its Provost, seems
beyond all doubt. Archibald Stewart, who held that office at this
critical moment, gave many indications of perfidy or cowardice, which
have been duly related, although with little comment, by historians.
Notwithstanding that the approach of the insurgents had been by measured
paces, and that they had advanced so leisurely as to spend some hours
lying on the bank of a rivulet near Linlithgow, no preparations for
defence had been made, although it was the wish of many of the
inhabitants to resist the Jacobite army. It had been found that all the
calms, or moulds for bullets, had been bought up; ladies having gone to
the shops where they were made, to purchase them. When the danger became
proximate, the Provost merely remarked, that, if the enemy wished to
enter, he did not know how they could be prevented. He viewed the
fortifications, it is true, and rummaged up some grenades that had lain
in a chest since 1715. But the most suspicious incident occurred during
a meeting of the Town Council, when a Highland spy, having a letter in
his hand, was apprehended, and brought before the assembly. The letter
was given to the Provost, who hurried it into his pocket, and in great
haste broke up the assembly.[231] In all the deliberations for the
defence of the city, it was perceived that Mr. Provost Stewart was a
dead-weight upon any measures of vigour; and nothing could have been
done to preserve Edinburgh from surrendering, unless he had been
absolutely bound in chains. Yet this unworthy magistrate, so faithless
to his trust, so discreditable an instrument of the Jacobite cause, was
afterwards acquitted, after a trial of four days, by the Lords
Justiciary.

The progress of that cause now appeared such as to promise success to
the future exertions of its partisans. On the seventeenth of September,
the Prince received the news that Edinburgh was taken, and a stand of
one thousand arms seized; a circumstance which added greatly to the joy
of the insurgents, who stood in need of arms. "When the army came near
town," writes Lord Elcho, "it was met by vast multitudes of people, who
by their repeated shouts and huzzas expressed a great deal of joy to see
the Prince. When they came into the suburbs, the crowd was prodigious,
and all wishing the Prince prosperity; in short, nobody doubted but that
he would be joined by ten thousand men at Edinburgh, if he could arm
them. The army took the road to Duddingston: Lord Stra