Whigs! The mob actually closed around them as they would have
swallowed them up; and, in the meanwhile, shower after shower
of the most abominable weapons of offence were rained in upon
them. If the gentlemen were irritated before, this inflamed them
still further; but their danger was now so apparent they could not
shut their eyes on it; therefore, both parties, as if actuated by the
same spirit, made a desperate effort to join, and the greater part
effected it; but some were knocked down, and others were
separated from their friends, and blithe to become silent members
of the mob.

The battle now raged immediately in front of the closes leading to
the Black Bull; the small body of Whig gentlemen was hardly
bested, and it is likely would have been overcome and trampled
down every man, had they not been then and there joined by the
young Cavaliers; who, fresh to arms, broke from the wynd,
opened the head of the passage, laid about them manfully, and
thus kept up the spirits of the exasperated Whigs, who were the
men in fact that wrought the most deray among the populace.

The town-guard was now on the alert; and two companies of the
Cameronian Regiment, with the Hon. Captain Douglas, rushed
down from the Castle to the scene of action; but, for all the noise
and hubbub that these caused in the street, the combat had
become so close and inveterate that numbers of both sides were
taken prisoners fighting hand to hand, and could scarcely be
separated when the guardsmen and soldiers had them by the
necks.

Great was the alarm and confusion that night in Edinburgh; for