PORTEOUS, JOHN (d. 1736), captain of the city guard of Edinburgh, whose name is associated with the riots of 1736, was the son of an Edinburgh tailor. Having served in the army, he was employed in 1715 to drill the city guard for the defence of Edinburgh in anticipation of a Jacobite rising, and was promoted later to the command of the force. In 1736 a smuggler named Wilson, who had won popularity by helping a companion to escape from the Tolbooth prison, was hanged; and, a disturbance occur ring at the execution, the city guard fired on the mob. Porteous, who was said to have fired at the people with his own hand, was brought to trial and sentenced to death. The granting of a reprieve was hotly resented by the people of Edinburgh, and on the night of Sept. 7, 1736 an armed body of men in disguise broke into the prison, seized Porteous, and hanged him on a signpost in the street. It was said that persons of high position
were concerned in the crime; but although every effort was made for the apprehension of the perpetrators, no one was ever con victed of participation in the murder.
See Sir Daniel Wilson, Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1848) ; State Trials, vol. xvii.; William Coxe, Memoirs of the Life of Sir R. Walpole (4 vols., London, 1816) ; Alex ander Carlyle, Autobiography (Edinburgh, 186o), which gives the account of an eye-witness of the execution of Wilson ; pamphlets (2 vols., in British Museum) containing The Life and Death of Captain John Porteous, and other papers relating to the subject; W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, ii. 324, note (7 vols., London, 1892). See also Scott's notes to The Heart of Midlothian.