we write--the sides of the city sloped down
to a lake called the Norloch, a strong position, had the city been
properly fortified. More than two hundred years before, in the desolate
and anxious days that followed Flodden, the magistrates of the city,
hourly expecting to be invaded, had hastily built a high wall round the
whole city as it then was. For the time the defence was sufficient. But
the wall had been built without reference to artillery, it had neither
towers nor embrasures for mounting cannons. It was simply a very high,
solid, park wall, as may be seen to this day by the curious who care to
visit the last remnants of it, in an out-of-the-way corner near the
Grassmarket.

If the material defences were weak, the human defenders were weaker
still. The regular soldiers were needed for the Castle; Hamilton's
dragoons, stationed at Leith, were of no use in the defence of a city,
the town guard was merely a body of rather inefficient policemen, the
trained bands mere ornamental volunteers who shut their eyes if they had
to let off a firearm in honour of the king's birthday. As soon as it
seemed certain that the Highland army was approaching Edinburgh,
preparations, frantic but spasmodic, were made to put the city in a
state of defence.

The patriotic and spirited Maclaurin, professor of mathematics, alone
and unaided, tried to mount cannons on the wall, but not with much
success. The city determined to raise a regiment of volunteers; funds
were not lacking; it was more difficult to find the men. Even when
companies were formed, their ardour was not very great. Rumour and
ignorance had exaggerated the numbers and fierceness of the Highland
army; quiet citizens, drawn from desk or shop, might well shrink from
encountering them in the field. Parties were divided in the town; the
Prince had many secret friends among the citizens. In back parlours of
taverns 'douce writers,' and advocates of Jacobite sympathies, discussed
the situation with secret triumph; in many a panelled parlour high up in
those wonderful old closes, spirited old Jacobite ladies recalled the
adventures of the '15, and bright-eyed young ones busied themselves
making knots of white satin. 'One-third of the men are Jacobite,' writes
a Whig citizen, 'and two-thirds of the ladies.'

On Saturday, 14th, the news reached Edinburgh that the Prince had
arrived at Linlithgow, and that Gardiner had retired on Corstorphine, a
village two miles from Edinburgh.