empire, to fuffer a frantic and contemptible rabble at home, not only to fly in the face of its prefent authority, but to prescribe limits, beyond which it was not to pafs, to its future operation. Thus, they faid, fowing, under the fan&tion of a recorded precedent, the feeds of diforder, outrage, contempt of authority, and abfolute rebellion, in every remaining part of the British dominions.

However unequal to the cause the effect may feem, it was through this religious combuftion, and the circumftances attending it, that administration loft that firm hold of the temper and difpofition of the people of Scotland, which nothing elfe, perhaps, could have