lies. VII. 1672. The trade of the kingdom was almost equally BOOK oppressed. In Middleton's parliament, the regulation of duties on foreign trade was transferred to the crown; but an act intended to establish a balance of trade with England, was productive, in Lauderdale's hands, of the most pernicious mono- Monopopolies for the benefit of his friends. A duty, equivalent to a prohibition, was imposed on foreign salt; the pre-emption of home-made salt was conferred on lord Kincardine; and a necessary article was enhanced above five times its original price. A large impost was laid on tobacco; the importation of brandy was prohibited; and an odious monopoly was created by the sale of licences to import those articles of general consumption. Among other grievances which it were unnecessary to enumerate, the adulteration of the coin was universally felt. The currency of foreign money was fixed beneath its intrinsic value, that it might be brought to the mint, where lord Hatton presided. The silver coinage issued in return was adulterated and reduced in weight, and the country was filled with a species of light and spurious copper.58 1679. Opposition ment From these grievances, the designs of Lauderdale and the court, to render the one kingdom in parlia instrumental to the servitude of the other, must appear not less criminal than desperate in the extreme. While the minister vainly expected to retain all Scotland in dependence on himself, and 58 Wodrow, i. App. 141. Scotland's Grievances. VII. BOOK while the king was persuaded that an army devoted to his service, was prepared to support his most 1673. arbitrary designs, an injured and insulted people was disposed, on the least disorder in England, to break into open rebellion as soon as the troops were removed. When the declaration of indul gence, which had been imitated in Scotland, was recalled by Charles, the Cabal dissolved in its own weakness and decay. Shaftesbury was preserved by an opportune defection, or rather by his uniform adherence to the popular party; and Lauderdale, whom the house of commons declared a grievance, sought an undisturbed retreat from the tempest in Scotland. The opposition encountered there, was the more severe as it was unexpected and justly incurred. The nobility were provoked at his arrogance, and the commons at his oppres sions; but the mutinous disposition of parliament was not discovered nor even suspected till it assemNov. 12 bled. The king's letter was read and enforced by the commissioner, recommending more vigorous means of persecution, and requesting additional aids for the Dutch war. Instead of the usual responses of a submissive parliament, the duke of Hamilton, a younger son of the house of Douglas, who had married the heiress, and obtained, by the courtesy of Scotland, the titles of Hamilton, demanded that the situation of the nation should be first examined, and its grievances redressed. The grievances of the nation were re-echoed by twenty VII. 1673. members. They arose and complained successively BOOK of the monopolies of brandy, salt, tobacco, of the administration of justice, and the adulteration of the coin; but religious persecution, the worst of grievances, was an interdicted subject of which they durst not complain. The commissioner, astonished at their opposition, endeavoured, by his overbearing menaces, to interrupt their debates. "Is this a free parliament or not?" was the indignant reply, and no expedient remained but to adjourn for a week. At the next meeting, in order to appease their indignation, the monopolies were repealed. But the relief was unsatisfactory, unless the author and instruments of oppression were removed and punished; and they who considered Lauderdale's inordinate power and accumulation of offices as the greatest evil, persisted in their resolution to represent the national grievances in an address to the king. The com missioner's last resource was to adjourn the parliament for two months; and in the interval, Tweedale, Hamilton, and the leaders of opposition were invited to court. They were received and dismissed with full assurances that the grievances should be left to parliament; and hastened down amidst such heavy snows and intense or continued frosts, that a third of the sheep and cattle were starved to death. On their arrival, the parlia ment, which was permitted to meet, was adjourn BOOK ed within half an hour, and then dissolved by a VII. 1673. Redress of Charles. letter from the king.59 The disappointment excited such violent disgrievances content, that some undertook to assassinate Lau, evaded by derdale and his whole party; but these desperate councils were overruled by Hamilton, who was again invited to court with his friends. They requested to be heard by their sovereign, but were required to present their complaints in writing. The most cautious complaints which it was possible to frame, would be converted into leasingmaking, especially as the archbishop of Glasgow had been lately entangled in the same snare. Their grievances were communicated to Charles by an anonymous letter, but all hopes of redress or relief were disappointed, as they durst not confide in his assurance, that no paper which they subscribed would be employed for their destruction. Their grievances proclaimed in pamphlets, renewed the demands of the English commons for the removal of Lauderdale. If not admitted by Charles to the secret of the first clandestine treaty with France, for restoring the catholic religion in England, he had entered with zeal into the second subsidiary alliance, to establish an absolute government by the introduction of French troops, with whom the army procured from the Scottish parliament 1674. 59 Scotland's Grievances. Kirkton, 88, Wodrow, i. App. 98. Crawford's Lives of Officers of State, 241. Burnet, i. 108. Law's Diary, MS. Adv. Library. VII. 1674. was intended to co-operate. The acts ordaining BOOK the army to march wheresoever the Scottish council should appoint, and the honour or safety of the king might require, were examined by the commons, when the evidence of the celebrated Gilbert Burnet revealed his design, if the king had continued firm, to summon the Scottish army into England to support the Cabal. But the king, who had dismissed in Clarendon the monitor of his early youth, and the friend of his adversity, considered truly that a minister devoted to the acquisition of power was also devoted to the crown. Lauderdale, confirmed in his offices, became more absolute than ever; his opponents were all displaced from the council except Hamilton; and though he condescended at times to court the presbyterians, his administration displays the most signal examples of the corrupt and wanton abuse of power. advocates expelled from town. A private litigation between the earls of Dun- Faculty of fermline and Callender, to divest the latter of half his fortune, was espoused by Lauderdale, who determined, before his departure for court, to influence the decision of the bench by his voice and presence as an extraordinary judge. The question was accelerated, and appointed to be heard by the president, in defence of a recent statute, that o Crawford's Hist. MS. ii. 125. Wodrow, i. 364–79. Sir John Dalrymple's Memoirs. Crawford's MS. Hist. ii. 125. |