The Early History of the Scottish Union Question Part 8

But the sayings and the character of the ministers of the Church of Scotland were a.s.sailed in the most effective way by those writers who relied upon ridicule rather than serious invective. Londoners who remembered laughing over Hudibras in the heyday of the Restoration must have found the Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence very poor reading. But it was admirably suited for the purpose of persuading Englishmen that the sermons and prayers of the Scottish ministers were nonsensical rhapsodies, and that, in many cases, both the preachers and their hearers were hypocrites who led the most immoral lives. That part of the work which attacked the private characters of the Presbyterian ministers was met by a series of accusations of the same kind against the Episcopalians; and it is difficult to say whether the attack or the defence is more discreditable. Both are probably, on the whole, equally mendacious.[116] But the most telling part of the work consisted of selections from grotesque sermons and prayers. "Sirs," one minister is reported to have said in his first sermon, "I am coming home to be your shepherd, and you must be my sheep, and the Bible will be my tar-bottle, for I will mark you with it; (and laying his hand on the clerk or precentor's head) he saith, 'Andrew, you shall be my dog.' 'The sorrow a bit of your dog will I be,' said Andrew. 'O Andrew, I speak mystically,'

said the preacher. 'Yea, but you speak mischievously,' said Andrew."

Another minister, preaching on the first chapter of the Book of Job, is represented as saying, "Sirs, I will tell you this story very plainly.

The Devil comes to G.o.d one day. G.o.d said, 'What now, Deel, thou foul thief, whither are you going?' 'I am going up and down now, Lord, you have put me away from you now, I must even do for myself now.' 'Well, well, Deel (says G.o.d) all the world kens that it is your fault; but do not you know that I have an honest servant they call Job? Is not he an honest man, Deel?' 'Sorrow to his thank,' says the Deel; 'you make his cup stand full even, you make his pot play well, but give him a cuff, I'll hazard he'll be as ill as I am called.' 'Go, Deel,' says G.o.d, 'I'll yoke his honesty with you. Fell his cows, worry his sheep, do all the mischief ye can, but for the very soul of you, touch not a hair of his tail.'"

The specimens of prayers are equally absurd. "O Lord," one divine says, "thou'rt like a mousie peeping out at the hole of a wall, for thou sees us, but we see not thee." Another prayed as follows: "Good Lord, what have ye been doing all this time? What good have ye done to your poor Kirk in Scotland?... O, how often have we put our shoulders to Christ's cause, when his own back was at the wall; to be free with you, Lord, we have done many things for thee that never entered in thy noddle, and yet we are content that thou take all the glory; is not that fair and kind?"

The small quarto from which these extracts are taken was only one, though it was the most popular, of a series of similar lampoons. The most offensive of these, a comedy written without the wit, but with all the licentiousness of Wycherley, was not printed for many years; but it may now be read by anyone who wishes fully to understand into what depths of malice and profanity some men were driven by the party spirit of those days.[117]

The public opinion of England on the ecclesiastical affairs of Scotland was, to a great extent, formed by these publications. They increased the hostility with which the High Church party regarded the establishment of Presbytery. The accounts of the outrages committed on the ejected clergy caused a widespread feeling of sympathy with them among all cla.s.ses of Englishmen; and the effect which they produced was not only evident during the discussions on the Union, but afterwards led Parliament to pa.s.s measures which were most unpopular in Scotland, which endangered the stability of the Union before it had lasted more than a few years, and which have been the occasion of endless troubles, misunderstandings, and secessions among the Presbyterians.

The Church question, however, was settled for a time; and the people of Scotland, whose whole energies had for so long been absorbed in the struggle against religious tyranny, were now ready to advance on the path of secular progress. But the commercial policy of England remained unaltered. The least hint that the Navigation Act ought to be repealed raised an outcry among the merchants of London. The proposals for an Union, made by the Estates, had not been listened to. Therefore Scotland, it appeared, must submit to remain poor, while England became wealthier and wealthier.

But now the self-reliant spirit of the Scottish people rose. If they could not share in the trade of England, they would establish a trade of their own. If they were not to be the partners of England, they would be her rivals. There can be no doubt that the schemes of the Scottish Company Trading to Africa and the Indies, on which the hopes of the country were placed, were rash and visionary. Scotland, it is true, was an independent country, with a Parliament of its own, with its own church, laws, coinage, and taxation, united to England by nothing except the Crown; and the powers which the Scottish Parliament gave to the Company brought this fact prominently into view, for the Company was to have the right of arming s.h.i.+ps of war, building cities, making harbours and fortresses, waging war, and concluding alliances. But these very powers, which impressed on Scotsmen the fact that their country was independent, could not fail to rouse the alarm of Englishmen, and particularly of English traders. The royal a.s.sent had, indeed, been given to the statute by which the Company was created.[118] But the merchants of England were so alarmed, so jealous, so persuaded that their own trade was endangered, that we cannot be surprised that William, whose position depended entirely on the goodwill of England, acted as he did; especially when, at a time when he was deeply involved in continental politics, the Company, by sending the expedition to Darien, so seriously imperilled his relations with Spain.

The sum of money which was actually lost by Scotland seems small in our day. The amount appears to have been about two hundred and twenty thousand pounds; but the Scotland of the seventeenth century was far less able to bear the loss of this sum, than the France of the nineteenth century was to bear the loss of all the millions which she, like her ancient ally, threw away upon the sh.o.r.es of the Gulf of Darien.

And rich as England was, in comparison with Scotland, her condition at this time was not so prosperous as to make her liberal in dealing with other nations. War had brought increased taxation; and our enormous national debt, then beginning to acc.u.mulate, was a source of constant alarm. In the country districts farmers were suffering from a long period of agricultural depression, and rents were seldom paid in full.

In the towns work was scarce, and the price of bread was rising. The carrying trade languished in spite of the monopoly which English s.h.i.+pping enjoyed under the Navigation Act, and the resistance to granting Scotland what she chiefly demanded, a share in the colonial trade, was increased by complaints which reached this country from across the seas. The Scottish s.h.i.+powners, it was said, were landing goods in America, and underselling the English merchants; and to such an extent was this done, that Government was called upon to send out men-of-war to stop this illegal traffic.

And so once more England and Scotland were at variance. The Lords and the Commons forgot their quarrels, and combined to address the king against the Scottish Company. William's reply was that he would endeavour to find some means of escape from the difficulty which had arisen. That no such difficulty could have arisen if there had not been two Parliaments was perfectly clear. The statute under which the Scottish colonists sailed to Darien had received the royal a.s.sent, in the Parliament House at Edinburgh, at a time when the king was on the Continent. It was possible that other measures of equal importance to England might become law in the same way; and the subject of the Union again begins to appear in the correspondence of the day.

"You may remember," Marchmont writes, "your Lords.h.i.+p was speaking a little to me about an Union of the two Kingdoms. I have thought much upon it, and I am of opinion that the generations to come of Scotsmen will bless them and their posterity, who can have a good hand in it."[119] Two months later he addresses another correspondent on the same subject. "I am confident," he says, giving his view of Scottish opinion at this time, "if such a thing came to be treated in terms any ways tolerable, it would find a ready concurrence of the far greater part of people of all ranks of this nation."[120] In January 1700, Vernon, writing to Lord Shrewsbury, says: "My Lord Privy Seal[121] can no sooner hear the word Union named, but he runs blindfold into it, and said all he could think of, for pressing it. My Lord Halifax opposed it; and said they should run any risk rather than be bullied by the Scots'

menaces."[122]

The contempt for Scotland which Halifax had expressed was common. In another letter Vernon describes how Sir Edward Seymour, in his place in Parliament, said that the Union reminded him of the story about a countryman who was asked to marry a poor wife, and gave as a reason for refusing, "that if he married a beggar, he should have a louse for a portion." Vernon adds, "this the Scotch have heard, and are very angry at it."[123]

The king lost no time in declaring his own opinion. In a speech to the Lords he reminded them of the Union, which he had recommended soon after his accession, and again pressed it upon the consideration of Parliament, as the only means by which a constant succession of quarrels between the two countries could be avoided.[124] The Lords at once took his advice, and pa.s.sed a Bill for appointing commissioners to treat upon the subject of the Union, which they sent to the Commons with the statement that it was a Bill of great consequence.

At this time there was a great feeling of jealousy between the two Houses of Parliament, and the Commons, resenting the action of the Upper House in calling special attention to this Bill, seized the opportunity of picking a quarrel, and appointed a Committee to report whether there were any precedents for specially recommending Bills. The Committee reported that there were several precedents. Bills had been sent with such recommendations, both from the Lords to the Commons, and from the Commons to the Lords. Nevertheless the Commons rejected the Union Bill upon the second reading.[125]

During the summer of 1700 Scotland was in a state of dangerous excitement. "The Scotch look," Vernon writes, "as if they were ready for any mischief, and that nothing will please them but setting up for themselves." For the last five years the crops had failed. Thousands had perished from famine. Thousands more had been driven to emigrate. The treasury was exhausted. On the balance of trade there was an annual loss. The Bank of Scotland, established in 1695, found that the whole business of the country could be conducted on a capital of thirty thousand pounds; and so limited was the trade, that neither Glasgow, Dundee, nor Aberdeen could support a branch of the bank.[126] So frightful was the state of things that Fletcher of Saltoun, whose whole mind and soul were given up to an intense love for Scotland, thought that no foundation could be laid for better times except by reducing a great part of the population to slavery.

The Estates had not met for two years. An address calling upon the king to a.s.semble a new Parliament was sent up to London; and it was openly said, that if he refused, a national convention would meet, and meet moreover at Perth, where the members would have "Athol and a part of the Highlands at their backs." The staunch Whigs of the Lowlands laughed in public at the idea of a rebellion; but they were well aware that society in Scotland was deeply tainted with that Jacobite feeling which afterwards gave so much trouble. It appears, from a letter written by Melville to Carstares, that attempts had been made to tamper even with persons who were known and avowed Whigs. The Duke of Hamilton, "upon his lady's birthday," was entertaining a party of his friends, among whom were Queensberry, Argyll, and Leven. After dinner he began to speak in a very confidential manner to Leven, telling him "that he loved him," that he would do all he could to save him, and that he "would obtain a pardon for him." Leven asked him what he meant, saying that he had done nothing to require a pardon from King William, and as for King James, he would not accept one from him. Hamilton saw he had gone too far, and explained away what he had said. "It is true," says Melville, "the duke was very drunk; but _post vinum veritas_."[127]

It was plain that the Estates must meet; for not only was the national outcry too loud to be ignored, but, the treasury being empty, supplies must be voted, or the Government could no longer be carried on. But the misery and discontent was so universal, that William could not face a general election. The majority of the old Revolution Parliament, however, were still sound Whigs; and it was resolved to summon it once more. The Government did not rely solely on the help of their own supporters, but made a carefully-planned a.s.sault on the votes of the Opposition members. The officers of State themselves undertook the business. Each agreed to canva.s.s a certain number of members. Sometimes they set the parish ministers to work; and in other cases the good offices of a member's wife were secured. And there is no doubt that besides mere solicitation and appeals to interested motives, there was direct bribery. The result of these transactions was that when the Parliament met, in October 1700, the Government had a majority.[128]

[Ill.u.s.tration: JAMES DOUGLAS, 4TH DUKE OF HAMILTON.]

Queensberry, who was Lord High Commissioner, had been instructed to ask for supplies for eight months, but to take less if they were refused. If the supplies were voted, he was authorised to give the royal a.s.sent to a subsidy in aid of any branch of Scottish trade which was consistent with the treaty obligations of the Crown; but if the Parliament wished to vote money for the African and Indian Company, it must be applied only to making good the losses which had been sustained at Darien. If an Act was pa.s.sed confirming the privileges of the Darien colony, the royal a.s.sent was to be at once refused.[129]

The Opposition, led by Hamilton, desired to pa.s.s an Act a.s.serting the right of Scotland to the settlement at Darien, which was the favourite scheme of the country, and which the Estates had lately been told from the pulpit was "that great, laudable, and glorious design and undertaking of the nation, for the advancement of foreign trade, which if it be altogether crushed, Scotland is never like to enjoy such a fair opportunity again, for promoting her outward wealth and welfare."[130]

The Government, on the other hand, moved an address to the king praying him to vindicate the honour of Scotland, and to extend his protection to the Company.

There was a long and fierce debate. Some of those on whom the ministers had relied followed Hamilton, and others declined to vote. But the Government had a majority of twenty-four; and the session ended quietly on the 1st of February 1701.

In Scotland the losses at Darien had brought to a climax the long-standing feud on the subject of commerce. The discontent and annoyance which had been growing ever since the Navigation Act was pa.s.sed, had now developed into a most violent exasperation against England and every thing that was English. Yet the temperament of the Scottish people was such that these feelings did not lead them into plots against the English Government. They seem to have felt at once that the greater the obstacles which the jealousy of their neighbour might put in their way, the greater was the need for energy and self-help on their own part. Instead of sinking into apathy and indolence, or allowing their hatred of England to drive them into violence, they became more active than ever in forming plans for bringing solid material prosperity to their country. The air was full of projects; and soon these projects took a definite shape. All Scotland was to became one great trading company. The subscribers to the African Company were to be repaid in full. A sum of money greater than that which had been lost was to be raised within two years. In spite of English opposition, colonies were to be founded by Scotsmen. At home manufactories were to be established all over the country. The fisheries of Scotland were to be pursued "to greater profit in all the markets of Europe than any other fis.h.i.+ng company in Christendom can do." Employment was to be found for the poor, "so that in two years time there shall not be one beggar seen in all the kingdom."

It was in the midst of this patriotic ferment that Hamilton, Tweeddale, Rothes, Roxburghe, and Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun formed that independent or national party which, calling itself the Country Party, was destined, during the next few years, to pursue a course which ultimately forced England into uniting with Scotland. This party had its origin in the a.s.sertion of the right of Scotland to free trade at home and abroad; and the keynote of its policy was that Scotland should refuse to settle the succession to the Scottish Crown until her grievances were redressed. But with the death of William and the accession of Anne, Scottish politics entered upon a new phase; and here the early history of the Union question naturally ends.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANDREW FLETCHER OF SALTOUN.]

In the first year of Queen Anne, commissioners were appointed to treat for an Union. They met at Westminster in October 1702, and agreed that the two countries should become one monarchy, with one Parliament, and a system of internal free trade. The English consented, though reluctantly, to allow the Scots to trade with the colonies; but on the subject of the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies no agreement was found to be possible. The English commissioners maintained that the privileges of the Scottish Company interfered with the interests of the East India Company: "Two companies existing together in the same kingdom, and carrying on the same traffic, are destructive to trade." To this the Scottish commissioners replied by a claim for compensation, if the Scottish Company, whose losses in the Darien expedition had been so disastrous, was abolished. "If," they said, "the existing of companies for carrying on the same traffic, do appear to your Lords.h.i.+ps destructive of trade; it is not expected that your Lords.h.i.+ps will insist, that, therefore, the privileges of the _Scots_ Company should be abandoned, without offering at the same time to purchase their right at the public expense." This brought matters to a deadlock; the commissioners separated; and the negotiations were ultimately abandoned.

Defoe describes these proceedings as a "Sham Treaty," and, in his opinion, religion was the real, though secret, difficulty. "The jealousies," he says, "on both sides about Church affairs, in respect to the Union, were ground of such difficulties as no Body could surmount, and lay as a Secret Mine, with which that Party who designed to keep the nation divided, were sure to blow it up at last, and therefore knew that all they did till that Point was discust signified nothing, and that whenever they pleased to put an end to it, they had an immediate opportunity."

But even if the commissioners had come to terms on the questions of the Scottish Trading Company and of the Church, there can be no doubt that the Scottish Estates would not have ratified the treaty; for, as the proceedings of the first Parliament of Queen Anne proved, Scotland was now so exasperated against England that nearly five years of turmoil and danger were to pa.s.s away before the statesmen of the two countries, brought face to face with something more than the possibility of civil war, at last succeeded in carrying the Union of 1707, in the terms of which, apart from the loss of the right of complete self-government through their own Parliament, the advantages lay, upon the whole, with the Scottish people.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES:

[103] Leven and Melville Papers (Bannatyne Club), 7th March 1689.

[104] Lords Journals, 21st March 1690.

[105] Act concerning Patronages, 19th July 1690.

[106] Address of the Scottish Bishops to James II., 3rd Nov. 1688.

[107] It would appear from a memorandum among the Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian Library that several English bishops, some of the Scottish peers, and some members of the Scottish Whig party, had held a private conference and agreed that the Jacobite clergy should be unmolested. The English bishops represented the case of the Scottish Episcopal clergy to William about the same time. But it was doubtless felt that any attempt to pa.s.s an Act of Toleration through the Scottish Parliament would fail.

(Rawlinson MSS. c. 985.)

[108] _A Memorial for his Highness the Prince of Orange_, by two persons of quality. London, 1689.

[109] _A Vindication of the Government in Scotland during the reign of King Charles II._, by Sir George Mackenzie, late Lord Advocate there.

London, 1691.

[110] Evelyn's _Diary_, 7th March 1690.

[111] _Presbyterian Inquisition: as it was lately practised against the Professors of the College of Edinburgh, August and September 1690._ London, 1691.

[112] _An Historical Relation of the late Presbyterian General a.s.sembly_, London, 1691; _An Account of the late Establishment of Presbyterian Government by the Parliament of Scotland_, London, 1693.

[113] _The Fundamental Charter of Presbytery, examined and disproved_, London, 1695.

[114] _An Account of the Present Persecution of the Church in Scotland, in several Letters_, London, 1690; _The Case of the Present Afflicted Clergy in Scotland_, By a Lover of the Church and his Country, London, 1690.

[115] _Case of the Afflicted Clergy_, Second Collection of Papers, p.

60.

[116] _The Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence; or The Foolishness of their Teaching discovered_, London, 1692; _An Answer to the Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence_, 1693; _Some remarks upon a late pamphlet ent.i.tled "Answer to the Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence,"_ London, 1694. A second edition of _The Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence_ was published in 1694, a third in 1719, and there have been other editions since.

[117] _The a.s.sembly, or Scotch Reformation; a Comedy._ Done from the original ma.n.u.script, written in the year 1690, by Archibald Pitcairn, M.D. Edinburgh, 1817.

[118] Act for a Company Trading to Africa and the Indies, 26th June 1695.

[119] Marchmont to Seafield, 7th October 1699, _Marchmont Papers_, iii.

178.