Fletcher of Saltoun

by George W. T. Omond

During the discussions on the Articles of Union Fletcher displayed the same courage, and the same defects of temper, as during the previous sessions of the Parliament. Sir David Hume, in his diary, frequently mentions the scenes in which the member for Haddingtonshire was the leader. For instance, on one occasion, when it was proposed that a sermon should be preached, on a ‘Fast Day,’ in the Parliament House, a proposal which was supported by some lay members of the Commission, or Standing Committee, of the Church of Scotland, ‘Salton having alleged that if he would tell what he knew, those of the Commission who were for that manner of the Fast would be ashamed to hold up their faces; he being challenged by several honourable members of the House, who were also members of the Commission, the business was with some struggle let fall.’ On the next day after this incident, Fletcher, in attacking the Commissioners on Union, said they had ‘betrayed their trust.’ He was called to order, but said he was ‘sorry he could not get softer words.’ Then it was moved that he should be sent to the bar; but at last he was persuaded to say he was sorry if he had offended any one, and the matter dropped.

On another day Hume describes how, when he entered the Parliament House, he found an altercation going on, apparently over the Minutes of the last sitting. Fletcher said, ‘What my Lord Stair has said in reference to the Minutes is not true.’ To this Stair answered that he ‘desired the House to take notice of what Salton had said; otherwise he would be obliged to say what he had said was a lie.’

There was an hour’s ‘discourse’ about this; and then they were both called upon to ask pardon of the House. Fletcher at once apologised to the House, but ‘shifted, craving Stair’s pardon.’ Stair then said, ‘If what he had said offended the House, he craved pardon.’ The Chancellor next appealed to Fletcher. He said he ‘hoped Salton would acknowledge that he meant no reflection on my Lord Stair, but only to contradict the thing he had said, and if he had given him any offence he craved his pardon, which,’ Sir David goes on, ‘Salton assented to, and both of them gave their word of honour not to resent it without-doors.’ There were many scenes of this description during the last session of the Scottish Parliament. The passion with which the debates were conducted was extraordinary. It was sometimes difficult to hear a word of what was said. ‘Scandalous disorder,’ in the words of one member, challenges to fight on the floor of the House, shouting, interruptions, calls to order, Hamilton, whose voice was very loud, overbearing his opponents by sheer strength of lung, Fletcher springing to his feet, ready, at a moment’s notice, to draw his sword,—it was amidst all this clamour and noise that the Union was debated.

Perhaps the stormiest sittings of all that stormy session were those of the 2nd and 4th of November, when the first Article of Union was debated and voted on. It was on the first of these days that Belhaven made his great oration. It was certainly the event of that day; and it is generally spoken of as the greatest speech delivered during the debates on the Union. But we have no means of knowing whether this was the case; for no materials exist from which we can judge of the eloquence of Stair, whom all the writers of his time agree in describing as an orator of surpassing power, the greatest that ever spoke under the roof of the Parliament House. And though the palm of oratory belonged to Stair, he was not without rivals. When Roxburghe spoke, he charmed even his opponents. The speeches of Argyll were full of passionate vehemence. Hamilton’s pathetic eloquence is the theme of every Jacobite pen. Nor can it be doubted that Seafield and Cockburn of Ormiston were adroit and ready debaters; while Fletcher’s speeches in the session of 1703 are, so far as polished language and close reasoning go, superior to any of Belhaven’s.[18] But of all that was said in the debates of these two days, only two speeches have been preserved in full. The speech of Seton of Pitmedden, a plain country gentleman, is one of them. Its solid reasoning and sound conclusions, which events have justified, did not catch the public fancy. On the other hand, the speech of Belhaven, full of predictions, every one of which time has falsified, was eagerly received, was read by thousands, and is still to be found, in more than one reprint, in every private library in Scotland. Belhaven was a great actor; but it is one thing to gain applause, and another thing to gain votes. Burke producing a dagger on the floor of the House of Commons, Brougham kneeling on the woolsack, are examples, in more recent times, of how little impression is produced by the display of dramatic powers; and, both in its composition and its effects, it is as a theatrical display that the famous speech of Belhaven must be regarded.

[18] None of Fletcher’s speeches in the session of 1706-1707 are preserved. The speaking in the Estates at this time was very good. The author of the Ochtertyre MS. says, in describing Mr. Spittal of Leuchat: ‘He spoke the most elegant Scots I ever heard, probably the language spoken at the Union Parliament, which was composed of people of high fashion.’

On the same day Fletcher spoke, ‘with great warmth,’ says Cunningham, ‘and vehemently reproached and inveighed against the Queen’s Ministers, without any regard to his own fortune, though very large. Some there are who say that he was too hot in his arguments, and too violent in his resentments, and that he did thereby hurt his own cause.’

But the cause was past helping or hurting now. The time for argument was gone. It was on Saturday the 2nd of November that Fletcher and Belhaven poured forth the vials of their wrath; and on the following Monday the vote was taken. As is well known, the Squadrone threw in their lot with the Government, and the majority, by which the Union was supported during the rest of the session, was secured.

From that time until the 16th of January 1707, when the Treaty of Union was finally approved by the Estates, Fletcher continued to oppose the Government. As soon as the Act approving of the Treaty, with the changes made in it by the Estates, had been touched with the sceptre, it was sent up to London, to be discussed in Parliament; and the Estates continued to sit for the transaction of formal business, and also to frame the Acts of Parliament which were to regulate the method of electing the sixteen representative peers and the forty-five commoners who were to represent Scotland in the Parliament of Great Britain.

Fletcher’s last piece of business in the Scottish Parliament was to move, ‘That no peer, nor the eldest son of any peer, can be chosen to represent either shire or burgh of this part of the United Kingdom in the House of Commons.’ This motion was rejected, by a majority of thirteen, in favour of an amendment providing that the elections for counties and burghs in Scotland should continue, as regards those who were capable of electing or being elected, on the same footing as before the Union.

Fletcher may have been present, on the 19th of March, when the Act of the English Parliament ratifying the Treaty of Union was presented to the Estates; but, according to tradition, he left Edinburgh immediately after the House rose. ‘On the day of his departure, his friends crowded around him, entreating him to stay. Even after his foot was in the stirrup, they continued their solicitations, anxiously crying, “Will you forsake your country?” He reverted his head, and darting on them a look of indignation, keenly replied, “It is only fit for the slaves that sold it!” then leaped upon the saddle and put spurs to his horse, leaving the whole company struck with a momentary humiliation, and (blind to the extravagance of his conduct) at a loss which most to admire, the pride of his virtue, or the elevation of his spirit.’[19]