the lock to be just as it was.” Eventually Smith made a key that was more reliable, and on the night of 8th January, 1788, an entry was effected, and silks and cambrics to the value of between £300 and £400 successfully removed.
Next day a reward of £100 was offered by the Procurator-Fiscal for the discovery of the criminals, but, as usual, without success. The owners, however, did not let the matter rest there, and on their representations the Government, on 25th January, offered an increased reward of £150 to any one who, within six months, would give such information as should lead to the discovery and conviction of the perpetrators, and twenty guineas for the names of the offenders whether they should be convicted or not. In addition, “His Majesty’s gracious pardon” was promised to any accomplice who should within the like period procure the apprehension of the guilty parties. Though this offer elicited no information at the time, it was, ultimately, as we shall see, the means of breaking up that dangerous association from whose depredations the inhabitants of the good town of Edinburgh had so long and severely suffered.
From the spoils of Inglis & Horner’s shop Smith tells us that Brown selected “a piece of plain white sattin, a piece of variegated ditto, and a lead-coloured silk, in quantity about ten yards, which he gave to a girl, an acquaintance of his of the name of Johnston.” One is pleased to notice in passing this indication of a gentler element in Mr. Brown’s rugged nature. The remainder of the goods were concealed in a cellar which Ainslie had hired for the purpose in Stevenlaw’s Close, and were subsequently despatched in two trunks—one by the Berwick carrier and the other by the Newcastle waggoner—to our old friend at the “Bird in Hand,” Chesterfield. We shall hear more of them later.
The reader must have been struck, in following the account of the robberies committed by Deacon Brodie, with the singular incapacity displayed by the official guardians of the public safety. These were the Old Town Guard, a body of armed police which existed in Edinburgh from an early date until 1817, when it was finally disbanded. The corps was composed of some hundred and twenty veterans, chiefly drawn from the Highland regiments, who were in continual conflict with the youth of the capital. Fergusson, in his poems, has many a hit at the peculiarities of this “canker’d pack”—
And thou, great god of aqua vitæ! Wha sways the empire of this city— When fou we’re sometimes capernoity— Be thou prepar’d To hedge us frae that black banditti, The City Guard.
Indeed, so frequently does he refer to them that Scott, in “The Heart of Midlothian,” calls him their poet laureate. Evidently these antiquated warriors were no match for the Deacon and his merry men.
Notwithstanding the many calls upon his time, owing to the varied character of his engagements and pursuits, Deacon Brodie managed to drop in at the club in the Fleshmarket Close of an evening as frequently as ever, and, in spite of the magnitude of his recent operations, was not above winning a few guineas from any one foolish enough to lose them. On the night of the 17th of January, therefore, Brodie, Smith, and Ainslie were at Clark’s, according to their own account, “innocently amusing themselves with a game of dice over a glass of punch,” when their privacy was intruded upon by John Hamilton, a master chimney-sweep in Portsburgh, who insisted on joining them at play. This person was, within a surprisingly short time, relieved by the trio of “five guinea notes, two half guineas in gold, and six shillings in silver,” and being apparently a bad loser, he promptly seized the dice, which, on examination, were found to be “loaded, or false dice, filled at one end or corner with lead.” Here was a pretty scandal for the respectable Deacon to be mixed up in! Outraged innocence was of no avail—the dice spoke for themselves.
But the master sweep’s blood was up, and the matter was not allowed to end there. Hamilton forthwith presented to the magistrates of Edinburgh a petition and complaint against Brodie, Smith, and Ainslie, setting forth his meeting with them at Clark’s, and his being invited to join them in a friendly game, with the result above narrated. The petitioner concluded with praying for a warrant to apprehend and incarcerate the said persons until they should repeat the sum of which he had been so defrauded, and pay a sum over and above in name of damages and expenses. Answers were lodged for Brodie, and separate answers for Smith and Ainslie, in which it was stated that if false dice were used it was unknown to the defenders, as the dice they played with belonged to the house; that Brodie had only gained seven and sixpence; and that “the petitioner himself was a noted adept in the science of gambling, and it was not very credible that he would have allowed himself to be imposed upon in the manner he had alleged.”
Hamilton’s replies to these answers are conceived in a fine vein of irony—“Mr. Brodie knows nothing of such vile tricks—not he! He never made them his study—not he! Mr. Brodie never haunted night houses, where nothing but the blackest and vilest arts were practised to catch a pigeon, nor ever was accessory, either by himself or others in his combination, to behold the poor young creature plucked alive, and not one feather left upon its wings—not he, indeed! He never was accessory to see or be concerned in fleecing the ignorant, the thoughtless, the young, and the unwary, nor ever made it his study, his anxious study, with unwearied concern, at midnight hours, to haunt the rooms where he thought of meeting with the company from which there was a possibility of fetching from a scurvy sixpence to a hundred guineas—not he, indeed! He is unacquainted altogether either with packing or shuffling a set of cards—he is, indeed!” This, one would think, must have been painful reading for the Deacon’s fellow-Councillors; but nothing further appears to have been done in the matter, and the affair blew over without damaging the worthy man’s repute: a singular comment on the moral standard of the time.
In spite of the consummate skill with which Deacon Brodie had hitherto sustained his double character, one is hardly prepared, in view of his manner of life, to find him figuring in a criminal trial in any other capacity than that of the central figure. Strange as it may seem, however, his next public appearance was in the jury-box of the High Court of Justiciary, when, on 4th February, 1788, Allan M‘Farlane, officer of Excise, and Richard Firmin, soldier in the 39th Regiment of Foot, were placed at the bar charged with the murder of Dougald Fergusson, ferryman at Dunoon, Argyllshire.
The facts brought out at the trial were, briefly, as follows:—A party of Excise officers, accompanied by some soldiers, had, in the previous July, gone to Dunoon and seized certain illicit stills, which they put on board their boat. Fergusson, a zealous freetrader, had rung the kirk bell, assembled a mob, who pelted the officers with stones, and, boarding the boat, had knocked down the two boatmen and attempted to carry off the stills. In these circumstances, M‘Farlane ordered Firmin to fire, which he did, killing Fergusson on the spot. The charge against Firmin was abandoned by the Lord Advocate in his address, as it was proved that he had only acted under orders; and the point for the jury to consider was whether M‘Farlane was justified in giving the order to fire in self-defence, in view of the danger to which the Excise party were exposed from the hostile mob behind them, had Fergusson succeeded in carrying off the boat. The jury unanimously found both panels not guilty.
Thus did the Deacon, at the very time when all Edinburgh trembled at his depredations and the authorities were straining
every nerve to discover the guilty author, calmly officiate upon a jury to judge of the crimes of others. But, although he may have laughed in his sleeve at this ironical situation—for he had a pretty wit, and doubtless relished the humour of it keenly—fate had prepared for him one yet more dramatic. A few months later he himself would sit in that dock on trial for his life, the same counsel would conduct the prosecution, the same judges occupy the bench; but the verdict would be a different one, and the sentence to follow upon it, death.
Undisturbed by any shadow of coming disaster,
