Porteous Riots

While Hall's sentence was commuted to exile, Wilson and Robertson awaited their fate in the condemned cell at Edinburgh's notorious Tolbooth Prison next to St Giles Cathedral.

This prompted the Lord Provost of Edinburgh to instruct Captain Porteous to call out the entire City Guard, furnish them with powder and shot, and ensure the guardhouse was not stormed by the rioters.

A formal appeal was petitioned to Queen Caroline, who ordered the execution to be deferred by six weeks, pending the return of the king from Hanover.

Some of the mob began beating him savagely, breaking his arm and shoulder and an attempt was made to set his naked foot alight.

Prime Minister Robert Walpole, Queen Caroline and the Secretary of State Duke of Newcastle thought that Porteous had been unnecessarily sacrificed to appease the mob and there were even rumours that the local city magistrates had been involved in the conspiracy.

Eventually, the only punishments enforced were a £2,000 fine imposed on the city (used to support Porteous' widow) and the disbarment from all offices of the Lord Provost, Alexander Wilson.

[4] It was variously thought that Porteous' murder was carried out by friends of those who had been shot and killed, revenge by the smugglers, a Jacobite plot, or even a conspiracy by Presbyterian extremists.

However, the organisation of events seems to imply a degree of planning, thought to be the work of James Maxwell, an Edinburgh journeyman carpenter, together with a small group of city tradesmen and journeymen.

The final resting place of John Porteous in Greyfriars Kirkyard had for more than two hundred years been marked by a small square stone engraved with the single letter "P" and the date 1736.

More recently, this has been replaced with a headstone of Craigleith stone, bearing the inscription "John Porteous, a captain of the City Guard of Edinburgh, murdered September 7, 1736.