BOOK XI. 1708. would appear in arms with ten thousand men. The assurances of an unknown adventurer were not hastily credited, and he was dismissed with a gratuity, to procure credentials from the clans. On his return to Scotland, he was introduced to Queensberry, whom the Jacobites had just deserted, in parliament, by Argyle and Leven, whose pro-, tection he enjoyed as an useful spy. Tarbet, created earl of Cromarty, Scafield and Athol, though officers of state, had abandoned the court party; and as the last had introduced the act of security, the commissioner listened with avidity to whatever Fraser's invention or resentment suggested. He affirmed that Cromarty, Hamilton, and Athol, his personal enemies, were engaged in a clandestine correspondence with the court of St. Germains; and to confirm his information, he produced a letter from the exiled queen, which had been intended for the duke of Gordon, but was. addressed to Athol by Fraser himself. As the evidence was still defective, he was permitted to range through the highlands in quest of intelligence; and was furnished, for the same purpose, with passports and money to return to France. But Ferguson, a more experienced plotter, whom 1704. he met in London, discovered and communicated his designs to Athol, who complained loudly to queen that a fictitious plot was contrived for his destruction, Fraser, on his return to Paris, the XL BOOK he was restored to liberty, and by his services, on the accession of the Hanoverian family, he reco vered the titles and estates of Lovat. At the age of fourscore he was destined to suffer on the scaffold, for his concern in the last rebellion to restore the Stuarts; but whatever his character or his crimes might be, the humanity of the British government incurred a deep reproach, from the execution of an old man on the very verge of the grave 18. Queensberry and displaced. The Scotch Plot, as it was termed in England, his friends when communicated by the queen to the two houses, excited the most violent disputes. The whigs endeavoured to establish, and the tories to discredit, the existence of the plot, which they represented as a political contrivance, devised by Queensberry to ruin his opponents. As some intercepted letters, and the confession of Fraser's associates, seemed to confirm its reality, the house of peers, where the interest of the whigs predominated, declared that a dangerous plot had existed in Scotland to introduce the pretender, to which nothing contributed so much in that kingdom, as the protestant succession remaining unsettled. But their interference served to obstruct the succession; and in consequence of the outcry against a fictitious plot, the removal of the duke of Queensberry became indispensable. The marquis of Twee 19 Lovat's Memoirs. Collection of Papers concerning the Scotch Plot. Macpherson's Orig. Pap. 1704. XI. 1704. dale was appointed commissioner; and as the BOOK offices of state were reserved for his numerous friends, the country party was broken and divided by the change. An administration chosen from the popular party was expected to establish the protestant succession, at present the undisguised object of the English court; and to gratify the spirit of national independence, the queen was persuaded to yield to every limitation on the successor to the crown. But the change was neither so timely nor so general as to enable the new ministers, before the session commenced, to acquire a majority in parliament, where the duke of Hamilton was ambitious to preside. Men of approved principles, long accustomed to opposition, are not suddenly reconciled to the measures of court; and the prevailing report, that the administration was still subservient to the English cabinet, was generally believed. A more injurious surmise was entertained, that the queen was secretly adverse to the succession of the house of Hanover, of which she affected to approve. The adherents of the late administration were persuaded that the present was intended only as a temporary change; and Queensberry, when dismissed from office, entered into a secret compromise with Hamilton, that if no serious inquiry were made into the Scotch plot, his friend sshould join in opposi tion to the settlement of the crown 19. BOOK The administration was certainly unconscious of its own weakness at the commencement of the session, when the protestant succession, which ion of par-had been delayed so long, was recommended by 1704 Second ses liament. July 13. the queen. The most soothing expressions were employed in her letter; the most specious limitations were proffered by the commissioner; and if national independence were the only object, the nomination of ministers, or rather the supreme power under a protestant successor, might have been transferred to the estates. But it was the interest of the Jacobites to prevent the settlement of the crown; and when Hamilton, to evade the declaration of a successor, demanded a previous treaty of commerce with England, the country party were again deluded by the vast prospect of a colonial trade. Ministers represented in vain, that the queen would accede to every constitutional demand; but that without the authority of the English parliament, she could never dispense with the navigation, act, nor admit their shipping to the English plantations. Whatever the opposition had lost by the defection of ministers, was gained by the accession of Queensberry's friends. They inveighed at the late interposition of the English peers in the affairs of Scotland: they deplored pathetically the unhappy situation to which the country was reduced; and after the most violent debates, they determined, by a large majority, not to appoint a successor till a commercial XI. 1704. treaty were obtained with England; but to pro- BOOK ceed to previous limitations on the throne. From the profession of those free sentiments which they secretly abhorred, the Jacobites were received by the people with unexpected applause; but the resolution designed to obstruct the protestant succession, contrary to their intentions, proved the first step towards an union of the kingdoms 20. curity re The country party were elated with the triumph. Act of se Instead of proceeding to frame limitations, or to vived. appoint commissioners of their own for the treaty, they addressed the queen against the undue interference of the English peers: they requested the documents of the plot to be transmitted to the estates; and revived the act of security, which, with some alterations, was conjoined with the supplies, in order to insure its success. Nothing more was requisite to reduce the administration to the utmost distress. The supplies provided by the convention parliament had been long exhausted. A large arrear was incurred to the army, which was unable to subsist without immediate pay. The treasury was notoriously exhausted; and such was the spirit of national independence, that the remittance of pay from England, which it was impossible to conceal, would have excited dangerous tumults, and might have been rejected as a foreign, and therefore an ignominious subsidy, by the troops themselves. The alternative. |