Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/99

 the latter. Here, too, at length he was wont to give effectual aid, being frequently invited to the bench in the absence of any one of the regular magistrates. The experience he thus acquired, and the tact he displayed, suggested a more permanent application of his services; and, accordingly, after some time, he was appointed police magistrate at Union Hall, and finally at the more important office of Bow Street. This, for a considerable time, had been the chief mark of his ambition, although at the period it promised neither ease nor safety. One dangerous service on which he was called to act in February, 1820, was in the apprehension of the desperate gang of Cato Street conspirators—men who were not likely to be secured without a sanguinary resistance. On this occasion, Mr. Birnie was placed in command of the Bow Street constables, who were supported by a detachment of the Coldstream Guards; he entered the stable and hay-loft where the conspirators were in close conclave, and had his full share of the danger that followed when the lights were extinguished, and the struggle commenced. Soon after, the chief magistrate of Bow Street, Sir Nathaniel Conant, having died, Mr. Birnie justly thought that his services on the late Cato Street occasion gave him a fair claim to the vacancy; but instead of this reasonable expectation being justified, the appointment was bestowed upon Sir Robert Baker of Marlborough Street. This rejection so affected Mr. Birnie, that, with tears starting from his eyes when he heard of it, he exclaimed to the magistrate who sat beside him on the bench, "This is the reward a man gets for risking his life in the service of his country."

Whatever was wrong in this affair was soon afterwards righted, and Mr. Birnie was appointed to the coveted office in consequence of one of those political emergencies with which the season was so rife. In August, 1821, the death of Queen Caroline occurred, and the populace of London, who believed that she had died an injured broken-hearted woman, were as maddened at the sight of her remains on their way to interment as was the Roman mob at the unmantled body of the murdered Cæsar; while, to heighten the confusion, the king himself, who should have been at hand to issue orders in such a crisis, was absent in Ireland. In such a case, where personal responsibility was sure to involve a great amount of risk as well as odium, the chief officials were afraid to act, and Sir Robert Baker, on being commanded to read the Riot Act, trembled and refused. But Birnie had no such timidity; he saw that a crisis had arrived at which the whole mob of London might have broke loose like a destroying tempest, and therefore he stepped forward and performed the obnoxious duty, by which bold act the rioters were daunted, and dispersed. The indecision of Sir Robert Baker on this occasion, from which such perilous consequences might have occurred, was so offensive to the ministry, that he found it necessary to resign, and Mr. Birnie was promoted in his room. On the 17th of September (the month after the funeral) he also received the honour of knighthood.

After this, the life of Sir Richard Birnie, as chief magistrate of Bow Street, went on in silent unostentatious activity to the close. In the important office which he occupied, he was distinguished as an upright, intelligent, and zealous justiciary, and his measures for the repression of crime and the preservation of order, were such as to endear him to the friends of peace and good government to the end of his career. To the last he also retained the favour of his royal master, George IV., to whose kind attention and patronage his rise had been chiefly owing; as well as the confidence of the chief officers of state, who frequently consulted him in matters connected with the general welfare of the