A Mob Broke Into the Tolbooth Jail and Removed Captain Porteous

September 7, 1736 — A mob in Edinburgh stormed the Tolbooth Jail, forcibly removed Captain John Porteous, who had been reprieved from a death sentence after ordering his men to fire on civilians during a riot in April. The mob dragged him to the Grassmarket and hanged him from a dyer’s pole, carrying out their own form of justice.