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The Virginia Gazette Foreign News November 18, 1737
Richmond, Richmond, Virginia
What is this article about?
The Act for bringing Captain Porteous's murderers to justice is read in Edinburgh churches; a disturbance in the old Church is quelled, and the minister continues reading.
Quality green show the numbers
Measured from the scan
— how cleanly the OCR engine read the characters
- Mean ink quality
- 99.0% The length-weighted average confidence across the OCR lines — the mean of exactly the per-line scores whose tails the two figures below report. Typical is 99%.
- Illegible ink
- 0.0% Text sitting in OCR-detected lines that scored below 80% confidence — very shaky reads. Weighted by line length, so one long bad line counts for more than a short one.
- Uncertain ink
- 0.0% Text in lines that scored 80–90% — somewhat shaky reads.
- Matches source
- 96.79% How closely the served text matches the raw OCR of the same boxes, letter by letter, after collapsing spacing and case. This measures agreement, not correctness: the OCR is often wrong and the extractor corrects it, so 100% does not mean perfect, and a low figure usually means poor scan text was rewritten rather than that text was lost (length vs source shows loss).
- Length vs source
- 99.37% Below 100% means text was dropped from the OCR; above means text was added to make it read.
Assembled by the extraction model
— whether the stitched-together text holds up; catches layout and segmentation errors, which the scores above cannot see
- Transcription confidence
- 97.0% (typical 96%) How cleanly the extractor could assemble what it was given. Low here with clean ink scores points at layout analysis — the characters were read correctly but grouped or ordered wrongly.
- Comprehension
- 92.0% Whether the piece reads coherently start to finish. Can stay high while transcription confidence drops, when only part of the component is affected.
Clipping
Full Text
Edinburgh, Sept. 6. On Sunday, the Act for the more effectual bringing to Justice the Murderers of Capt. Porteous, was read in 3 of the Churches of this City, viz. the old Church, the College Church, and Haddo's Hole: And 'tis said would have been read in 2 more, had not the Ministers belonging to them been out of Town for their Health.
In the old Church there was some Disturbance made by the Populace without the Rails, which obliged the Minister to stop short: But a Gentleman coming out of his Seat, drove the Crowd out of the Church; and the Assistance of the Guard being called for, no Harm ensued. The Minister spoke pathetically to the Populace, representing to them the Danger of such unbecoming Behaviour, and the Mischief they would thereby bring on themselves, and perhaps on the City too, if they did not forbear; adding, that he did not deserve to stand there, if any Thing they could say or do would intimidate him from doing what he judged to be his Duty, viz. giving Obedience to the Laws. ---- 'Tis remarkable, that not one in the Body of the Church made the least Noise; nor was there any in the rest of the Churches.
Among those who left the Church on this Occasion, was honest John Dalgiesh, alias Jack Ketch, whose Scruples possibly arose from this, That the Publication warned Offenders of their Danger, and thus seemed to be calculated to disappointing him of his proper Business, and the Emoluments arising from thence.
The Minister of West Calder read the Act verbatim in Terms of Law; as did no doubt many others, of whom no Account is yet come to hand.
In the old Church there was some Disturbance made by the Populace without the Rails, which obliged the Minister to stop short: But a Gentleman coming out of his Seat, drove the Crowd out of the Church; and the Assistance of the Guard being called for, no Harm ensued. The Minister spoke pathetically to the Populace, representing to them the Danger of such unbecoming Behaviour, and the Mischief they would thereby bring on themselves, and perhaps on the City too, if they did not forbear; adding, that he did not deserve to stand there, if any Thing they could say or do would intimidate him from doing what he judged to be his Duty, viz. giving Obedience to the Laws. ---- 'Tis remarkable, that not one in the Body of the Church made the least Noise; nor was there any in the rest of the Churches.
Among those who left the Church on this Occasion, was honest John Dalgiesh, alias Jack Ketch, whose Scruples possibly arose from this, That the Publication warned Offenders of their Danger, and thus seemed to be calculated to disappointing him of his proper Business, and the Emoluments arising from thence.
The Minister of West Calder read the Act verbatim in Terms of Law; as did no doubt many others, of whom no Account is yet come to hand.
What sub-type of article is it?
Political
Religious Affairs
What keywords are associated?
Porteous Act Read Edinburgh
Church Disturbance
Jack Ketch
What entities or persons were involved?
Capt. Porteous
John Dalgiesh (Alias Jack Ketch)
Where did it happen?
Edinburgh
Foreign News Details
Primary Location
Edinburgh
Event Date
Sept. 6
Key Persons
Capt. Porteous
John Dalgiesh (Alias Jack Ketch)
Outcome
disturbance quelled; no harm; act read in three churches