Possibly one of the most baffling and audacious crimes of Deacon Brodie’s gang was stealing the University of Edinburgh’s silver mace. The legend and use of the mace can be found here, but in examining the one primary and secondary source of the crime leaves a few questions. This is what the residents of Edinburgh knew about the theft of the mace as reported in The Edinburgh Evening Courant:

By the Right Hon: The Lord Provost, Magistrates, and Council, of the City of Edinburgh; October 31, 1787.

Whereas, on the night between Monday and Tuesday the 29th and 30th current, some wicked persons did feloniously break open the doors of the Library of the University of this City, and steal the University Mace, a reward of Ten Guineas, to be paid by the City Chamberlain, is hereby offered for the discovery of all or any of the persons above mentioned, or of any person in whose possession the said Mace shall be found.

George Smith gives slightly more detail in the only known first hand account of the theft in this 10 March 1788 statement made to Sheriff Archibald Cockburn:

[George Smith] Declares that, in the end of October, or beginning of November last, the declarant  [George Smith], in company with Andrew Ainslie and John Brown, whose real name is Humphry Moore, went to the College of Edinburgh about one o'clock in the morning. Having got access at the under gate, they opened the under door leading to the Library with a false key, which broke in the lock, and thereafter they broke open the door of the Library with an iron crow, and carried away the College mace.

Smith concludes later in the statement to Sheriff Cockburn:

That, in consequence of this concert, the declarant and Brodie were in use to go about together, in order to find out the proper places where business could be done with success; that Brodie, in their walks, carried the declarant to the College Library, where, having observed the mace standing, Brodie said that they must have it; that Andrew Ainslie was afterwards sent by the declarant and Brodie to look at the Library, under pretence of calling for somebody, in order to see if the mace was always in the same place, as they suspected it might be one day in the Library and another somewhere else, which would have rendered an attempt upon the Library precarious; that Ainslie reported that the mace was in the same place that the declarant and Brodie had seen it, and, upon getting this report, the theft of the mace was committed as before mentioned.

There is no reason to dismiss Smith’s statement as being false. The only bargaining tool Smith had for a reduced sentence on 10 March 1788 was to implicate William Brodie. Having played that card, Smith had no reason to obfuscate Deacon Brodie's involvement in any crime, let alone the silver mace theft. Operating under the truth of George Smith's statement, Deacon Brodie conspired to steal the University of Edinburgh’s silver mace but did not take part in the crime itself. One may argue that this is a matter of legal semantics, but to say, “Deacon Brodie stole the University of Edinburgh’s silver mace,” is false. William Brodie was the mastermind behind the robbery and participated in scouting the location, but George Smith,

Andrew Ainslie

, and John Brown committed the actual crime.