PORT ELIZABETH 



PORTER 



331 



Port Elizabeth, a seaport of the British 

 colony of the Cape of Good Hope, stands on the 

 western shore of Algoa Bay, by rail 85 miles S\V. 

 of Graham's Town and 350 S. of Kimberley. It is 

 the principal seaport of the east part of Cape 

 Colony, and also of the Orange River Free State. 

 Its public buildings, solid and substantial edifices, are 

 the town-house, the provincial hospital, churches, 

 the Grey Institute, a college, a library (20,000 

 volumes), a museum, &c. There are two parks 

 and several tree-planted squares. The town was 

 founded in 1820, and the population, which was 

 not much aliove 4000 in 1855, had grown to 13,049 

 in 1875, and to 23,266 in 1891. Two piers were con- 

 structed to protect the harbour in 1881 ; and an 

 aqueduct, 28 miles long, has brought good water 

 to the town since 1878. The value of the imports 

 has increased from 376,638 in 1855 to an average 

 of about 3,000,000 ; that of the exports ( mainly 

 wool, with ostrich-feathers, Angora goate' hair, 

 and diamonds ) from 584,447 in 1855 to an average 

 of some 2,000,000. 



PorteOUS Mob. At Pittenweem in Fife, on 

 the night of 9th January 1736, three smugglers, 

 Andrew Wilson of Kirkcaldy, George Kobertson, 

 an Edinburgh innkeeper, and' William Hall, robbed 

 the Kirkcaldy excise-collector of over 100. All 

 three were at once arrested, and on llth March 

 were sentenced to death. In an attempt to break 

 out of the Edinburgh Tol booth (the 'Heart of 

 Midlothian'), Wilson, 'a squat round man,' stuck 

 fast in a grating, preventing also the escape of 

 Roliertson ; but the following Sunday, being taken 

 with him to hear the condemned sermon in St 

 Giles' Church, he suddenly seized two of the 

 four soldiers guarding them, and fastened with 

 his teeth upon a third, at the same time crying, 

 'Kun, Geordie, run for your life.' Rol>ertson did 

 get clear oil'; Wilson on 14th April was hanged 

 in the Grassmarket. There was some disturbance 

 and stone-throwing, when Captain John Porteous, 

 the brutal commander of the City Guard, tired on 

 the crowd, and killed or wounded sixteen or 

 more men and women. For this he himself was 

 tried and sentenced to death (20th July), but on 

 26th August was respited by Queen Caroline. 

 However, on the night of 7th September an orderly 

 mob burst open the tolliooth, dragged Porteous 

 out, lx>re him, pleading for mercy, to the Grass- 

 market, and lynched him hanged him from a 

 dyer's pole, and slashed at him with Locliaber axes. 

 A dmnken footman of Lady Wemyss and one 

 other man were tried next year for their share in 

 the riot ; but both were acquitted, and none of the 

 ringleaders ever was brought to justice. A bill 

 passed the Lords to disqualify the Lord Provost of 

 Edinburgh from ever again holding office, to im- 

 prison him for a twelvemonth, to abolish the City 

 Guard, to raze the Nether Port, and to fine the 

 city in 1500 for Porteous' widow; but only the 

 first and last clauses were carried in the Commons, 

 anil these only by a casting vote and after the 

 fiercest opposition from all the Scotch members. 

 Indeed, the Porteous Riot paved the way for the 

 rebellion of the '45. 



Sec vol. xvii. of the State Triatt (1815) ; Scott's Heart 

 of Midlothian (1818); and Criminal Trial* illustrative 

 of the ' Heart of Midlothian ' ( 1818). 



Porter, a kind of beer favoured by London 

 porters, hence so called about 1750. See BEER, 

 Vol. II. p. 37. 



Porter, DAVID, an American naval officer, was 

 born at Boston, Massachusetts, 1st February 1780, 

 the son of a naval officer who fought through the 

 Revolution. He was appointed midshipman in 

 1798, and lieutenant the year after; saw service 

 against privateers in the West Indies, and against 



Tripoli in 1801-3; became captain in 1812, and 

 captured the first British war-ship taken in the 

 war. In 1813, with the Essex (32 guns), he nearly 

 destroyed the English whale-fishery in the Pacific, 

 and took possession of the Marquesas Islands ; but 

 in March 1814 his frigate was destroyed by the 

 British in Valparaiso harbour, and Porter returned 

 home on parole. He afterwards commanded an 

 expedition against pirates in the West Indian 

 waters, and was court-martialled for compelling 

 the authorities at Porto Rico to apologise for im- 

 prisoning one of his officers. Porter resigned in 

 1826, and was for a time at the head of the Mexi- 

 can navy. In 1829 the United States appointed 

 him consul-general to the Barbary States, and 

 then minister at Constantinople, where he died, 

 3d March 1843. Farragut, it is worth noting, 

 was his adopted son. See the Life (1875) by his 

 son. 



DAVID DlXON PORTER, admiral of the American 

 navy, who was born at Chester, Pennsylvania, 8th 

 June 1813. He accompanied his father on his cruise 

 against the pirates, and afterwards was for some 

 time a midshipman in the Mexican service. He 

 entered the United States navy in 1829, was em- 

 ployed on the coast survey from 1836 to 1841, when 

 he became lieutenant, and then served till 1845 on 

 the Mediterranean and Brazil stations, afterwards 

 returning to the coast survey. From 1849 to 1853 

 he was engaged in command of the California mail- 

 steamers. At the commencement of the civil war 

 he was appointed commander of the steam-frigate 

 Powhatan, and ordered to Pensacola ; but afterwards 

 he was placed in command of the mortar flotilla, 

 joined Farragut, and in April 1862 successfully 

 bombarded the New Orleans forts. In command 

 of the Mississippi squadron, he assisted to bring 

 about the fall of Vieksburg (July 1863). A rear- 

 admiral, he bombarded and silenced Fort Fisher 

 in December 1864. Till 1869 superintendent of the 

 naval academy at Anna|K>lis, he was made vice- 

 admiral in 1866, and in 1870 succeeded Farragut as 

 admiral of the navy. He died at Washington, 13th 

 February 1891. 



He was the author of three romances, of Incidents and 

 Anecdotet of the Civil War ( 1885), and of a History of 

 the Navy in the War of the Rebellion ( 1887 ). 



Porter, ENDYMION (1587-1649), groom of the 

 bedchamber to Charles I., whom he accompanied 

 (with Buckingham) to Spain, and attended on the 

 field during the Civil War without actually fight- 

 ing, it would appear. He was a patron of poets 

 and artists, and wrote many verses. See his Life 

 and Letters by Miss Townsend ( 1897 ). 



Porter, JANE, authoress of the Scottish Chiefs, 

 was born at Durham in 1776, daughter of an army- 

 surgeon who died soon after her birth. She was 

 1 in night up at Edinburgh and in London, and made 

 a great reputation in 1803 by her high-flown ro- 

 mance, Thaddeus of Warsaic, which was distanced 

 in its kind in 1810 by The Scottish Chiefs. The 

 hero of the latter is a stilted and preposterous 

 figure enough as little of the historical Wallace as 

 could well oe, yet the book retains its interest for 

 youthful readers, and hail the merit of prompting 

 Scott to complete Waverley. Other books were 

 The Pastor's Fireside (1815), l>uke Christian of 

 Lunebura (1824), Tales Round a Winter's Hearth 

 (in collaboration with her sister Anna Maria, 1824), 

 The Field of Forty Footsteps ( 1 828 ), and Sir Edward 

 Seaward's Narrative of his Shipwreck and Conse- 

 ntient Discovery of Certain Islands in the Caribbean 

 Sea ( 1831 ), a clever fiction, edited by her, but 

 almost certainly written by her eldest brother, Dr 

 William Ogilvie Porter (cf. Notes and Queries, 

 1880). With this brother she spent some years 

 at Bristol, and there she died, 24th May 1850. 

 Another brother, ROBERT KER PORTER( 1775-1842 ), 



