Excerpt from Trial of Captain Porteous Of the career of John Porteous, a name memorable in the traditions of Edinburgh, as well as in the records of criminal jurisprudence, before the fatal day when he steps into the limelight of the historic stage at the execution of Andrew Wilson, we have but one account, and that so violently partial as to defeat its own design. The anonymous author of a curious pamphlet, entitled The Life and Death of Captain John Porteous, (fro. Collected and published, after the murder, the current gossip regarding the character of his unfortunate hero, which he sets forth with a malignant gusto by no means rare in that age of spiteful satire. And, indeed, so bitter was then the local feeling and so sore the subject, that any contem porary portrait of Porteous would surely be limned in the blackest colours at the painter's disposal. Be that as it may, the statements therein made remained uncontradicted by the friends of the victim of this virulent biography, and that he did not lack such, and those influential, will be manifest in the sequel. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.