Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/543

Rh umox.J SCOTLAND 519 ing the scheme forward in the Scottish parliament. Though opposed on contrary grounds by the Jacobites and the party of Fletcher of Salton, the Scottish ministry of Queensberry succeeded, by the aid of a third party nick- named the "Squadrone Volante," in getting the consent of parliament to the appointment of commissioners by the crown. The Act expressly excepted the church from the matters with which the commission was to deal. The com- missioners, thirty-one from each country, met at Whitehall on 16th April and concluded their sittings on 23d July. The nomination by the crown had secured persons anxious to accomplish the union ; experience had disclosed the cause of former failures, and the commissioners were guided by the statesmanship of Somers. It had been recognized from the first that the only settlement of the ecclesiastical question possible was to leave to each country its own church. It was wisely decided to treat the law and the courts in the same manner. These two subjects being re- moved from the scope of the treaty narrowed the debates to four main points, the succession, trade, taxation, and the composition of the future parliament. The Scottish commissioners yielded on the first, the English on the second, and the remaining two were adjusted by a skilful Terms of compromise. The chief articles of the treaty were the treaty of settlement of both crowns according to the English Act of Succession on Anne and her descendants, and failing them on the electress Sophia and the Hanoverian line; the establishment of free trade between England and Scotland, and the admission of the Scots to equal privileges as regards trade with other countries ; the national debt and taxation were adjusted by the imposition on Scotland of a moderate share (48,000) of the land-tax, of which England was still to bear 200,000, and there was to be a uniform rate of custom and excise, Scotland being compensated by an equivalent of about 400,000 for becoming liable to a proportion of the English national debt, which already amounted to 16,000,000; forty-five representatives of Scotland were to be admitted to the House of Commons and sixteen elected peers to the House of Lords. Although the terms were on the whole favourable to Scotland, their announcement was received with dissatisfaction, especially Its un- in Edinburgh. The loss was immediate, from the aboli- popular- t j on o an i n d e p en (j en t parliament, the reduction of the Scotland ca pital to a provincial town, and the increase of taxation to pay the growing national debt. The gain was in the future and in part doubtful. No one contemplated the rapid and enormous extension of trade. A proud people was unwilling to admit the advantage consequent upon free intercourse with a country in which wealth and civiliza- tion were more widespread. It had a natural attachment to its own institutions, though these were less popular than the English. It feared that, notwithstanding the most solemn guarantee, neither its church nor its laws could resist the influence of a country so much larger and more populous, in which henceforth was to be the sole seat of government, and that much of its wealth and talent would be attracted to the south and become English. The last parliament of Scotland was preceded by a stormy agita- tion against the union, and began its session with numer- ous addresses praying that the treaty should not be ratified, while none were presented in its favour. The popular feeling was embodied in the speeches of Lord Belhaven from a sentimental and patriotic point of view, and of Fletcher of Salton, who represented the democratic or re- publican element latent in a portion of the nation. But common sense aided by ministerial influence prevailed. The ^vote on the first article was prudently taken with a proviso that it was to be dependent on the rest being carried, but it really decided the fate of the measure. The Government commanded a large majority of the peers, perhaps more amenable to influence. They were accused 1705-1709 by the Jacobites of being bribed, but the sums received in name of payment of arrears of pension and of debts were too small to justify the charge. The lesser barons or county members and the representatives of the burghs were nearly equally divided ; but there was a majority of four of each of these estates in favour of the article. The whole estates voted together and the total majority was thirty-five. This was increased when the last vote was taken to 41, the numbers being 110 for and 69 against, and the Act of Ratification to take effect from 1st May 1707 was carried. The Presbyterian Church received an additional guarantee in an Act passed for " securing the Protestant religion and the Presbyterian Establishment." In the English parliament there was less serious opposi- tion, proceeding chiefly from the High Church party, which was conciliated by an Act for the security of the Church of England. On 6th March 1707 the Scottish and English Acts ratifying the union received the royal assent. Two Acts of the British parliament naturally followed Legisla- the Act of Union. The Scottish privy council was abol- tion con ' ished in 1 708. A secretary of state for Scotland continued until 1746 to manage the Scottish department in London ; but the lord advocate, the adviser of the crown on all legal matters both in London and Edinburgh, gradually acquired a large, and after the suppression of the office of the Scottish secretary a paramount influence in purely Scottish affairs, though he was nominally a subordinate of the home secretary. 1 In 1709 the law of treason was assimilated to that of England, being made more definite and less liable to extension by construction in the criminal courts. In the later years of Anne, when after the fall of Marlborough power passed from the Whig to the Tory party, two statutes were passed of a different character. Patronage was restored in the Presbyterian Church not- withstanding the protests of the assembly, and proved a fertile source of discord. A limited toleration Act in favour of the Episcopalians, permitting them to worship in private chapels, was opposed by the Presbyterians but carried. With the union of the parliaments Scotland lost its Other legislative independence. Its representation in the British results of parliament for more than a century, based on the freehold ? n j? n , franchise in the counties and in the burghs controlled by j^^ town councils, which were close corporations, was a repre- sentation of special classes and interests rather than of the nation. It almost appeared as if the prophecy of Belhaven would be accomplished and there would be an end of an old song. But Scottish history was not destined yet to end. The character of the people, though their language and manners gradually became more like those of Eng- land, remained distinct. They retained a separate church and clergy. Independent courts and a more cosmopolitan system of law opened a liberal profession and afforded a liberal education to youthful ambition. A national system of parish schools, burgh schools, and universities, though inadequately endowed and far from reaching the ideal of Knox and Melville, gave opportunities to the lower as well as the higher classes of receiving at a small cost an educa- tion suited for practical uses and the business of everyday life. The Scot had been from the earliest times more in- clined to travel, to migrate, to colonize than the English- man, not that he had a less fervent love of home, but a soil comparatively poor made it necessary for many to seek their fortune abroad. This tendency which had led Scottish monks, soldiers, and professors to embrace foreign service, now found new openings in trade, commerce, colonial enter- prise in America, the East, and the West Indies, in the southern hemisphere and the exploration of unknown parts 1 In 1885 a secretary for Scotland was again appointed with a separate office at Dover House, London.