Page:Letter from a gentleman in Glasgow to his friend in the country.pdf/15

Rh hardship in the world to charge a gentleman as being accessory to a crime, when it is plain he intended to hinder the commission of it, and pursued his intentions by such methods as seemed at that time most proper to him and to all that were about him. It is a difficult task to manage in the midst of great and sudden confusions, but it is exceedingly easy to reflect upon a man's management after it is over. It has been also said that John Stirling and James Johnson were at the time of this riot absent from the place, very true, but did they foresee that this riot was to come to pass, and to encourage it went out of the way? by no means; for Mr. Stirling was at Edinburgh two or three weeks before it happened, and was obliged to be there upon private affairs, and particularly attending a law suit which was not determined till the very day before the riot happened, and on that very day was settling and finishing all matters in respect to the said law snit before he left Edinburgh. Mr. Johnson was at the fair or public mercat of Perth, to which place he had gone from Glasgow some days before, and he being a dealer in linen cloth which is sold in great quantities in that mercat, he has not been known for thirty years past to be once absent from that fair. Mr. Mitchell who is the youngest magistrate in the city, was in his own house at the time; when the news of the riot was brought to him, not knowing of the provost's being there, he was afraid to venture himself into the tumult, and tho' otherwise abundantly capable for his office as a magistrate, yet be is very unfit for adventures of that kind; it is true he being trades bailie, might be supposed to have more than ordinary influence upon the rioters; but it is true also that among these rioters there was not one tradesman of character, or who was either burgess or freeman in the city, and its probable that most of them were strangers from the country: It is hard to imagine in what manner the charge is to be maintained against John Stark dean of guild; this gentleman though he is not a magistrate of the city, yet as he had done all that day, so all that night he acted in concert with the provost, and did all that was in his power for suppressing the tumult; and nothing seems to be chargeable upon him, but that he had not power enough to suppress it. As for John Armour deacon conveener, he was in his house that night, but knew nothing of the riot till next morning; and this was no extraordinary thing, for that affair having been transacted in a corner of the town, and late at night, there were many huudredshundreds [sic] of families in the place, especially such as lived in back lanes as this gentleman did, who understood nothing of the matter till next morning. In the last place perhaps it will be charged upon all of them, that after the tumults were over they did not take up the rioters; but the answer is plain, few or none of these rioters were known to them; and if it had been otherwise, yet considering the ferment that was in town occasioned by the shedding of so much innocent blood, it was too hard a task for them to undertake; and his majesty's advocate was not insensible of this, for when he came upon that errand, he was guarded by a considerable body of his majesty's forces. But to return to the thread of the story.

On Saturday the 17th of July, the foresaid gentlemen were brought out of the tolbooth of Glasgow, and under a guard of the