17th.—The Bill was read in the House of Lords. The Duke of Bedford began with showing the impracticability of the measure, from the difficulties both of maintaining a colony on the forfeited estates, and of procuring people to settle on them. Troops can be of no service to support them in winter, unless forts are built; an expense that would far exceed the views of this Bill. English would not go thither; Irish cannot be spared, for you must not weaken the Protestant interest in that island; Scotch Highlanders will not remove thither from their own fastnesses; Germans indeed will migrate—but not to worse countries. But, he asked, had the Ministry permitted the disloyal inhabitants to remain upon these estates for six years since the Rebellion, and did they now propose to banish them? Would they engraft cruelty upon their negligence? and that in a case which decides the inhumanity, as it would punish the oppressed, yet not derive any benefit to the public,—the only justifiable pretence for national severities: for what benefit will the public reap from the change of Lords, under whom these Highlanders are to be placed by this Bill? Indeed, he said, he feared such encouragement was given to that country, by this and some other Bills, as would, even in our time, produce a new Rebellion—Glasgow—the great Lords, have received such sums, such means of new commotions, as they could have obtained no other way—and though particular towns and persons are pretended to be relieved, money is, through their channels, circulated over the whole country, and we deprive ourselves of the advantages that might accrue even from treason, when the disaffected have contributed to despoil and impoverish their own country. He feared Rebellion would grow a national malady! Danger is even to be apprehended from the method of putting this Bill in execution: should the Commissioners not act, it is a needless, an useless Bill—if they do, what is to encourage them? power and interest? and into what hands are you going to trust those formidable enemies? Are you not taking the same method you took with Lord Lovat? Will you empower more Lord Lovats to nurse up more Rebellions? He was a single instance, and the subsidy to him a trifle in comparison: this is a plan for the most formidable power ever attempted hitherto to be established in that country.
He then told the House, that he was but too well founded in his apprehensions of new commotions, both from the countenance showed to the disaffected, and the discouragement given to the loyal. He told them that he had in his hands a long and crying catalogue of facts, which would prove both his assertions, and which facts he was ready to prove. As a sample, he mentioned two cases; the first of one John Cummings, who at the time of the late Rebellion, being Collector at Montrose, assisted the Rebels in seizing the Hazard sloop, for which service the titular Duke of Perth appointed him Collector for the Pretender. This Cummings, on the Duke’s arrival in Scotland, was imprisoned by his Royal Highness’s command, and carried into Inverness; from thence he escaped, was again imprisoned, but at the desire of Lord Milton was released by Mr. Bruce, who had a power at that time to continue or to release prisoners. This Mr. Cummings is now Collector of Excise at Aberdeen; a place worth almost double of what he formerly enjoyed at Montrose!
The other was the case of Hume of Munderson, a man engaged in the former Rebellion, or, as the Scotch call it, in the fifteen. His brother was executed for the last Rebellion; but he himself has been made a General Supervisor of Excise. “My Lords,” continued the Duke, “these are among many flagrant instances of the favour, I may truly say, of the rewards conferred on Rebels. I can, if I am called upon, produce many more equally striking, and of what perhaps is still more alarming, of punishments inflicted, or permitted to be inflicted on the well-affected to his Majesty’s government and person. I will not now recapitulate them, nor dwell even on the fate of Mr. Davidson, Minister of Navar, above Brechin in the Braes of Angus, who with sixty of his parishioners was persecuted after the Rebellion, for making bonfires on the Duke’s birth-day, under the pretence of wilful fire-raising!”
After a pause, he said: “My Lords, these, and facts like these, call for inquiry: what I have more to say, strikes directly at the Bill itself, which various circumstances concur to evince, is but a more extensive job. Such is the impropriety of the time, the end of a session, to offer a Bill of this nature, when, so far from having leisure to examine it, we have barely time to pass it; and that this must have been the effect of design is evident, since the Report of the Barons of the Exchequer, who were to examine into the nature and state of these forfeitures, was given in so long ago as December, 1749. The money to be raised is a most unjust burthen upon England: the Commissioners at least, who ought to see this Act put in execution, ought to be English. If they are not, we are grounded to suspect that this money will be as much perverted as other taxes have been fallaciously collected. Let us cast our eyes but on the produce of the coach-tax in that part of the United Kingdom; to what does it amount? for the first year to one thousand pounds!—for the second, to what? to nothing. Must we suppose that this burthen was so heavily felt, that the whole Nobility and Gentry of Scotland at once concurred to lay down their equipages? In those years England paid on the same account 60,000l., 58,000l. If such are their partialities, is it not allowable for Englishmen to have some? Be that as it may, my Lords, let us know what grounds there are for these complaints, for these accusations. I move your Lordships to put off the farther consideration of this Bill, till we have had time to inquire into facts.”
It required more art than the Chancellor possessed, to efface the impression made by this speech. To dispute the facts would be admitting that they ought to be examined. He thought the most prudent method was to admit their authenticity, but to endeavour to show that the previous examination of them was not necessary, either in that place, or before the conclusion of the Bill. This method he followed; it served to palliate the resolutions of a majority of which he was secure; but had that bad effect for the Ministry, that the Duke of Bedford’s assertion of the facts, and the Chancellor’s admission of them, or at least his not disputing them, left the world persuaded of their reality, and of the timidity, indolence, or wickedness of the Administration.
The Chancellor, therefore, in a very long and elaborate speech, said, that if what had been advanced against the Bill was true, it was one of the worst Bills on the best plan that ever was formed. That indeed the Bill was only a part of the plan formerly concerted of buying the jurisdictions of the great Lords into the hands of the Crown; and that it fell in naturally enough to that plan, as these estates must necessarily be sold. That the only blame he should have expected was that this Bill had not been brought in sooner. Formerly the complaint had been that forfeited estates were restored and given back from the Crown. That indeed he did believe many of the claims upon these estates were fictitious: however, they must be determined in Scotland; here is the last place where they must be examined. That this Bill alone can enable you to have fair purchasers; and that if the claims are fraudulent, it is an additional reason for passing such a Bill; otherwise, the original proprietors might re-acquire their estates for nothing. That the great view of the Government was to destroy clanships; his own great wish, to see the King a great Highland landlord: that one of the chief benefits to arise from this scheme, secondarily to the extension of loyalty, is the improvement of the linen manufactures, an establishment at once so useful to our trade, and so inconsistent with arbitrary principles, that there had been but three single men of those manufacturers engaged in the last Rebellion. That with regard to the difficulty of finding colonists, he did not doubt but some English might be prevailed on to settle there, probably some Lowlanders too, nay, some Irish, if they can be spared. He believed, indeed, that the greater part of the old inhabitants must remain at first; but that some of the well-affected clans might be induced to transmigrate to those settlements; and that he did not despair of reclaiming even the present tenants, at least in the next generation of them, if they were once emancipated from dependence on their chiefs. That the danger from distributing money among the disaffected, formerly so impolitic a measure of King William, must not be considered here in that light; this is not money to bribe traitors, but to pay lawful creditors; and that he had rather even fraudulent creditors should enjoy this money than have the estates revert to their old proprietors. That even the position laid down of encouragement given to Rebellions by largesses to that country, was not true; it was the restitution of forfeited estates which had hardened them to attempt new commotions; but that if we were still to see repeated insurrections, every Rebellion cuts off so much strength from the faction. That indeed, as to the article of the Commissioners, he wished those words, without fee or reward, were not in the Bill; that he must own he saw many just grounds of complaint, but could not approve national reflections. That to the honour of that country he must say, the linen manufactures were carried on by Directors who received no salary. If these Commissioners should prove less meritorious, or more blameable, they are not for life; they are removable. That now he must take a little notice of the heavy accusations enforced by the noble Duke; but previously he must observe, that it is not proper in a Debate, to raise objections from particular facts, which people cannot be prepared to answer. That Cummings’s case was so flagrant, that if it was inquired into, he did not doubt but it would be remedied. But what did this and the other instances prove, but the want of the Bill? That another view of the Bill was, to raise towns and villages and stations for troops; not that it would take away the want of troops: that the money, supposing it a large sum, was but little in comparison of the benefits it was calculated to purchase: is it not a little sum, if it prevents only one Rebellion?
If it was true, as the Duke of Bedford had asserted, and as he believed it was, that the Lowland share of the forfeited estates was not mortgaged to the full value, and that therefore they ought to be sold altogether, and the overplus go towards the purchase, for his part he believed nobody would advise his Majesty to sell those estates. That he did not believe the claims would be allowed to the extent given in; that the King, of his grace, may give the overplus towards the purchase, but that he should not advise it: he should rather advise that the distribution should be made to reward loyalty; for instance, could a nobler use be made of it, than in rewarding Sir Harry Monroe, who and whose family had done and had suffered so much for the service of the Crown? That the last thing of which he should take notice, was the insufficient manner in which the taxes had been collected in that northern quarter of the Kingdom: some method, to be sure, should be taken to make Scotland pay her taxes; but could any Ministry ever hit upon that method? it is not vitium temporis that the Ministers have not done the impossible thing. One good effect the very proposal of this will have, if it points out, or leads to a remedy for the nonpayment of these taxes.
The young Marquis of Rockingham entered into a Debate so much above his force, and pertly applied the trite old apologue of Menenius Agrippa, and the sillier old story of the Fellow of a College, who asked why we should do anything for Posterity, who had never done anything for us!
Lord Bath then joined the Duke of Bedford’s opposition, after first reflecting on that Duke himself, who he said had entered his complaint both ways, that the Bill had not been brought in soon enough, and had been brought in too late. That for himself, he could not but think the proposal of examining the claims first very material. Should he, would any man, purchase an estate, before he had examined the nature and validity of the incumbrances? That on the first face of the account, he could descry false claims and misprision. On one little estate of thirty pounds a year he observed a mortgage of four thousand pounds. Who, he asked, had been in possession of these 16,000l. per annum since they had been forfeited? If the Government, where is the receipt? who accounts for it? If the creditors, why is not so much struck off from their claims? What must England say, if Scotland pays nothing towards four million of taxes? What must she say, when the weight of these taxes has been increased by Rebellions raised in Scotland? But who is it, must he ask, who takes upon them to remit taxes? Kings had been driven out for arrogating a dispensing power! where will these partialities end? He concluded with proposing a Bill to be enacted for punishing any frauds relative to forfeitures.
The Chancellor replied, that the Bill had been prepared as soon as possible, and had been brought in soon after Christmas. That the time for sale would lapse, and the estates fall to the mortgagees, if the Bill should now be postponed. That the mortgages, though real, could not extend beyond the value of the estates, which, he said, was a case frequent enough in Chancery.