310 RESULTS OF THE VICTORY. [1700. obstacle. Malines, Alost, and other places had submitted. The Estates of Brabant assembled at Brussels had acknowledged the authority of king Charles III., and they sent out their commands to other fortified towns to make a like submission. Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, and Oudenarde were surrendered without a shot being fired. In his exultation Marlborough exclaimed in his letters home, now is the time, certainly, to reduce France to reason." St. Simon says, "with the exception of Namur, Mons, and a very few other places, all the Spanish Low Countries were lost." The king, he tells us, felt this misfortune to the quick, however tranquilly he appeared to sustain it. But there was work still to do, before that campaign was ended. Ostend was besieged by a powerful land force and by nine ships of the line. The garrison of five thousand men capitulated on the 7th of July. Menin, one of the greatest fortresses of Vauban, was carried by assault, with immense loss, on the 22nd of August. Dendermonde surrendered on the 5th of September. It might long have held out, had there not been seven weeks of excessive drought, which enabled the besiegers to approach, without being held back by the inundation which the besieged could command in ordinary seasons. Ath was the last fortress to fall on the 4th of October. Marlborough returned home to receive the thanks of Parliament, and to take part in the great event of the Session of 1706-7,—the union of England and Scotiand into one kingdom. But the victor at Ramilies had already done far more for this object than anything he could do by his political influence. "If it were to be asked what one man did most for the accomplishment of the Union, it would not be unreasonable to say it was the duke of Marlborough."* At the precise juncture when the campaign of 1706 had inflicted a blow upon France that left her in dread of her own dismemberment, instead of holding the fate of Europe in her hands, the Jacobites of both kingdoms, and some not so honest as the Jacobites, were looking to the aid of the great Louis to prevent the ruin of Scotland, by preventing her entering upon an equal partnership in the liberties, the power, and the glory of England. The king of France was invited to invade Scotland. The invitation was not responded to, for the very obvious reason that the policy of William III., and the victories of the duke of Marlborough, had saved England from being a tributary of France, and now stood between Scotland and the real degradation which some of her children would have regarded as independence. Burton, "History of Scotland," vol. i. p. 438. Scotland-New Parliament assembled in 1703-Irritation against England-Proposal for a Treaty of Union-Meeting of Commissioners of each nation-Articles agreed upon by the Commissioners-Charges of Corruption-Demonstrations against the Union-Debates in the Scottish Parliament-Lord Belhaven's oration-Material interests of Scotland-Views of the Union by Seton of Pitmedden-Provision for the Church of Scotland-RiotsDemonstration of the Cameronians-The Act of Union passed in Scotland-The Act passed in England. "It may be done, but not yet," said King William to Defoe, speaking of that Union which he so fervently desired.* When Commissioners were appointed in 1702 by an Act of the English Parliament, and the Scottish Parliament responded by also appointing Commissioners, each body being empowered to negotiate for a Union, the difficulties of accomplishing this great measure were, probably, not correctly estimated. The "not yet" was not sufficiently manifest. These Commissioners debated for six months, without any result. The demands of the Scotch for a participation in the colonial trade were treated with indifference, as well as the demand for other commercial privileges that were to rest upon a perfect equality. The Scottish Parliament, or Convention of Estates, had sat from the time of the Revolution. A new Parliament was assembled in May, 1703. All the old feudal usages were strictly observed in the procession on this occasion called a "Riding." Every member was on horseback,-the Commons in dark mantles, the Nobles in splendid robes. Lackeys walked by the side of every horse, numerous in proportion to the rank of the rider. The regalia of Scotland were borne in solemn state, amidst a cluster of heralds, and pursuivants, and trumpeters, guarding the crown, the sceptre, and the sword.t This wondrous pageantry was not without its significance at this period. + Burton, "History of Scotland," vol. i. p. 348. "History of the Union," p. 64. 312 NEW SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT. [1703. This Parliament of 1703 was not in a temper of conciliation towards England. Glencoe and Darien were still watchwords of strife. The failure of the negotiations for Union necessarily produced exasperation. Whilst Marlborough was fighting the battles of the Allies, the Scottish Parliament manifested a decided inclination to the interests of France, by removing restrictions on the importation of French wines. The "Act for the Security of the Kingdom was a more open declaration not only of the independence of Scotland, but of her disposition to separate wholly from England-to abrogate, on the first opportunity, that union of the crowns which had endured for a century. The Act of Settlement, by which the crown of England was to pass in the Protestant line to the electress Sophia and her descendants, was not to be accepted; but on the demise of queen Anne without issue, the Estates of Scotland were to Sword of Scotland. name a successor Sceptres of Scotland. freedom and trade of the nation from English or any foreign influence." For four months this matter was vehemently debated in the Scottish Parliament. The Act of Security was carried, but the Lord High Commissioner refused his assent. Following this legislative commotion came what was called in England the Scottish plot-a most complicated affair of intrigue and official treachery, with some real treason at the bottom of it. The House of Lords in England took cognizance of the matter, which provoked tho 1705.] IRRITATION AGAINST ENGLAND. 313 highest wrath in Scotland, that another nation should interfere with her affairs; and this embroilment led to a dispute between the two Houses of the English Parliament about their privileges. When the Scottish Estates re-assembled in 1704, they denounced the proceedings of the House of Lords, as an interference with the prerogative of the queen of Scotland; and they again passed the Security Act. The royal assent was not now withheld; whether from fear or from policy on the part of the English ministry, is not very clear. The Parliament of England then adopted a somewhat strong measure of retaliation. The queen was addressed, requesting her to put Carlisle, Newcastle, Tynemouth, and Hull in a state of defence, and to send forces to the border. A Statute was passed which in the first place provided for a treaty of Union; and then enacted that until the Scottish Parliament should settle the succession to the crown in the same line as that of the English Act of Settlement, no native of Scotland, except those domiciled in England, or in the navy or army, should acquire the privileges of a naturalborn Englishman; and prohibiting all importations of coals, cattle, sheep, or linen from Scotland. It was evident that there must be Union or war. One other circumstance of national rivalry filled the cup of bitterness to the brim. The Darien Company was making efforts to trade to the East Indies; and one of their vessels going into an English harbour to obtain seamen, was seized and condemned for a violation of the chartered privileges of one of the two East India Campanies. An opportunity of revenge soon occurred. A vessel of the other East India Company went into the Frith of Forth for repairs; and the Darien Company, having a power under their charter to make reprisals, seized this vessel by stratagem. A suspicion arose, out of some incoherent talk, that the captain of this vessel, named Green, and his crew had been guilty of crimes on the high seas. One of the Darien Company's vessels had not returned from its voyage; and captain Green and some of his men were prosecuted, upon the belief that they had murdered captain Drummond and his men, on board the Speedy Return, as the Darien ship was named that had not returned at all. Green and two of his crew were convicted; and they were executed, in defiance of the queen's desire that the execution should be postponed. The Privy Council of Scotland were terrified by the Edinburgh mob, who threatened the magistrates and rabbled the chancellor; and the three sailors were hanged at Leith. "The poor men were sacrificed, not to penal laws, but to national hostility-they were victims of war rather than of justice." Mr. Burton adds to this expression of his opinion, "there was afterwards abundant reason for believing that captain Drummond, whom they were charged with murdering, was alive in a distant land." * In this defiant attitude towards England stood Scotland in 1704 and in 1705. Her mobs were howling for English blood before her courts of justice; her patriots were hooting and hissing when the name of the princess Sophia was uttered in the Parliament House. "If a member said anything that could be construed as a leaning to England, cries to take down his words, or to send him to the Castle, imported that scornful denunciation of his sentiments for which his opponents could not find argumentative expressions sufficiently powerful." This temper, which had lasted for several years, * Burton, "History of Scotland," vol. i. p. 378. + Ibid. vol. i. p. 360. 314 war. PROPOSAL FOR A TREATY OF UNION. [1705 had filled the northern population of England with apprehensions of a Scottish The zealots of Scotland talked loudly of girding on their swords, and thought of Bannockburn. The rumours of border-feuds revived, and the stout borderers of Cumberland and Northumberland thought of Dunbar. There were words of common sense uttered in the English Parliament by lord Haversham: "There are two matters of all troubles; much discontent, and great poverty; and whoever will now look into Scotland, will find them both in that kingdom. It is certain, the nobility and gentry of Scotland are as learned and as brave as any nation in Europe can boast of; and these are generally discontented. As to the common people, they are very numerous, and very stout, but very poor. And who is the man that can answer what such a multitude, so armed, so disciplined, with such leaders, may do, espe cially since opportunities do so much alter men from themselves. And there will never be wanting all the promises and all the assistance France can give." * These apprehensions were happily averted by a show of moderation in the Scottish Parliament; and by a consummate exercise of prudence on the part of Godolphin, who, as the head of a ministry chiefly composed of moderate Whigs, had greater power than he had possessed when reconciling the divided opinions of the first years of his administration. In August 1705, the draft of an Act for a treaty of Union was brought into the Scottish Parliament. Violent were the debates; but it was at last passed, by a majority of two; but accompanied by a Resolution that the Commissioners for the treaty should not meet those in England, until an offensive Statute of the English Parliament which had been recently passed should be repealed. It was proposed that this resolution should form part of the Scotch Statute for a treaty; but the more moderate members carried that the resolution should be embodied in an address to the queen. In the new English Parliament of 1705, the Address of the Scots' Parliament, "against any progress in the treaty of Union, till the Act which declared them aliens by such a day should be repealed," was laid before the two Houses; and to the surprise of all parties the ministers of the queen advocated the repeal, not only as regarded the question of denying the Scots the privileges of native-born subjects, but as to the restrictions of that Statute upon commercial intercourse. The friendly hand was cordially held out; and if it were not as cordially graspedif, at some stages of the coming negotiations it were roughly pushed asideit is to the immortal credit of the English statesmen that they went calmly forward with their great work, and accomplished it by honest perseverance, without trickery and without coercion. The reflecting politicians in both countries saw the perils that would result to both from being swayed by national prejudices and popular jealousies. There were old wounds to be healed; old injuries to be forgiven; existing injustice to be redressed; friendship to be established upon conditions of equal rights and liberties. The people of both countries were not wholly insane. Defoe has said with a vigour which sometimes bursts forth out of the dry details of his History of the Union, "God's providence unravelled all the schemes of distinction, which madmen had drawn for the ruin of their native country; and as many times things evil in their design are overruled by an invisible hand, and bring to Parliamentary History, vol. vi. col. 370. |