CHAPTER IV

[2]Act that no law pass at the First Reading, 25th September 1695. The term ‘bill’ was not used in the Scottish Parliament. When a measure was brought in, and while it was before the Estates, it was called an ‘overture,’ or ‘the draft of an Act,’ or simply an ‘Act.’

In the session of 1689 Fletcher presented a petition to the Estates for the restoration of the estate of Saltoun, in which he asserted that the sentence of forfeiture had proceeded on ‘frivolous and weak pretences, and upon lame and defective probation.’

This petition, along with some others of a similar character, was remitted to a committee of Parliament for inquiry. There was a long delay; and at last Fletcher was put forward to complain to the Duke of Hamilton, who was then Commissioner. So he went to Hamilton, and said it was unfair that Argyll’s forfeiture should have been reversed without delay, while he and others, who had suffered unjustly, should have to wait so long. Having lodged this complaint, he asked Hamilton to mention the matter to the King.

‘Tell the King,’ he said, ‘that Fletcher of Saltoun has a better right to his estate than his Majesty has to the Crown.’

‘Devil take me,’ said the Duke in reply, ‘if it isn’t true!’

At last, on the 30th of June 1690, an Act was passed,rescinding the forfeiture, and putting Fletcher once more in possession of his family estate.

Before this event, so important to Fletcher, took place, Hamilton, superseded by Melville, had retired in disgust from public life; and there is some reason to believe that it was Fletcher who was the means of bringing him back to support the Revolution principles in 1692, when the country was alarmed by the threat of a Jacobite invasion. ‘I know you will be surprised,’ Fletcher wrote to Hamilton in April of that year, ‘to receive a letter from me; but my writing to you in such an exigence shows the high esteem I must have of you, and of the true love you bear your religion and country. If, laying aside all other considerations, you do not come in presently, and assist in council, all things will go into confusion; and your presence there will easily retrieve all. The castle has been very nearly surprised, and an advertisement which Secretary Johnstone had from France, and wrote hither, has saved it. When things are any ways composed you may return to your former measures, for I do not approve of them. I do advise your Grace to the most honourable thingyou can do; and without which your country must perish.’ This ‘spirited letter,’ as it is called by Dalrymple—in whoseMemoirsit is printed—is said to have induced Hamilton to make up his quarrel with the Court, and in the following year he was once more presiding over the debates of the Scottish Parliament.

It was probably about this time, or soon after, that the project of forming the ‘Company of Scotland trading to Africa and the Indies’ first took shape in the fertile brain of William Paterson, who may perhaps have met Fletcher in Holland before the Revolution. He was in London in 1690; and Dalrymple says that in Scotland it was always believed that Fletcher brought him down to Saltoun, and presented him to the Marquis of Tweeddale, to whom Paterson unfolded the great scheme. Then Fletcher, ‘with that power which a vehement spirit always possesses over a diffident one, persuaded the Marquis, by arguments of public good, and of the honour which would redound to his administration, to adopt the scheme.’

Sir John Dalrymple of Stairs, Mr. Secretary Johnstone, and Sir James Stewart, then Lord Advocate, took the matter in hand, and the famous Act constituting the Company was passed by the Scottish Parliament, and received the royal assent on the 26th of June 1695. When the subscription list was opened, in February 1696, Fletcher put his name down for one thousand pounds’ worth of stock.

The story of the expedition which the Company sent to Darien, and of the tragic fate of the adventurers, has been told and retold so often that every child from John o’ Groat’s House to the Cheviots knows it off by heart. It has never been forgotten in Scotland. England had to face the question—Shall we run the risk of a war with Spain to save the property of a Scottish trading Company, and the lives of some twelve hundred Scotsmen? And England answered—No.

Fletcher was a rich man, and the disaster at Darien did not mean ruin to him, as it did to so many of his countrymen. But the sight of their sufferings, the callous indifference of the English Government, and the knowledge that there was not one London merchant in a hundred who did not, in his heart, rejoice in the ruin which had befallen the Scottish traders, made him, as it made most Scotsmen, distrust England, and devote himself, heart and soul, for the rest of his life, to the cause of Scottish independence.

Fletcher’s Political Writings—‘A Discourse on Militias’—The Affairs of Scotland—Supports Slavery as a cure for Mendicancy—Attacks the Partition Treaty.

Itwas in 1698, while the fate of the Darien expedition was still uncertain, that Fletcher first appeared as anauthor.

In their original form his writings may be described as short, anonymous pamphlets, of duodecimo or small octavo size, and printed in italics. They were republished, some years after Fletcher’s death, in one volume, in 1732, under the title ofThe Political Works of Andrew Fletcher, Esq., and since then there have been other editions.

These earlier works consisted of—(1)A Discourse of Government with relation to Militias: Edin., 1698; (2)Two Discourses concerning the Affairs of Scotland, written in the year 1698; (3) a work in Italian, calledDiscorso delle cose di Spagna, scritto nel mese di Luglio 1698: Napoli, 1698; (4)A Speech upon the State of the Nation, 1701.

After the Peace of Ryswick there was a war of pamphlets on the question of standing armies. WilliamIII.desired to maintain a force sufficient to cope with France; but, as Burnet says, ‘the word “standing army” had an odious sound in English ears’; and most Englishmen thought that a thoroughly trained militia and a strong navy would afford the best means for repelling an invasion from abroad, and securing order at home.

Fletcher plunged into this controversy with his work upon militias. His argument is that standing armies kept up in peace have changed the governments of Europe from monarchies into tyrannies. ‘Nor,’ he says, ‘can the power of granting or refusing money, though vested in the subject, be a sufficient security for liberty, when a standing mercenary army is kept up in time of peace; for he that is armed is always master of him that is unarmed. And not only that governmentis tyrannical which is tyrannically exercised, but all governments are tyrannical which have not in their constitution a sufficient security against the arbitrary power of the Prince.’ Therefore no monarchy is sufficiently limited unless the sword is in the hands of the subject. A standing army tends to enslave a nation. It is composed of men whose trade is war. To support them heavy taxes must be imposed; and it thus becomes the interest of a large and formidable party in the state, consisting of those families whose kinsmen are soldiers, to keep up the army at the expense of their countrymen.

No standing armies, Fletcher points out, have ever yet been allowed in this island. The Parliament of England has often declared them contrary to law; and the Parliament of Scotland not only declared them to be a grievance, but made his keeping of them up one of its reasons for disowning King James. But, on the other hand, every free man should have arms, which are ‘the only true badge of liberty.’ Military service ought to be compulsory upon all classes; for ‘no bodies of military men can be of any force or value unless many persons of quality or education be among them.’ The only men who are fit to be officers are gentlemen of property and position.

He has a plan all ready for organising the nationalmilitia. Four camps should be formed, three in England and one in Scotland. All men, on reaching their twenty-first birthday, must enter them, and serve for two years, if rich enough to support themselves, and for one year, if they must be maintained at the public expense. They are to be taught ‘the use of all sorts of arms, with the necessary evolutions; as also wrestling, leaping, swimming, and the like exercises.’ Every man who can afford it should be forced to buy a horse, and be trained to ride him. These camps were to remain for only eight days in one place, moving from one heath to another, not only for the sake of health and cleanliness, but to teach the men to march, to forage, to fortify camps, and to carry their own tents and provisions. The food of all, both officers and privates, was to be the same. ‘Their drink should be water, sometimes tempered with a proportion of brandy, and at other times with vinegar. Their cloaths should be plain, coarse, and of a fashion fitted in everything for the fatigue of a camp.’

Each camp was to break up, at certain seasons, into two parties, and spread over the mountains, marshes, and country roads, and practise tactics by manœuvring against each other. No clergymen nor women should be allowed to enter them; but ‘speeches exhorting to military and virtuous actions should be often composed, and pronounced publicly by such of the youth as were, by education and natural talents, qualifiedfor it.’ The strictest discipline was to be enforced. ‘The punishments should be much more rigorous than those inflicted for the same crimes by the law of the land. And there should be punishments for some things not liable to any by the common law, immodest and insolent words or actions, gaming, and the like.’

In this Spartan system Fletcher had the fullest confidence. ‘Such a militia,’ he says, ‘might not only defend a people living in an island, but even such as are placed in the midst of the most warlike nations of the world.’ But the practical conclusion to which he comes is that, in the meantime, the existing militia was sufficient. No standing army was necessary. The sea was the only empire which naturally belonged to Britain. Conquest could never be our interest, still less to consume our people and our treasure in crusades undertaken on behalf of other nations.

ThisDiscourse on Militias, which was first printed in 1698, in the form of a pamphlet, will be found in the various editions of hisWorkspublished in 1732, 1737, 1749, and 1798, and was also reprinted in London in the year 1755.[3]

[3]MS. Bibliography.By Mr. Gordon Duff and Mr. R. A. S. Macfie.

It appears, from internal evidence, that theTwo Discourses concerning the Affairs of Scotlandwere written in the autumn of 1698. The Darien expedition had sailed at the end of July, and Fletcher urges the necessity of providing supplies for the new colony. The whole future of Scotland, he says, depends on the fate of this enterprise. The condition of the country has become desperate. Partly through the fault of Scotsmen themselves, and partly because the seat of government has been removed to London, it is cruelly impoverished, and has fallen so low ‘that now our motto may be inverted, and all may not only provoke, but safely trample upon us.’ Commerce we have none. No use has been made of our harbours. Nothing has been done for the poor. Every year people are emigrating in search of work. We have no trade and no manufactures. Everything depends on the colony at Darien. Therefore the first business of Parliament should be to support the Company of Scotland, for which he proposes that the Estates should vote a large sum of money, and that three frigates which had lately been built by Scotland should be employed to convoy the next fleet that sailed for Darien.

He hopes that, after providing for the Darien colonists, the Scottish Parliament will take steps to encourage trade at home. The war is at an end. In that war Scotland has done great things. Seven or eight thousand Scotsmen served in the English fleet, and two or three thousand in that of Holland. ‘Besides,’ he says,‘I am credibly informed that every fifth man in the English forces was either of this nation, or Scots-Irish, who are a people of the same blood with us.’ But there is now no reason for keeping up the standing forces in Scotland. ‘There is no pretence for them, except only to keep a few wretched Highlanders in order, which might easily be done by a due execution of our old laws made for that purpose, without the help of any fort or garrison.’ As to danger from the Jacobites, ‘the party of the late King James was always insignificant, and is now become a jest.’ Scotland is called upon to provide £84,000 a year for the army. This is the same thing as if England had to find £2,500,000; and yet all England provides is £350,000. Scotland is, therefore, unfairly taxed; and for that reason, and also because the militia is sufficient, the Estates should refuse to vote supplies for the army, and devote the money to the improvement of trade and industry.

It is in the Second Discourse that Fletcher gives his well-known account of the poverty-stricken condition of Scotland, and prescribes domestic slavery as one remedy. No one who has minutely studied Scottish history during the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth centuries will think the picture overdrawn. The country was barren, and the seasons were inclement. But Fletcher thought of Holland, where he had seen field upon field rescued from thesea, harbours and ships, wealthy towns, flourishing farmers, canals running between rich pasturelands, or banks adorned by villas and gardens; and all this had been the work of the sober and industrious people of a free republic, who had worked out their own salvation. Then he looked at Scotland, the country which he loved, and saw ‘many thousands of our people who are at this day dying for want of bread,’ and asked, ‘How is this to be changed?’ He was under no illusions. He saw things as they really were. The Trading Company might do much. If the Parliament would spend money on the encouragement of industry instead of on the army, Glasgow and Dundee might rise from petty seaports into rich commercial cities, and agriculture might flourish in the Lothians. But a great part of the population of Scotland consisted of people who would do anything rather than work. These were the descendants of the Border mosstroopers, the wild clansmen of the Highlands, and a vast migratory horde of sturdy beggars who wandered, in ragged hordes, over Lowlands and Highlands alike—starving, pilfering, and incorrigibly idle. ‘How,’ he asked, ‘are we to deal with these vagabonds?’ His answer was, ‘Force them to work.’ He foresees that he will be accused of inconsistency, and must face the question how he, the champion of liberty, can propose such a measure. But he answers that he regards not names but things. ‘We are told,’ he says, ‘there is not a slave in France; that when a slave sets his foot upon French ground, he becomes immediately free; and I say there is not a freeman in France, because the King takes away part of any man’s property at his pleasure; and that, let him do what he will to any man, there is no remedy.’ Public liberty may be complete in a country where there is domestic slavery, and he only proposes that the idle, sturdy beggar should be made a slave for the benefit of the country at large.

That Fletcher was favourable to domestic slavery, as a social institution, is clear. He argues that the clergy are to blame for the ‘multitude of beggars who now oppress the world.’ His view is that churchmen, ‘never failing to confound things spiritual with temporal, and consequently all good order and good government, either through mistake or design,’ recommended masters, when Christianity was established, to set at liberty such of their slaves as would become Christians; and the result of this advice was that thousands of persons, who had been well clothed, well fed, and well housed as slaves, were thrown loose upon the world, which has ever since been overrun by a ragged army of idle freemen who live on alms.

He therefore urges that in Scotland stern measures should be taken, especially with the Highlanders, for whom he has a profound contempt. ‘Nor indeed,’ he says, ‘can there be any thorough reformation in this affair, so long as the one-half of our country, in extent of ground, is possessed by a people who are all gentlemen only because they will not work, and who in everything are more contemptible than the vilest slaves, except that they always carry arms, because for the most part they live upon robbery.’ His proposals are that hospitals should be provided for such beggars as are old and feeble; but as for the rest, he would divide them into two classes. The harmless beggars should be employed as domestic slaves. The dangerous ruffians should be sent to Venice, to ‘serve in the galleys against the common enemy of Christendom.’

Such were the means by which Fletcher would have put an end to idleness and mendicancy in Scotland; and his well-known description of the state of things may be once more quoted, as an explanation of how he came to hold such views. ‘In all times there have been about a hundred thousand of those vagabonds who have lived without any regard or subjection to the laws of the land, or even those of God and nature.... Many murders have been discovered among them, and they are not only a most unspeakable oppression to poor tenants (who, if they give not bread or some kind of provision to perhaps forty such villains in one day, are sure to be insulted by them), but they rob many poor people who live in houses distant from any neighbourhood. At country weddings, markets, burials, andother the like occasions, they are to be seen—both men and women—perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together.’

Apart from this evil of a large pauper population, for which he had the courage to propose the remedy of slavery, Fletcher thought that much of the poverty in Scotland was caused by high rents. These, he says, are so excessive that they make ‘the tenant even poorer than his servant, whose wages he cannot pay,’ and this affects not only the day labourer, but the village tradesmen, and the merchants of the county towns. Rents must therefore be reduced; and not only so, but an Act of Parliament should be passed, forbidding any man to possess more land than he can cultivate by his own servants. By this means more labour would be employed, the soil would be better cultivated, and the wealth of the country vastly increased. ‘In a few years,’ says Fletcher, ‘the country will be everywhere enclosed and improved to the greatest height, the plough being everywhere in the hand of the possessor.’

He also suggested, as a cure for the depressed state of agriculture, the crude remedy that lending money on interest should be forbidden. By this means, he says, ‘men who have small sums at interest will be obliged to employ it in trade or the improvement of land.’

Proposals such as these, which nowadays some willsay were in advance of his time, and others will regard as impracticable and absurd, were not taken seriously at the time he made them. ‘Mr. Fletcher’s schemes,’ says Sir John Clerk, a commonplace man, but a shrewd and cautious observer, ‘had but very little credit, because he himself was often for changing them; though, in other respects, a very worthy man. It used to be said of him, that it would be easy to hang by his own schemes of government; for, if they had taken place, he would have been the first man that would have attempted an alteration.’[4]

[4]MS. note on Lockhart, quoted in Somerville, p. 204.

The Italian essay on the affairs of Spain was apparently suggested by the Partition Treaty of 1698. In the editions of Fletcher’s collected works there is an ‘Auviso,’ or advertisement, prefixed to this pamphlet, in which the author explains that he has written the discourse in order to show how easily any prince who succeeds to the throne of Spain may acquire the empire of the world; and in theSpeech upon the State of the Nation, he deals with the same topic. The letter of the Treaty, he urges, speaks of keeping the peace of Europe by breaking up the Spanish monarchy, but the spirit of it throws that monarchy into the hands of the Bourbons. The result will be that the balance of power will be upset, a war will follow, civil and religious liberty will be endangered. Williamiii., he hints, may offer to support the Spanish policy of France, if Louis will assist him to become an absolute monarch in England and Holland. ‘This treaty,’ he says, ‘is like an alarum-bell rung over all Europe. Pray God it may not prove to you a passing-bell.’[5]

[5]The 1749 edition of Fletcher’sWorkscontains an English translation of theDiscorso di Spagna.

This manifesto, though described as a speech, was probably never delivered. But it may be regarded as an election address; for on the dissolution of the Convention Parliament, Fletcher was returned, at the general election, for the county of Haddington, with Adam Cockburn of Ormiston as his colleague.

The First Session of the Union Parliament—Fletcher proposes his Twelve Limitations on the Crown—The Act of Security—The Supplies are refused.

TheEstates met at Edinburgh on the 6th of May 1703. The forms of the opening ceremony were similar to those which had been used for at least a hundred years. But it was observed that on this day the preparations were more elaborate than usual. Queensberry, who was Lord High Commissioner, occupied the royal apartments in Holyrood House. On the evening of the 5th the crown, the sceptre, and the sword of state, known as the ‘honours,’ and regardedwith peculiar veneration as the symbols of the ancient monarchy, were carried from the castle to the palace by the officials of the Treasury, and presented to the Commissioner. Next morning, at an early hour, Lord Errol, the hereditary High Constable of Scotland, waited upon the Commissioner to receive his last instructions, and then proceeded to the Parliament House, for the arrangements of which he was responsible during the sittings of the Estates. In the meantime, the long steep street which still leads from Holyrood to the Parliament House, and which was then the fashionable quarter of the city, had been cleared of traffic, and lined with wooden railings, to keep back the crowd which assembled to witness the Riding of the Parliament, as the procession of members to the place of meeting was called. The tall houses, with their picturesque gables and projecting balconies, were hung with tapestry, and the windows were filled with gay parties of gentlemen and ladies. The street was lined by a regiment of foot-guards, under the command of General Ramsay, then commander-in-chief of the forces in Scotland, and by the members of the town-guard.

At ten o’clock the Commissioner held a levee, which was attended by all the members of the Parliament, both peers and commoners. The Lyon King of Arms was there, with his heralds, pursuivants, and trumpeters, and the palace-yard was crowded by grooms and lackeys, in charge of the horses on which the members were to ride. The spectators on this day noticed that the liveries of the servants were richer than had ever been seen before, and that the horses were unusually fine. While the levee was proceeding, Lord ChancellorSeafield; Annandale, President of the Council; Tarbat, Secretary of State; and Tullibardine, Lord Privy Seal, mounted and rode, with their attendants, to the Parliament House, to await the arrival of the Estates.

When the Commissioner was ready to start, the Lyon King declared the order in which the procession was to be formed, and one of his heralds, from a window of the palace, repeated his words to the attendants in the yard below. A troop of horse grenadiers headed the cavalcade. Then came the borough members, riding two abreast on horses with trappings of black velvet, and followed by the county members in the same order. After them rode those officers of state who were not peers of the realm. The barons, the viscounts, and the earls formed the next part of the procession, all arrayed in scarlet robes, and their horses led by serving-men in liveries which displayed the arms of their masters. Each earl had four, and each viscount three, servants with him. The Lyon King, wearing his official dress and carrying his baton, rode alone, with his pursuivants and trumpeters, immediately in front of the honours, which were carried by three peers. The sword of state was carried by the Earl of Mar, the sceptre by the Earl of Crawford, and the crown by the Earl of Forfar, as nearest kinsman of Archibald, Marquis of Douglas, who was then too young to take part in the ceremony. Then came the Lord High Commissioner, surroundedby his pages and the gentlemen of his household, and followed by Argyll, who rode last of the procession, at the head of a squadron of the royal horse-guards.

When the procession reached the precincts of the Parliament House, the members were received by the High Constable, whose officers escorted them to the door of the hall in which the sittings were held. The last to enter was the Commissioner, who was conducted to the throne by the High Constable, and by William, ninth Earl Marischal, hereditary Keeper of the Regalia of Scotland.

The place in which the last Parliament of Scotland met that day was the spacious and lofty chamber which is now used as an entrance-hall to the Court of Session. The old oak roof, rising from curiously carved corbals, still remains; but in other respects the appearance of the place is completely changed since the days of Fletcher. Then, at the south end, under the large mullioned window, stood the throne, elevated on steps to a considerable height. On either side there rose from the floor tiers of benches, on which the members of the Estates sat in places fixed according to their different ranks. In the centre of the hall, between the benches, was a long table, at which the Lord Clerk-Register, the clerks of the House, and sometimes the judges, sat. At the upper end of the table, in front ofthe throne, the crown, the sceptre, and the sword lay during each sitting. The officers of state clustered on the steps of the throne; and near them the Lord Chancellor, who acted as Speaker of the House, had his chair. At the other end of the hall was the bar, behind which there was an open space, in which strangers were allowed to stand and listen to the proceedings; and often, during the debates of the next four years, when the evenings closed in and the candles were lighted in the body of the House, murmurs of disapproval or shouts of applause came from the darkness behind the bar. It was amidst these surroundings that the Whig lords defended the policy of the English Government, and were answered by the Cavaliers, and that Fletcher and the Country Party declaimed on freedom and a limited monarchy.

The leader of the Country Party, of which Fletcher was the most enthusiastic and thoroughgoing member, was James, fourth Duke of Hamilton, the Hamilton ofEsmond. ‘Of a middle stature, well made, of a black, coarse complexion, a brisk look,’ is the contemporary account of his appearance. He was, indeed, a gallant gentleman, as Thackeray describes him; but though perhaps afterwards, when he was appointed Ambassador to France, he may have been waited upon by obsequious tradesmen laden with jewels, and velvets, and brocades, yet during the greater part of his career he was overwhelmed with debts, a circumstance which interfered with his independence, and probably was the secret cause of a great deal that was mysterious in his conduct. As Earl of Arran he had, at the time of the Revolution, openly professed his devotion to King James, and had, soon after, suffered imprisonment on suspicion of carrying on a correspondence with the Court of Saint Germains. By his dexterity mainly the opposition was organised during the last years of William’s reign, and, though his haughty demeanour sometimes gave offence, he was followed both by the Jacobites and by the Country Party.

He was assisted in the leadership by four peers, whose opinions, unlike his, were entirely on the Whig side. These were John, second Marquis of Tweeddale, and his son-in-law, the seventh Earl of Rothes, James, fourth Marquis of Montrose, and John, fifth Earl of Roxburghe. Tweeddale was now a man of between fifty and sixty; but Rothes, Montrose, and Roxburghe were young, each about twenty-four, fiery and impetuous, qualities which made them favourites at a time of great popular excitement. These were the chief colleagues of Fletcher during the arduous contest which now began; but none of them displayed a consistency or a disinterestedness equal to his.

At the beginning of the session Fletcher wasoccupied with an election petition from Haddingtonshire, which was presented by Sir George Suttie of Balgonie, who opposed the return of John Cockburn, younger of Ormiston, as one of the county members. The Committee on contested elections found that Suttie and Cockburn had received an equal number of votes. A new election was ordered, and, to Fletcher’s satisfaction, Cockburn was on the 1st of June returned as his colleague.

But more important matters than contested elections were already engaging the attention of the Estates. Queensberry had attempted to strengthen the Government by forming an alliance with the Jacobites, who had promised to vote the supplies for which the Parliament was to be asked. But Argyll and his friends had refused to follow him in this policy, and it became evident that the Government would have to fight a strong opposition, composed of the Jacobites and the Country Party acting in concert. The struggle began on the 26th of May, when the Estates discussed the question of whether they should vote the supplies, or proceed to ‘make such conditions of government and regulations in the constitution of the kingdom, to take place after the decease of her Majestie and the heirs of her body, as shall be necessary for the preservation of our religion and liberty.’

The terms of this resolution, which was moved by Tweeddale, were often heard during the rest of thesession; and the issue was soon narrowed down to the single point of whether the Estates should grant a supply, or pass an Act of Parliament for the security of liberty, religion, and trade.

On the 26th of May Fletcher moved that the Estates should divide on the question of whether they were to take the first reading of the Supply Act or proceed to make Acts for the security of liberty and religion.

‘My Lord Chancellor,’ he said, ‘I am not surprised to find an Act for a supply brought into this House at the beginning of a session. I know custom has, for a long time, made it common. But I think experience might teach us that such Acts should be the last of every session; or lie upon the table, till all other great affairs of the nation be finished, and then only granted. It is a strange proposition which is usually made in this House, that if we will give money to the Crown, then the Crown will give us good laws; as if we were to buy good laws of the Crown, and pay money to our princes, that they may do their duty, and comply with their coronation oath. And yet this is not the worst, for we have often had promises of good laws, and when we have given the sums demanded, those promises have been broken, and the nation left to seek a remedy—which is not to be found, unless we obtain the laws we want, before we give a supply. And if this be a sufficient reason at all times to postpone a money Act, can we be blamed for doing so at this time,when the duty we owe to our country indispensably obliges us to provide for the common safety in case of an event, altogether out of our power, and which must necessarily dissolve the Government, unless we continue and secure it by new laws: I mean the death of her Majesty, which God in His mercy long avert.’

There was a long debate; and it was not until two days later, that the Ministers, seeing themselves in a minority, gave in, and allowed what was afterwards known as the Grand Resolve, of 28th May 1703, to pass without a division. By this Resolve it was declared that Acts for the security of religion, liberty, and trade were to have precedence over Supply or any other business whatsoever.

Fletcher, with the whole of the Opposition at his back, supported every proposal the effect of which was to guard against the influence of England, and to emphasise the fact that Scotland was an independent kingdom. But he had also elaborated a great scheme of his own, which he laid before the Estates. ‘Before the Union of the Crowns,’ he said, ‘no monarchy in Europe was more limited, nor any people more jealous of liberty than the Scots.’ But the result of the Union of the Crowns was that the people of Scotland lost their liberties. English influence, the source of every evil, had become supreme. Now was the time to strikea blow for freedom; and he proposed Twelve Limitations, or conditions on which, after the death of Anne, the Crown of Scotland was to go to the same Sovereign as should rule in England. These Limitations were: 1. Annual Parliaments, which should choose their own President, adjourn at their own pleasure, and vote by ballot. 2. That for every new peerage granted by the Crown, another county member should be added to the Parliament. 3. That none should vote in Parliament except peers or elected members. 4. That the king should not have the power of refusing the royal assent to any Act passed by the Estates. 5. That when Parliament was not sitting the executive Government should be in the hands of a Committee chosen by Parliament. 6. That the King should not have the power of making war or peace, or concluding any treaty, except with consent of Parliament. 7. That all offices, civil and military, and all pensions, should be given by Parliament, instead of by the King. 8. That without consent of Parliament there should be no standing army. 9. That a national militia, of all men between the ages of sixteen and sixty, should be at once armed with bayonets, firelocks, and ammunition. 10. That no general pardons should be valid without consent of Parliament. 11. That no judge should sit in Parliament, or hold any other office, and that the office of President of the Court of Session should be in three of the judges, named by the Estates. 12. That if the King should break any of these conditions, the Estates were to declare that he had forfeitedthe throne, and proceed to choose a successor.

These conditions, for proposing which he would have been sent to the gallows in the days of the Stuarts, and to Botany Bay in the days of Mr. Pitt, Fletcher pressed upon the Estates as essential for the protection of Scotland against England. ‘If,’ he said, ‘our Kings lived among us, it would not be strange to find these limitations rejected. It is not the prerogative of a King of Scotland I would diminish, but the prerogative of English Ministers over this nation. These conditions of Government being either such as our ancestors enjoyed, or principally directed to cut off our dependence on an English Court, and not to take place during the life of the Queen, he who refuses his consent to them, whatever he may be by birth, cannot sure be a Scotsman by affection. This will be a true test to distinguish, not Whig from Tory, Presbyterian from Episcopal, Hanover from Saint Germains, nor yet a courtier from a man out of place, but a proper test to distinguish a friend from an enemy to his country.’

But the Scottish Parliament, in spite of all its high-strung patriotism, was not prepared to accept so republican a scheme as this; and by a majority of twenty-six votes it was decided that the Laird of Saltoun’s Limitations should not form a part of the ‘Act of Security’ which the Estates were now engaged in framing.

The basis of this famous statute was a measure introduced by the Lord Privy Seal, providing that the Estates should meet within twenty days after the death of Anne, and proceed to name a Protestant successor to the throne of Scotland. But to this simple measure a number of clauses were added, until it grew into that elaborate Act which was the pivot on which Scottish history turned until the Union.

Rothes proposed a clause which embodied the principle of one of Fletcher’s Limitations: That war and peace were to be made only by consent of Parliament. Queensberry said that he was ready to consent to anything which was for the good of the country, and which ‘the Queen had under her view when she left London.’ This proposal, he said, she had never heard of.

On this Fletcher declared that it was now evident, as he had often thought, that in Scottish affairs the Crown was under the influence of English councillors. At these words some members were so ill-advised as to interrupt him, and even to suggest that he should be censured. This led to a scene. ‘What!’ exclaimed Hamilton, ‘is this the liberty of Parliament?’ There were shouts of ‘privilege’ from all parts of the House; and several members rose at the same time to demandthat the member should be allowed, without interruption, to explain his words.

As soon as silence was obtained Fletcher continued. He had no difficulty, he said, in explaining. He spoke, not as a slave, but as a free man. He had the greatest respect for the Queen and for her Commissioner. But the love and duty which he bore to his country obliged him to speak as he had spoken. What the Commissioner had said that day convinced him that the only way to secure Scotland from English interference was to refuse to settle the Scottish Crown on the English Sovereign. The two countries must have separate Kings.

This statement was received with a tumult of applause; but the matter was allowed to drop. Nor did the Estates embody the clause proposed by Rothes in the Act of Security. The next great fight was over a clause introduced by Roxburghe. It provided that the Succession was not, on the death of Anne, to be the same in Scotland as in England, unless conditions of government were settled which would secure the independence of the Crown of Scotland, the power of the Estates, and the liberty and trade of the country ‘from the English or any foreign influence.’

This was really the most formidable proposal which any member of the Country Party, with the exception of Fletcher, had as yet brought forward. It was, nevertheless, evident that the House was ready to accept it, and that the Act of Security would, therefore, contain provisions which, though not so drastic as the Twelve Limitations, could scarcely be tolerated by England.

Fletcher was up, supporting the clause with his usual vehemence, when suddenly the Chancellor rose and stopped him. It was, he explained, too late to finish the debate, and he, therefore, adjourned the House. Instantly there was one of those scenes to which members were becoming accustomed. Some declared that they would address the Queen, and complain that her Ministers were attempting to interfere with the liberty of debate. Others maintained that what the Chancellor had done was a violation of the Claim of Right, and that, therefore, he was guilty of treason. It was with difficulty that the noise was stopped while prayers were said. Hamilton announced that he would remain in the House and instantly draw up the address to the Queen, and Fletcher hurried to his side to help him; but when the Duke saw the Commissioner descending from the throne, he changed his mind and followed him out of the House.

That night, however, the address was prepared and signed by sixty members. On the morrow more signatures were obtained, and when the Estates met the Country Party tabled a protest against the irregular adjournment of the previous evening. But the Chancellor declared that the late hour was the reason why hehad adjourned the House, said the Government had no desire to encroach on the privileges of members, and announced that the debate on Roxburghe’s clause would be resumed on the following day.

In the meantime the Government had adjusted a clause which was admirably fitted to secure a large measure of support, and also to stave off the awkward question which had been raised by Roxburghe. It provided that, after the death of Anne, the same person should not wear both the Crowns unless free trade between the two countries was established, and the right of trading to the colonies was granted to Scotland. When the debate was resumed, the Lord Advocate, Sir James Stewart, moved that this clause should be substituted for that proposed by Roxburghe. To this Fletcher adroitly answered that the Country Party was delighted with the conduct of the Ministers in framing this most useful clause, and would gladly accept it as well as that of Roxburghe. He then moved that the two clauses should be joined, and made part of the Act of Security. The House would have agreed to this at once; but the Ministers made one struggle more, and obtained a short respite by moving the adjournment of the debate, which they carried, but only by a majority of three votes.

But the Government were in a hopelessposition. The opinion of the Estates evidently was that the King of England must not be King of Scotland, unless England would agree to such conditions of government as the Scottish Parliament chose to enforce, and unless the home and colonial trade was thrown open to the Scottish people. The clauses were joined, and then a division was taken on the question, ‘Add them to the Act or not?’ The Government voted against adding them, and were beaten by no less than seventy-two votes.

Godolphin heard with dismay of what had been done. In a letter to Athole he says that the Queen was not pleased with either of the clauses proposed by Roxburghe and by the Lord Advocate, as tending, each of them, to make a perfect separation, instead of a Union. Her Majesty, he declares, would never consent to any Act which establishes a different succession in Scotland to that in England.

The division in which the Government were so hopelessly beaten, took place on the 26th of July, and after that the Opposition had matters all their own way. The last great debate was on the 10th of August, when a clause was proposed directing the Protestant landowners and burgesses to arm and drill all the men in their districts who were capable of bearing arms.

This was a clause after Fletcher’s own heart, and he supported it in a short but trenchant speech, in whichhe argued that to insist upon conditions of government, without the means of enforcing them, was folly. Without the support of arms, all enactments for the security of the country were vain and empty propositions. ‘To rely upon any law,’ he said, ‘without such a security, is to lean upon a shadow.... To be found unarmed, in the event of her Majesty’s death, would be to have no manner of security for our liberty, property, or the independence of this kingdom.... If we do not provide for arming the kingdom in such an exigency, we shall become a jest and a proverb to the world.’ The Government divided the House against this clause, but were beaten, and it was added to the Act.

Three days later, every bench in the Parliament House being crowded, the Act of Security was read over twice. No further amendments were proposed. The roll was then called; and, though a number of members did not answer to their names, the measure was passed by a majority of sixty votes.

The chief provisions of the Act of Security, in framing which the Estates had now spent two months, were as follows: On the death of Anne the Parliament was to meet, and settle the succession. If the Queen left an heir, or a recognised successor, the Crown was to be offered to him on the terms contained in the Claim of Rights. But if there was no heir, or recognised successor, thenthe Estates were to choose a successor, who must be of the royal line of Scotland, and of the Protestant religion. But it was not to be in the power of the Estates to choose the successor to the throne of England as successor to that of Scotland, ‘nor shall the same person be capable, in any event, to be King or Queen of both realms,’ unless there were established, to the satisfaction of the Scottish Parliament, free home and colonial trade, and also such conditions of government as would secure the Crown, the Parliament, the religion, and the liberty of Scotland from English or any foreign influence. And, ‘for a further security of the kingdom,’ the men of every county and borough were to be furnished with fire-arms and drilled once a month. The Act was transmitted to London, and Godolphin was requested to say whether or not it was to be touched with the sceptre.

William the Third had, on several occasions, refused the royal assent to Acts passed by the Parliament of Scotland; and now the Courtiers, the Cavaliers, and the Country Party waited with curiosity to hear what course the Queen, on the advice of her Ministers, would take at the present crisis. The Country Party and the Cavaliers were equally determined not to settle the Scottish Succession except on the conditions set forth in the Act, and Queensberry was repeatedly questioned on the subject. Fletcher, in particular, made several speeches on this topic; but the Commissioner gave no sign until the 10th of September, when he stated that he had obtained leave to give the royal assent to all the Acts which had been passed, excepting the Act of Security. ‘You may easily believe,’ he explained, ‘that requires her Majesty’s further consideration.’

He ended a speech, which it must have needed some courage to deliver, by asking them to vote the Supplies. But the House was in no mood to comply with this request. We should have been told, one member said, at the beginning of the session that we were called together merely to vote money, and then adjourn. It would have saved us a great deal of trouble. If any Scotsman has advised the Queen in this matter, cried another, he is a traitor to his country. Fletcher denied the power of the Sovereign to refuse the royal assent, and there is a good deal to be said in favour of this view of the Scottish constitution. Hamilton and Roxburghe moved that an address be presented to her Majesty, praying her to reconsider the matter, and direct the Commissioner to touch the Act with the sceptre. After a long debate, in which every member who spoke blamed the English Ministers for what had happened, the motion to address the throne was rejected by twelve votes, and the House rose.

A few days after the Commissioner had announced that the royal assent was refused, Lord Boyle, the Treasurer-Depute, moved that the Act of Supply, which had been lying on the table since May, should be read, and on this Fletcher once more brought forward his Limitations. ‘My Lord Chancellor,’ he said, ‘his Grace, the High Commissioner, having acquainted this House that he has instructions from her Majesty to give the royal assent to all Acts passed in this session except that for the security of the kingdom, it will be highly necessary to provide some new laws for securing our liberty upon the expiration of the present entail of the Crown.’ From this text he delivered an impassioned address, imploring the Estates, in particular, to accept his proposal that all places, offices, and pensions should, after the death of Anne, be conferred by Parliament alone, so long as Scotland was under the same Prince as England. ‘Without this limitation,’ he exclaimed, ‘our poverty and subjection to the Court of England will every day increase; and the question we have now before us is, whether we will be free men or slaves for ever; whether we will continue to depend, or break the yoke of our dependence; and whether we will choose to live poor and miserable, or rich, free, and happy?... By this limitation our Parliament will become the most uncorrupted senate of all Europe. No man will be tempted to vote against the interest of his country, when his country shall have all the bribes in our own hands: offices, places, pensions.... If, therefore, either reason, honour, or conscience have any influence upon us; if we have any regard either to ourselves or posterity; if there be any such thingas virtue, happiness, or reputation in this world, or felicity in a future state, let me adjure you by all these not to draw upon your heads everlasting infamy, attended with the eternal reproaches and anguish of an evil conscience, by making yourselves and your posterity miserable.’

The Ministry, well aware that only a portion of the Country Party would follow Fletcher on this question of the Limitations, wished the House to vote on the issue of whether Supply or the Limitations should be discussed. But Fletcher, who saw in a moment at what the Government were aiming, interposed, and said that he had had the honour to offer a means of securing the liberties of the nation against England; that in his opinion the country was nearly ruined, and that his proposals were necessary; but still he relied on the wisdom of the Estates, and withdrew his motion.

Thus checkmated, the Ministers were at a loss what to do. They knew that the motion to discuss overtures for liberty would be carried against their motion to discuss Supply, and they could think of nothing else on which they could ask the House to vote. There were anxious faces, and some hasty whispering on the steps of the throne. Cries of ‘Vote! Vote!’ resounded from all the benches. The Commissioner rose. ‘If the House,’ he said, ‘will agree to the first reading of the Subsidy Act, I promise that it shall not be heard of for the next three sittings.’

Instantly Fletcher was on his feet. ‘Those about the throne,’ he exclaimed, ‘could not really expect the House to agree to this.’ It meant that the Subsidy Act was to be read a first time now. Then the House was to be amused with three sittings on overtures for liberty, ‘which sittings shall meet at six and adjourn at seven.’ On the fourth day, the Supplies would be voted; and then Parliament would be prorogued. He was certain the House knew the artifices of the Government too well to be misled by them.

Another member pointed to the throne, and declared that the men who sat round it were endeavouring to destroy the privileges of Parliament, and filch away its liberty. ‘The House,’ says Lockhart, ‘was crowded with a vast number of people; nothing for two hours could be heard but voices of members and others (it being dark and candles lighted) requiring “liberty and no subsidy.”’ The excitement of the members increased; the clamour of spectators behind the bar grew louder; and at last the voice of young Roxburghe was heard, above the din, shouting, ‘What we desire is reasonable, and if we cannot obtain it by Parliamentary means, we shall demand it, upon the steps of the throne, with our swords in our hands.’

Upon this the Chancellor rose, and announced that the Government yielded, and that the overtures for liberty would be discussed upon the following day.

That night at Holyrood Queensberry and the Ministers discussed the situation. The town was in an uproar. For several nights the troops had been under arms; and it had come to the ears of some members of the Estates that their commander had been so foolish as to threaten, in his cups, that ‘ways would be found to make the Parliament calm enough.’ The members were incensed against the Government and against England; and if they were allowed to discuss the favourite ‘overtures for liberty,’ there was no saying what might happen. As to the Supplies, the small sum of money which was obtained from Scotland was not worth fighting for; and when the Council separated, Queensberry had almost made up his mind to prorogue the Parliament at once.

Early next morning Fletcher and his friends had a meeting at which they prepared a measure which they intended to introduce. It provided that there should be an election every year, at which no officer of the army, or of the customs or excise, could be elected; that Parliament should meet at least once in every two years, and that each sitting should be adjourned on the motion of a member, and not by the Commissioner. They agreed that if the royal assent was given to this Act, they would vote theSupplies.

Queensberry heard of this, but he could not, for the sake of securing a small sum of money, run the risk of giving the royal assent to a measure which introduced such important changes. Accordingly, when the House met, he rose, and prorogued the Parliament.

The Country Party spared no pains to let the people of England know the importance which the people of Scotland attached to the measure to which the royal assent had been refused. The Act of Security was circulated, and widely read in London, in an edition to which some notes were added stating that nothing was ever done with more deliberation by the Scottish Parliament, and that there was not a shadow of a reason for supposing that bribery, or any unfair means, had been used to secure a majority, ‘considering the quality and estates of those who were for it.’

Fletcher revised his speeches, and printed them in a small octavo volume, for the purpose of educating the English mind. They were, perhaps, not much appreciated. The leaves of the copy in the Bodleian Library at Oxford remained uncut till the autumn of 1896. Englishmen saw just two facts—that the Scottish Parliament had refused Supplies in the midst of an European war, and that the Scottish people wished to be independent of the English Crown.

‘A Conversation concerning a Right Regulation of Government for the Common Good of Mankind.’

Whenthe turmoil of the Parliament House had ceased for a time, Fletcher took up his pen. The edition of his speeches which he prepared has already been mentioned.A Speech without-doors concerning Toleration, supposed to have been published about this time, has been attributed to him, but, both in style and argument, it is unlike anything he is known to have written. He has also been credited with the authorship of anHistorical Account of the Ancient Rights and Power of the Parliament of Scotland, which appeared in 1703. The style is like that of Fletcher, but there is no evidence that he wrote it. Indeed, a passage in the preface, where he speaks of the author of theDiscourse of Government with Relation to Militiasas ‘a very learned gentleman of our own country, a great patron of liberty, and happy in a politepen,’ makes it almost impossible. He composed, however, a short piece in which he embodied his theories of government, and his views regarding the relations of England and Scotland, in the form of a dialogue on politics, under the title of ‘An Account of a Conversation concerning a Right Regulation of Government for the Common Good of Mankind: In a Letter to the Marquis of Montrose, the Earls of Rothes, Roxburghe, and Haddington. From London the first of December 1703.’ In this little duodecimo, of ninety-two pages printed in italics, he described himself as walking slowly on the Mall one morning. The Earl of Cromartie and Sir Christopher Musgrave met him. Cromartie said he would be glad of Fletcher’s company at dinner, and introduced him to Sir Christopher, with whom Fletcher was not previously acquainted. Some compliments passed between them, and then they went to Cromartie’s lodgings in Whitehall to pass away the time till dinner.

‘Here, gentlemen,’ said the Earl, ‘you have two of the noblest objects that can delight the eye—the finest river and the greatest city in the world.’

From the window they saw a charming view of London and the Thames, which led them to speak of the wonderful situation of the English capital; the ground on which it was built, sloping to the river and giving it a natural drainage; the gravel soil, and the salubrious climate. Then all the country round—Kent, with its choice fruits; Hertfordshire, with its fields of golden corn; Essex and Surrey, producing the best of beef and mutton; and Buckinghamshire, whence came huge wains laden with wood. The river, too, brought to their doors the produce of all parts of the world in such plenty that nowhere else were things so cheap and abundant.

Fletcher, thinking how different it all was from Scotland, said that he had often admired the peace and happiness of the inhabitants, caused either by the advantages which they enjoyed, or by their natural temperament. He spoke of their civil and religious liberty, of the judgments of Westminster Hall, of the great affairs of the Parliament of England, of the vast transactions on the Exchange, of the shipping, and of the flourishing trade. He was going on to praise the recreations and pleasures of the court and the town, when Sir Christopher called out that these last words had spoilt all he said before. Talking about the pleasures of the town, he said, reminded them of all the cheating on the Exchange and in the gaming-houses, and of the facilities for intrigues which were afforded by the masques, the hackney coaches, the taverns, and the playhouses of a great city.

This interruption to the flow of Fletcher’s eloquence led them to discuss social questions. But the problem of how to reform the morals of society seemed insoluble, and especially in London, where, as Sir Christopher pointed out, they had to deal both with extreme povertyand excessive riches. While they were thus conversing, Sir Edward Seymour arrived, and Fletcher was presented to him.

‘Ah,’ said Sir Edward, ‘you are one of those who, in the late session of the Scots Parliament, opposed the interests of the Court.’

Then they began to talk politics, and Seymour said Fletcher had been engaged in framing Utopias. ‘In which, sir,’ he said, ‘you had the honour to be seconded by several men of quality, of about two or three and twenty years of age, whose long experience and consummate prudence in public affairs could not but produce wonderful schemes of government.’

Fletcher took this sally in good part, and was defending himself stoutly, when Sir Edward interrupted him.

‘Sir,’ he said, with a sneer, ‘you begin to declaim as if they overheard you.’

But Fletcher maintained that the Country Party had been right in acting as they did.

‘Pray, sir,’ asked Seymour, ‘of what is it that they complain?’

Fletcher’s answer was that Scotland was an independent nation, and that the National Party wanted to secure the honour of the Scottish Crown, and the freedom of their own Parliament and trade, from either English or foreign influence.

‘Heyday!’ cried Sir Edward, all in a pet. ‘Here is a fine cant indeed! Independent nation! Honour of our Crown! And what not? Do you consider what proportion you bear to England? Not one to forty in rents of lands. Besides, our greatest riches arise from trade and manufactures, of which you have none.’

To all this Fletcher replied by saying that the Union of the Crowns had ruined Scotland; that the French trade had once been great, and also the Spanish trade, whilst Spain and England were at war; but that since the Union of the Crowns everything had changed. The Scottish nobles spent their money in England, and the jealousy of English merchants had prevented the growth of Scottish commerce.

Here Cromartie said that, in his opinion, there was an easy remedy for all this, ‘which was an Union of the two nations.’ But Fletcher thought that an Union would not easily come to pass, nor would it be a remedy for the grievances he complained of. England, it seemed to him, had never shown any real willingness to unite. ‘I have always observed,’ he said, ‘that a Treaty of Union has never been mentioned by the English, but with a design to amuse us when they apprehended some danger from our nation.’ This was, he had no doubt, the reason for the late treaty. England, having chosen a successor to Queen Anne without consulting Scotland, had thought that the only way to gain the assent of the Scottish people to the Hanoverian succession was to propose an Union. Then he gave an account of the state of public feeling in Scotland on that subject. ‘The Scots, however fond they have formerly been of such a coalition, are now become much less concerned for the success of it, from a just sense they have that it would not only prove no remedy for our present ill condition, but increase the poverty of our country.’

He gave his reasons. An incorporating Union, which would abolish the Scottish Parliament, would make Scotland poorer than ever, because Scotsmen would spend more money than ever in England. Members of Parliament would go to London and live there. No Scotsman who wanted public employment would ever set foot in Scotland. Every man who made a fortune in England would buy land there. The trade of Scotland would be nothing more than an inconsiderable retail business in an impoverished country.

Cromartie said he did not think so, and tried to convince Fletcher that free commerce with England, and the right of trading to the Colonies, would be an immense boon to Scotland.

‘For my part,’ exclaimed Fletcher, ‘I cannot see what advantages a free trade to the English plantations would bring us, except a further exhausting of ourpeople, and the utter ruin of all our merchants, who should vainly pretend to carry that trade from the English.’

Then he said that the Scots had a further grievance against England. They were indignant at the scurrilous attacks which were made upon them by Englishmen.

Here Sir Edward broke out ‘all in a flame.’

‘What a pother is here,’ he cried, ‘about an Union with Scotland, of which all the advantage we shall have will be no more than what a man gets by marrying a beggar—a louse for a portion!’

At this Fletcher fired up, and told Cromartie and Sir Christopher that if Sir Edward had spoken these words in the House of Commons,[6]he might not notice them, but that as he had chosen to use them in a private conversation, he would take the liberty to say that he wondered Sir Edward was not afraid lest such language should make the company suspect him not to be descended of the noble family whose name he bore. This pretty way of saying he was no gentleman put Sir Edward into a towering rage, and they came to high words about the past wars between the two countries.

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