ページの画像
PDF
ePub

XI.

1707.

the two kingdoms in support of the House of BOOK Hanover, and exclude the Stuarts for ever from the crown. When the parliament arrived at the twenty-second article, the representation for Scotland, he assembled the leading Jacobites, and exhorted them not to revert to the past; represented that as no time was to be lost, the marquis of Anandale should renew his motion to establish the same succession with England; and proposed that the country party should enter a solemn protestation on its refusal; secede for ever from the house; and resume their national address to the queen. The secession of the same party had destroyed the credit of the former parliament. The English would hesitate to accede to an union, from which a large proportion of parliament had expressed their solemn dissent, and a visible majority of the nation had appealed to the crown. Had the measure been duly executed, we are assured that the commissioner and his friends were prepared to adjourn the parliament, and to desist from an union to which the general aversion of the people could no longer be concealed". The day was fixed for the protestation. A detailed and high spirited address was prepared. On the preceding

70 Sir J. Clerk's Hist. MS.

Clerk's Notes upon Lockhart, 294. 325; wherein he assents in fact to Lockhart's information from Seafield, that the ministry would have abandoned the union in the event of a national address.

BOOK evening, Hamilton, at a secret interview with

XI.

1707.

ton's trea

chery.

Queensberry, was informed that to him alone the miscarriage of the union would be imputed by the queen, whose favour, amidst all the mazes of opposition, he was unwilling to forfeit; and his terms were adjusted with the court that night 7. Next morning he was afflicted with the tooth-ach. Twice dis- When compelled by the severe animadversions of appointed by Hamil his friends to attend the house, he shrunk unexpectedly from his own protest. Neither their remonstrances, nor their entreaties, nor their asssurance of support, could persuade him to incur the displeasure of the court; and the and the parliament, during their mutual altercations, had advanced so far that the opportunity was lost. The representation of Scotland was approved; and the country party, enraged and stung with vexation and shame at the reiterated treachery of their perfidious leader, abandoned all concert, and in a few days deserted the house in despair 73.

articles

ratified,

Remaining The remaining articles were adopted almost without opposition. To gratify the decayed nobility, protection from personal arrest was secured among other privileges of the British peerage. The regalia were carefully reserved, as the emblems' of departed sovereignty, to be deposited in the castle, in order to sooth and appease the appre

7 Lockhart, 326; confirmed by Sir J. Clerk. Hooke's Negociations, xii.

73 See Note VIII.

XL

1707.

mitted to

hensions of the people. The distribution and the BOOK choice of representatives were deferred, and the articles of union were ratified with the act for the security of the church, and transmitted to the queen. By this artful management, the English and transcabinet, having first dictated to the commis- England. sioners the conditions of the treaty, permitted the Scottish parliament to prescribe apparently to the English, the terms on which it chose to submit to an union.

When the articles were communicated to the Debates in the English English parliament, the tories were disposed to parliament; resist the progress of the union, which a single amendment was sufficient to obstruct. A singular device was employed to preclude alteration, or even debate. The articles, as ratified in Scotland, and an act passed for the security of the church of England, were recited in the preamble of the bill, and were confirmed by a single enacting clause. As the tories could neither dispute the preamble, as a recital of facts, nor oppose the enacting clause with success, the union was carried without an amendment, through the Commons, by surprise. The debates were more solemn, and the articles more fully discussed, among the Lords. An accession of sixty-one members from Scotland, lords and commons, to be returned by means of its privy-council, was magnified as disproportionate to its share of taxes, and as dangerous to the constitution and the church of England; with

XI.

1707.

BOOK whose privileges they were unworthy to be entrusted who had betrayed their own. The union was compared to a marriage contracted without the woman's consent; and it was severely reprobated, as conducted in Scotland by compulsion without doors, and by corruption within. The whigs, inverting their own arguments at the treaty, depreciated the representation of Scotland in each house, as too inconsiderable to affect the constitution or the church; and maintained that the real danger to which either was exposed, was a popish successor in the interest of France; that England was peculiarly vulnerable from the vicinity of the Scots to its collieries, which in the event of a war would require an immense force, for the protection of the Tyne; that if Scotland were even reduced by force, an union, or a standing army, of which the danger was obvious, would still be necessary to preserve its obedience; and that an object so great and important as the union of the whole island, could never be accomplished without some minute inconveniences, unworthy of regard. The articles of union were approved by a large majority; and when confirmed by the royal aswhere the sent, were returned, exemplified, to the Scottish approved parliament, to commence, according to the treaty,

union is

and exem

plined.

on the first of May. But the union was no sooner adopted than it was almost infringed. From the prospect of a free trade, a large importation of wines and brandy was expected in Scotland; and

XL

1707.

large quantities of tobacco began to be sent thither, BOOK in order to obtain a drawback on its exportation from England. The loudest outcries were raised by the merchants, a race that screams at imaginary dangers; and the commons interposed at their request, to prevent the importation of those articles from Scotland, free from duties, when the union should commence. But the lords rejected the bill, as a manifest violation of the free intercourse stipulated for trade 75.

tion,

In the mean while the Scottish parliament had Distribuproceeded to the distribution and the choice of representatives. The ministers and the prime nobility were disposed to appropriate the representation of the peerage to ancient families, in order to secure an exclusive, if not an hereditary seat to themselves. In opposition to this scheme, a rotation was proposed; but as each party confided in its strength for success, an election was preferred, and a ballot to secure the nobility from corrupt influence, was rejected as dishonourable. Thirty members were allotted to the counties, fifteen to the boroughs; of whom a single member was conferred upon the metropolis. The rest were distributed among fourteen districts, or boroughs classed according to their vicinity, who continued each to elect a commissioner; but by a double election, the functions of these commissioners were reduced to the choice of a member

75 Burnet, v. 327. De Foe. Boyer, &c.

« 前へ次へ »