Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/239

A.D.1706.] carry the treaty by a majority of one hundred and ten. An act was prepared for regulating the election of the sixteen peers and forty-five commoners to represent Scotland in the British parliament; and on the 25th of the following March, 1707, the Scottish parliament rose, never to meet again.

Amongst those who contributed mainly to the carrying of this great measure, and that against an opposition which at one time appeared likely to sweep everything before it, were the dukes of Queensberry and Argyll, the earls of Montrose, Seafield, and Stair, assisted by the earls of Roxburgh and Marchmont, who had come over from the opposite party through promises of favour and distinction. No change ever took place under more violent or general opposition, none in which more evils and calamities were prognosticated. The Scotch believed that their trade would be destroyed, their nation oppressed, and their country altogether ruined through the overwhelming influence of England. But if we look at the condition of Scotland now—at the increase of its population, the increase of its wealth and comfort, the growth of its towns, the extension of its trade and manufactures—there is scarcely anything so striking in the history of the world as the wonderful advance of Scotland since and in consequence of the union. If we look at the vast numbers of Scotch who have settled in England and in all the colonies, at the numbers who have located themselves in eminent places in the literature, law, and government of England, how wonderful is the contrast betwixt the outcry against the union and the results! But to all parts of the empire the union has been scarcely less beneficial by the peace, unity, and strength which it has conferred, and by the infusion of Scotch enterprise, industry, and perseverance into the texture of the English character. What Defoe says of the treaty is undoubtedly true. It is one of the greatest measures and most ably framed which ever distinguished any reign or country. "I shall not," says that great writer, "descend to encomiums on the persons of these treaters, for I am not about to write a panegyric here, but an impartial and unbiassed history of fact. But, since the gentlemen have been ill-treated, especially in Scotland—charged with strange things, and exposed in print by some who had nothing but their aversion of the treaty to move them to maltreat them—I must be allowed on all occasions to do them justice in the process of this story. And I must own that, generally speaking, they were persons of the greatest probity, the best characters, and the stoutest adherents to the true interests of their country; so their abilities will appear in every step taken in so great a work: the bringing it to so good a conclusion, and that in so little time, the rendering it in so concise a form, and so fixing it that, when all the obstruction imaginable was made to it afterwards in the parliament of Scotland, the mountains of objections at first aroused the world proved such molehills, were so easily removed, raised so much noise, and amounted to so little in substance that, after all was granted that could in reason be demanded, the amendments were so few and of so little weight, that there was not one thing material enough to obtain a negative in the English parliament."

In fact, almost all the alterations in or additions made in the Scotch parliament in the articles as we have already given them, related to some trivial bounty on oats, which Scotland grew largely, and regulations relating to salted meats and salted fish, and the encouragement of the herring fishery. The establishment of the presbyterian religion was also guarded in Scotland, with a proviso that it should not at all concern the established religion of England; each in the respective country was to maintain its acknowledged ascendancy.

So ended the year 1706; and the English parliament was informed by the queen on the 28th of January, 1707, that the articles of the treaty, with some alterations and additions, were agreed upon by the Scottish parliament, and should now be laid before them. She said, "You have now an opportunity before you of putting the last hand to a happy union of the two kingdoms, which, I hope, will be a lasting blessing to the whole island, a great addition to its wealth and power, and a firm security to the protestant religion. The advantages which will accrue to us all from a union are so apparent that I will add no more but that I will look upon it as a particular happiness if this great work, which has been so often attempted without success, can be brought to perfection in my reign."

But the tories did not mean to let it pass without a sharp attack. They saw the immense accession of strength which the whigs, the authors of the measure under king William, would obtain from it. Seymour and others denounced it, not merely with vehemence, but with indecency. The high churchmen took particular offence at presbytery being established in Scotland, and insisted much on the contradiction of maintaining one religion in Scotland and another in England, and the scandal of the queen, who was a church-woman, being sworn to maintain presbyterianism in opposition to it. But when the queen mentioned the money which would have to be paid over to Scotland by the articles of the treaty, all parties seemed to resent that, and the tories derived increased acrimony from it. Lord Haversham fell with all his fury on the treaty. He contended that above a hundred Scottish peers and as many commoners were excluded from sitting and voting in parliament as they had been accustomed to do, and that this was an ominous precedent for England; for what was to prevent a government from carrying, under favourable circumstances, such a measure of exclusion against English peers? He declared that the bishops could not, with any regard to their own church, ratify the act for establishing the presbyterian church, against whose constitution they protested, and, by so doing, give up all that they and their predecessors had so long been contending for. The union was, he contended, such a thing of contradictory shreds and patches, that it would need an army to keep it together; that it was notorious that it had been carried against the whole people of Scotland by bribing, intimidation, and undue influence; that it was contrary to the whole sense and will of the nation; that the murmurs of the people had been so loud as to fill the whole kingdom, and so bold as to reach even the doors of the parliament; that the parliament itself had suspended its beloved clause in the act of security for arming the people; that the government had issued a proclamation, pardoning all slaughter, bloodshed, and maiming committed upon those who should be found in