Prior to the autumn of 1792, there was limited concern amongst the Scottish ruling classes and propertied society about the domestic impact of the French Revolution and, from the summer of that year, the rise of a domestic parliamentary reform movement. The King's birthday riots in Edinburgh between 4 and 6 June were met by a thorough investigation of their possible causes, but no clear link to the Revolution or reformers was found. When the ‘Friends of the French Revolution’ met in Edinburgh on 14 July, there was no special alarm, although the Sheriff noted that the authorities would not ‘fail … to be on our Guard’. Even the formation of the first Scottish parliamentary reform societies in July and August – in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Perth – appears not to have caused any marked change in attitudes or mood. The Royal Proclamation of 1 May against seditious writings did not produce an overwhelming response in the form of loyal addresses from Scots. Between October and November, however, as we have seen in previous chapters, a dramatic and sudden change took place in political life in Scotland and in attitudes and emotions. Against the background of the creation of a republic in France, the marked intensification of political violence in that country, which reached a ghastly climacteric with the notorious September massacres in Paris and the outbreak of war on the continent, and the widespread circulation of cheap editions of Paine's Rights of Man, new radical societies sprang up in large numbers across lowland Scotland, particularly in the fast-growing manufacturing regions. If this were not sufficient cause for concern, in the summer and autumn a succession of popular disturbances broke out.

The prevailing mood among the elites in the final months of 1792 was jittery and alarmist. In Edinburgh, the Lord Advocate, Robert Dundas, was inundated with letters from different parts of the country conveying the profound concern of the elites and, on occasion, their near panic about the activities of supposed ‘emissaries of sedition’ in their neighbourhoods.