was broken, when his mind was untuned, when he had been removed from that stormy assembly of which he thoroughly knew the temper, and over which he possessed unbounded influence, to a small, a torpid, and an unfriendly audience, say that his speaking was then, for the most part, a low, monotonous muttering, audible only to those. who sat close to him, that when violently excited, he sometimes raised his voice for a few minutes, but that it soon sank again into an unintelligible mur mur. Such was the Earl of Chatham, but such was not William Pitt. His figure, when he first appeared in Parliament, was strikingly graceful and commanding, his features high and noble, his eye full of fire. His voice, even when it sank to a whisper, was heard to the remotest benches; and when he strained it to its full extent, the sound rose like the swell of the organ of a great cathedral, shook the house with its peal, and was heard through lobbies and down staircases. to the Court of Requests and the precincts of Westminster Hall. He cultivated all these eminent advantages with the most assiduous care. His action is described by a very malignant observer as equal to that of Garrick. His play of countenance was wonderful: he frequently disconcerted a hostile orator by a single glance of indignation or scorn. Every tone, from the impassioned cry to the thrilling aside, was perfectly at his command. tions were sent against different parts of the French coast with little success. The small island of Aix was taken, Rochefort threatened, a few ships burned in the harbour of St. Maloes, and a few guns and mortars brought home as trophies from the fortifications of Cherbourg. But soon conquests of a very different kind filled the kingdom with pride and rejoicing. A succession of victories undoubtedly brilliant, and, as was thought, not barren, raised to the highest point the fame of the minister to whom the conduct of the war had been entrusted. In July, 1758, Louisburg fell. The whole island of Cape Breton was reduced. The fleet to which the Court of Versailles had confided the defence of French America was destroyed. The captured standards were borne in triumph from Kensington Palace to the city, and were suspended in St. Paul's Church, amidst the roar of guns and kettledrums, and the shouts of an immense multitude. Addresses of congratulation came in from all the great towns of England. Parliament met only to de| cree thanks and monuments, and to bestow, without one murmur, supplies more than double of those which had been given during the war of the Grand Alliance. The year 1759 opened with the conquest of Goree. Next fell Guadaloupe; then Ticonderoga; then Niagara. The Toulon squadron was completely defeated by Boscawen off Cape Lagos. But the greatest exploit of the year was Such was Pitt as an orator; but let the achievement of Wolfe on the heights us ask ourselves how were these qualities of Abraham. The news of his glorious exerted, and for this purpose let us death and of the fall of Quebec reached glance at that brilliant, if not long-lived, London in the very week in which the administration, which, formed in 1758, Houses met. All was joy and triumph. and really ruled by Pitt, shed such a Envy and faction were forced to join brilliant light over the last years of the in the general applause. Whigs and reign of George II. Not that its foreign Tories vied with each other in extolling administration was all at once a brilliant the genius and energy of Pitt. His success, for the first acts of the new colleagues were never talked of or ministration were characterised rather thought of. The House of Commons, our than by judgment. Expedi- | the nation, the colonies, our allies, our enemies, had their eyes fixed on him alone. Scarcely had Parliament voted a monument to Wolfe, when another great event called for fresh rejoicings. The Brest fleet, under the command of Conflans, had put out to sea. It was overtaken by an English squadron under Hawke. Conflans attempted to take shelter close under the French coast. The shore was rocky; the night was black: the wind was furious: the waves of the Bay of Biscay ran high. But Pitt had infused into every branch of the service a spirit which had long been unknown. No British seaman was disposed to err on the same side with Byng. The pilot told Hawke that the attack could not be made without the greatest danger. "You have done your duty in remonstrating," answered Hawke. "I command you to lay me alongside the French admiral." Two French ships of the line struck. Four were destroyed. The rest hid themselves in the rivers of Britanny. The year 1760 came; and still triumph followed triumph. We took Canada, and again and again defeated the French fleet. In India, our troops under Clive won brilliant victories. On the continent, we subsidised Frederic of Prussia, and enabled him to make head against his enemies. At home our great towns were busy and prosperous. Some of them, notably Glasgow, take their real beginning from this period. A monument to Pitt in Guildhall states "that under his administration commerce had been united with and made to flourish by war." It must be owned that these signs of prosperity were in some degree delusive. It must be owned that some of our conquests were rather splendid than useful. It must be owned that the expense of the war never entered into Pitt's consideration. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that the cost of his victories increased the pleasure with which he contemplated them. Unlike other men in his situation, he loved to exaggerate the sums which the nation was laying out under his direction. He was proud of the sacrifices and efforts which his eloquence and his success had induced his countrymen to make. The price at which he purchased faithful service and complete victory, though far smaller than that which his son, the most profuse and incapable of war ministers, paid for treachery, defeat, and shame, was long and severely felt by the nation. Even as a war minister, Pitt is scarcely entitled to all the praise which his contemporaries lavished on on him. We, perhaps from ignorance, cannot discern in his arrangements any appearance of profound or dexterous combination. Several of his expeditions, particularly those which were sent to the coast of France, were at once costly and absurd. Our Indian conquests, though they add to the splendour of the period during which he was at the head of affairs, were not planned by him. He had undoubtedly great energy, great determination, great means at his command. His temper was enterprising; and, situated as he was, he had only to follow his temper. The wealth of a rich nation, the valour of a brave nation, were ready to support him in every attempt. In one respect, however, he deserved all the praise that he has ever received. The success of our arms was perhaps owing less to the skill of his dispositions than to the national resources and the national spirit. But that the national spirit rose to the emergency, that the national resources were contributed with unexampled cheerfulness, this was undoubtedly his work. The ardour of his soul had set the whole kingdom on fire. It inflamed every soldier who dragged the cannon up the heights of Quebec, and every sailor who boarded the French ships among the rocks of Britanny. The minister, before he had been long in office, had imparted N to the commanders whom he employed his own impetuous, adventurous, and defying character. They, like him, were disposed to risk everything, to play double or quits to the last, to think nothing done while anything remained undone, to fail rather than not to attempt. For the errors of rashness there might be indulgence. For over-caution, for faults like those of Lord George Sackville, there was no mercy. In other times, and against other enemies, this mode of warfare might have failed. But the state of the French government and of the French nation gave every advantage to Pitt. The fops and intriguers of Versailles were appalled and bewildered by his vigour. A panic spread through all ranks of society. Our enemies soon considered it as a settled thing that they were always to be beaten. Thus victory begot victory; till, at last, wherever the forces of the two nations met, they met with disdainful confidence on one side, and with a craven fear on the other. Such is the record of England during one of those periods of exceptional prosperity, which sometimes fell to a nation's lot. THE STORY OF AN EDINBURGH MOB. HE coast of Fife, which is full of little towns, was, during the eighteenth century, much frequented by smugglers, men occasionally engaged in disputes with the excise officers, which were sometimes attended with violence. Wilson and Robertson, two persons of inferior rank, but rather distinguished in the contraband trade, had sustained great loss by a seizure of smuggled goods. The step from illicit trading to positive robbery is not a long one. The two men robbed the collector, to indemnify themselves from the effects of the seizure. They were tried before the Court of Justiciary, and condemned to death. While the two criminals were lying under sentence in the tolbooth of Edinburgh, they obtained possession of a file, with which they rid themselves of their irons, and cut through a bar in the jail window. One of them at least might have made his escape, but for the obstinacy of Wilson. This man, of a bulky person, insisted on making the first essay of the breach which had been accomplished, and having stuck fast between the bars, was unable either to get through or to return back. Discovery was the consequence, and precautions were taken against any repetition of such attempts to escape. Wilson reflected bitterly on himself for not having permitted his comrade to make the first trial, to whom, as being light and slender, the bars would have been no obstacle. He resolved, with a spirit worthy of a better man, to atone to his companion, at all risks, for the injury he had done him. At this time it was the custom in Edinburgh for criminals under sentence of death to be carried, under a suitable guard, to hear divine service in a church adjacent to the prison. Wilson and Robertson were brought thither accordingly, under the custody of four soldiers of the city-guard. When the service was over, Wilson, who was a very strong man, suddenly seized a soldier with each hand, and calling to his comrade to fly for his life, detained a third by grappling his collar with his teeth. Robertson shook himself clear of the fourth, and making his escape over the pews of the church, was no more heard of in Edinburgh. The common people, to whose comprehension the original crime for which the men were condemned had nothing very abhorrent in it, were struck with the generosity and self-devotion that this last action evinced, and took such an interest in Wilson's fate, that it was generally rumoured there would be an attempt to rescue him at the place of execution. To prevent, as was their duty, any riotous plan of this kind, the magistrates ordered a party of the guard of the city, a sort of Maré-chaussée or gens d'armes, armed and trained as soldiers, to protect the execution. The captain of the party was the celebrated John Porteous, whose name will long be remembered in Scotland. This man, whose father was a burgess and citizen of Edinburgh, had himself been bred in the regular army, circumstances which recommended him to the magistrates, when in the year 1715 they were desirous to give their civic guard something of a more effective military character. As an active police officer, Porteous was necessarily often in collision with the rabble of the city, and being strict, and even severe in the manner in which he repressed and chastised petty riots and delinquencies, he was, as is usual with persons of his calling, extremely unpopular and odious to the rabble. They also accused him of abusing the authority reposed in him, to protect the extravagances of the rich and powerful, while he was inexorable in punishing the license of the poor. Porteous had besides a good deal of the pride of his profession, and seems to have been determined to show that the corps he commanded was adequate, without assistance, to dispel any commotion in the city of Edinburgh. For this reason, he considered it rather as an affront that the magistrates, on occasion of Wilson's execution, had ordered Moyle's regiment to be drawn up in the suburbs to enforce order, should the city-guard be unable to maintain it. It is probable, from what followed, that the men commanded by Porteous shared their leader's jealousy of the regular troops, and his dislike to the populace, with whom, in the execution. of their duty, they often were engaged in hostilities. The execution of Wilson, on the 14th of April, 1736, took place in the usual manner, without any actual or menaced interruption. The criminal, according to his sentence, was hanged to the death, and it was not till the corpse was cut down that the mob, according to their common practice, began to insult and abuse the executioner, pelting him with stones, many of which were also thrown at the soldiers. At former executions it had been the custom for the city-guard to endure such insults with laudable patience, but on this occasion they were in such a state of irritation that they fired on the mob again and again, and killed. and wounded many people. The question now came to be, Had Porteous ordered them to do so? He was brought to his trial before the Court of Justiciary-the supreme tribunal in Scotland for the trial of criminal cases. He was found guilty, condemned to death, but reprieved. This reprieve was not acceptable to the people of Edinburgh, and on the 7th of September, the day before that which had been appointed for the execution of Porteous, a mob assembled, and quickly grew in size. To still further increase their numbers, they now beat a drum, which they had taken from the man who exercised the function of NO drummer in the town. Finding themselves strong enough to commence their purpose, they seized on the West-port, nailed and barricaded it. Then going along the Cowgate, and gaining the High-street by the numerous lanes which run between these two principal streets of the Old Town, they secured the Cowgate-port and that of the Netherbow, and thus, except on the side of the Castle, entirely separated the city from such military forces as were quartered in the suburbs. The next object of the mob was to attack the city-guard, a few of whom were on duty as usual. These the rioters stripped of their arms, and dismissed from their rendezvous, but without otherwise maltreating them, though the agents of the injury of which they complained. The various halberds, Lochaber axes, muskets, and other weapons, which they found in the guardhouse, served to arm the rioters, a large body of whom now bent their way to the door of the jail, while another body, with considerable regularity, drew up across the front of the Luckenbooths. The magistrates, with such force as they could collect, made an effort to disperse the multitude. They were strenuously repulsed, but with no more violence than was necessary to show that, while the populace were firm in their purpose, they meant to accomplish it with as little injury as possible to any one except the destined victim. There might have been some interruption of their undertaking, had the soldiers of Moyle's regiment made their way into the town from the Canongate, where they were quartered, or had the garrison descended from the castle. But neither Colonel Moyle nor the governor of the castle chose to interfere on their own responsibility, and no one dared to carry a written warrant to them on the part of the magistrates. In the meantime the multitude demanded that Porteous should be delivered up to them; and as they were refused admittance to the jail, they prepared to burst open the doors. The outer gate, as was necessary to serve the purpose, was of such uncommon strength as to resist the united efforts of the rioters, though they employed sledge hammers and iron crows to force it open. Fire was at length called for, and a large bonfire, maintained with tar-barrels and such ready combustibles, soon burnt a hole in the door, through which the jailor flung the keys. This gave the rioters free entrance. Without troubling themselves about the fate of the other criminals, who naturally took the opportunity of escaping, the rioters or their leaders went in search of Porteous. They found him concealed in the chimney of his apartment, which he was prevented from ascending by a grating that ran across the vent, as is usual in such edifices. The rioters dragged their victim out of his concealment, and commanded him to prepare to undergo the death he had deserved; nor did they pay the least attention either to his prayers for mercy, or to the offers by which he endeavoured to purchase his life. amid all their obduracy of vengeance there was little tumult, and no more violence than was inseparable from the action which they meditated. Porteous was permitted to intrust what money or papers he had with him to a friend, for the behoof of his family. One of the rioters, a grave and respectable-looking man, undertook, in the capacity of a clergyman, to give him ghostly consolation suited to his circumstances, as one who had not many minutes to live. was conducted from the Tolbooth to the Grassmarket, which, both as being the usual place of execution and the scene where their victim had fired, or caused his soldiers to fire, on the citizens, was selected as the place of punishment. They marched in a sort of procession, guarded by a band of the rioters, miscel laneously armed with muskets, battleaxes, etc., which were taken from the guard-house, while others carried links Yet, He |