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1705.]

IRRITATION AGAINST ENGLAND.

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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,

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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.

1706.]

MEETING OF COMMISSIONERS OF EACH NATION.

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pass that very good which they were prepared to destroy, even so it was here; for these confusions were the very things that brought both the nations to their senses; I mean, brought them both to better temper. The consequences of a bloody war just breaking out in the bowels of their native country, in the ruin and certain desolation of which they must necessarily have a great share, opened the eyes of the most thinking people on both sides, even of those who in themselves had no real inclination to the conjunction of the kingdoms, and thus the necessity of taking new measures began to appear both ways.'

In the spring of 1706, thirty-one Commissioners were nominated on the part of each kingdom, for negotiating the terms of Union. The nomination of the Scottish Commissioners was left to the queen, after a violent opposition by those who desired the nomination to be in the Estates of Parliament. To the surprise of many, that nomination included several violent opposers of the Union-a "courageous policy," as Mr. Burton truly observes. On the 16th of April, the Commissioners assembled in the Cockpit at Whitehall. The Lord Keeper, Cowper, delivered an Address on the part of England, and the Scottish Chancellor on the part of Scotland. The success of these negotiations may be attributed in no small degree to the wisdom and justice of Lord Somers, one of the Commissioners, although he held no office. His ruling principle was that of acting with perfect fairness to Scotland. The Commission sat till the 22nd of July, when the Articles of Union were finally agreed upon.

A complete union of two independent nations, to be brought about by common consent, and the terms to be settled as in a commercial partnership, was an event which seems natural and easy when we look to the geographical position of the two nations, and to the circumstance that they had been partially united for a century, under six sovereigns wearing the crown of each kingdom. But when we look to the long-standing jealousies of the two nations their sensitive assertions of ancient superiority-the usual haughty condescension of the wealthier country-the sturdy pride of the poorer-the ignorance of the bulk of each people of the true character of the otherthe differences of the prevailing forms of religion-the more essential differences of laws and their modes of administration-we may consider the completion of this Union as one of the greatest achievements of statesmanship. "If those continental nations which had been for centuries accustomed to see annexations, partitions, and the enlargement of empires by marriage and succession, had been told how many different parties and interests it was necessary to bring to one set of conclusions, before the desired end could be accomplished, they would have deemed the project utterly insane, as, indeed, it would have been, if laid before two nations less endowed with practical sense and business habits." At the very outset of the treaty, the vital principle of Union was to be debated; that fundamental article upon which all other articles were to be based-an entire Union of the two kingdoms-one kingdom, one crown, one parliament. This article was proposed at the opening of the negotiations, by the English Commissioners. The Scottish Commissioners demurred. The descent of the crown of Scotland might go according to the Act of Settlement; mutual free-trade-mutual + Burton, vol. i. p. 398.

"History of the Union," p. 80

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ARTICLES AGREED UPON BY THE COMMISSIONERS.

[1706.

rights--a federal union. The English Commissioners declined to proceed upon such terms, "convinced that nothing but an entire Union of the two kingdoms will settle perfect and lasting friendship." The Scottish Commissioners yielded; but at the same time demanded reciprocity of citizenship and of privileges of trade. Unquestionably so, replied the English Commissioners. It was "a necessary consequence," they said, of the first great condition.

The fundamental principle of the Union was thus settled, in the words of the resolution of the English Commissioners, to be "an entire and incorporating Union, by which the two nations should be formed into one Government, be under one sovereign head, in one represented body, standing upon one foundation, enjoying equal privileges, and in common bearing one general proportion of burdens, the same in end and mean, having but one common interest, one name, and being for ever hereafter but one people." How to carry out this amalgamation, in the several relations of "one represented body"-" one general proportion of burdens,"-might have presented insuperable difficulties to any set of negotiators who were not thoroughly convinced of the necessity of making a compromise of many supposed particular interests. The question of "proportion of burdens" claimed precedence of that of "one represented body." The English Commissioners cleared away many objections, by proposing an equivalent to Scotland in a money payment, for any disadvantages she might be subjected to in a joint principle of finance. By a system of equal duties upon imports and exports, the freedom of trade was established, and to that system no objection could be rationally offered. There were long discussions about duties of excise-about malt, and salt, and ale,—which were satisfactorily adjusted. The Land Tax was arranged in a manner eminently favorable to Scotland. All these matters were got over, when the complex question of representation arose. The English Commissioners proposed that Scotland should have thirty-eight members in the united House of Commons. The Scottish Commissioners proposed fifty. The number was settled at forty-five-about one-twelfth of the whole House. The system of electing Peers to sit in Parliament was also settled; sixteen being taken out of the hundred and fifty-four who were then Peers of Scotland. The laws of Scotland, with the exception of those relating to trade, customs, and excise, were to remain in force, though subject to alterations by the Parliament of Great Britain, as the united kingdom was to be called; it being provided " that laws relating to public policy are alterable at the discretion of the Parliament; laws relating to private right are not to be altered, but for the evident utility of the people of Scotland." The standards of the coin, of weights, and of measures, were to become uniform with those of England. For removing national distinctions, the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew were to be conjoined when used in flags, banners, standards, and ensigns. "The coat armorial was to be quartered according to heraldic rules, so that in its employment for Scottish national purposes, the arms of Scotland might have the dexter, or pre-eminent side-a privilege for some time adopted, and not lightly esteemed." In the negotiations of the Commissioners all matters relating to the Church of Scotland were excluded. The preservation intact of the constitution and rights of that * Defoe, "History of the Union," p. 107.

+ Blackstone, Kerr's edit. vol. i. p. 79.

Burton, vol i. p. 423.

1706.]

CHARGES OF CORRUPTION.

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Church was provided for in the Acts of Parliament under which the Union was established.

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The history of these negotiations has been told by Sir Walter Scott with a bias which can only be attributed to that nationality which, in its intensification, may cease to be a virtue. He, who in the political questions of his own time was strenuously opposed to what may be called democratic principles, complains that the population of Scotland being as one to six, if the rule of population, "which seems the fairest that could be found, had been adopted, Scotland would have sent sixty-six members to the united Parliament," instead of forty-five.* The Whig, Hallam, takes a very different view from the Tory, Scott: "The ratio of population would indeed have given Scotland about one-eighth of the legislative body, instead of something less than one-twelfth; but no government, except the merest democracy, is settled on the sole basis of numbers; and if the comparison of wealth and of public contributions was to be admitted, it may be thought that a country which stipulated for itself to pay less than one-fortieth of direct taxation, was not entitled to a much greater share of the representation than it obtained."+ Scott, again, takes occasion to accuse the Scottish commissioners of having "sold their own honour and that of Scotland," upon "being given to understand that a considerable sum out of the equivalent money would be secured for their especial use." He then goes on to state, in the most precise way, from the papers of Lockhart, a furious Jacobite, the names of the many recipients of the sum distributed, being £20,540 17s. 7d.; and says, "it may be doubted whether the descendants of the noble lords and honourable gentlemen who accepted this gratification, would be more shocked at the general fact of their ancestors being corrupted, or scandalized at the paltry amount of the bribe. One noble lord accepted of as low a sum as eleven guineas." Mr. Burton has shown that the sum which was unquestionably "Tales of a Grandfather," chap. Ix. +"Constitutional History," chap. xvii.

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