Scotland ceased to exist as a nation by the act of union, May 1st, 1707. As occasions have been so rare in the world's history when a nation has voluntarily abdicated its sovereignty and ceased to exist by its own free act, it would be too much to say that Lord Belhaven's speech against surrendering Scotch nationality was worthy of so remarkable a scene as that presented in he Scotch Parliament when, soon after its opening, November 1st, 1706, he rose to make the protest which immortalized him.
Smollet belongs more properly to another generation, but the feeling against the union was rather exaggerated than diminished between the date of its adoption and that of his poem, 'The Tears of Scotland,' into the concluding stanza of which he has condensed the passion which prompted Belhaven's protest:—
"While the warm blood bedews my veins
And unimpaired remembrance reigns,
Resentment of my country's fate
Within my filial heart shall beat,
And spite of her insulting foe,
My sympathizing verse shall flow;—
'Mourn, helpless Caledonia, mourn,
Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn!'"
If there is nothing in Belhaven's oration which equals this in intensity, there is power and pathos, as well as Ciceronian syntax, in the period: "Hannibal, my lord, is at our gates; Hannibal is come within our gates; Hannibal is come the length of this table; he is at the foot of this throne; if we take not notice he'll seize upon these regalia, he'll take them as our spolia opima, and whip us out of this house, never to return."
It is unfortunate for Belhaven's fame as an orator that his most effective passages are based on classical allusions intelligible at once to his audience then, but likely to appear pedantic in times when Latin has ceased to be the "vulgar tongue" of the educated, as it still was in the Scotland of Queen Anne's time.
The text of his speech here used is from 'The Parliamentary
Debates,' London 1741.
A PLEA FOR THE NATIONAL LIFE OF SCOTLAND (Delivered 1706 in the
Scotch Parliament)
My Lord Chancellor:—
When I consider the affair of a union betwixt the two nations, as it is expressed in the several articles thereof, and now the subject of our deliberation at this time I find my mind crowded with a variety of melancholy thoughts, and I think it my duty to disburden myself of some of them, by laying them before, and exposing them to, the serious consideration of this honorable house.
I think I see a free and independent kingdom delivering up that which all the world hath been fighting for since the days of Nimrod; yea, that for which most of all the empires, kingdoms, states, principalities, and dukedoms of Europe, are at this very time engaged in the most bloody and cruel wars that ever were, to-wit, a power to manage their own affairs by themselves, without the assistance and counsel of any other.