breaking it open
effectually secured against the risk of interruption.
    The magistrates, in the meanwhile, had taken the alarm, and assembled in a
tavern, with the purpose of raising some strength to subdue the rioters. The
deacons, or presidents of the trades, were applied to, but declared there was
little chance of their authority being respected by the craftsmen, where it was
the object to save a man so obnoxious. Mr. Lindsay, member of parliament for the
city, volunteered the perilous task of carrying a verbal message from the Lord
Provost to Colonel Moyle, the commander of the regiment lying in the Canongate,
requesting him to force the Netherbow Port, and enter the city to put down the
tumult. But Mr. Lindsay declined to charge himself with any written order,
which, if found on his person by an enraged mob, might have cost him his life;
and the issue of the application was, that Colonel Moyle having no written
requisition from the civil authorities, and having the fate of Porteous before
his eyes as an example of the severe construction put by a jury on the
proceedings of military men acting on their own responsibility, declined to
encounter the risk to which the Provost's verbal communication invited him.
    More than one messenger was despatched by different ways to the Castle, to
require the commanding officer to march down his troops, to fire a few
cannon-shot, or even to throw a shell among the mob, for the purpose of clearing
the streets. But so strict and watchful were the various patrols whom the
rioters had established in different parts of the streets, that none of the
emissaries of the magistrates could reach the gate of the Castle. They were,
however, turned back without either injury or insult, and with nothing more of
menace than was necessary to deter them from again attempting to accomplish
their errand.
    The same vigilance was used to prevent everybody of the higher, and those
which, in this case, might be deemed the more suspicious orders of society, from
appearing in the street, and observing the movements, or distinguishing the
persons, of the rioters. Every person in the garb of a gentleman was stopped by
small parties of two or three of the mob, who partly exhorted, partly required
of them, that they should return to the place from whence they came. Many a
quadrille table was spoilt that memorable evening; for the sedan chairs of
ladies, even of the highest rank, were interrupted in their passage from one
point to another, in spite of the laced footmen and blazing flambeaux. This was
uniformly done with a deference