For the love of God then, my lord, for the safety and welfare of our ancient kingdom, whose sad circumstances, I hope, we shall yet convert into prosperity and happiness, we want no means, if we unite. God blessed the peacemakers; we want neither men, nor sufficiency of all manner of things necessary, to make a nation happy; all depends upon management, Concordia res parvae crescunt. I fear not these articles, though they were ten times worse than they are, if we once cordially forgive one another, and that, according to our proverb, bygones be bygones, and fair play for time to come. For my part, in the sight of God, and in the presence of this honorable house, I heartily forgive every man, and beg that they may do the same to me; and I do most humbly propose that his grace, my lord commissioner, may appoint an Agape, may order a love feast for this honorable house, that we may lay aside all self-designs, and after our fasts and humiliations may have a day of rejoicing and thankfulness, may eat our meat with gladness, and our bread with a merry heart; then shall we sit each man under his own fig-tree, and the voice of the turtle shall be heard in our land, a bird famous for constancy and fidelity.
My lord, I shall make a pause here, and stop going on further in my discourse, till I see further, if his grace, my lord commissioner, receive any humble proposals for removing misunderstandings among us, and putting an end to our fatal divisions; upon honor, I have no other design, and I am content to beg the favor upon my bended knees. (No answer.) My lord chancellor, I am sorry that I must pursue the thread of my sad and melancholy story. What remains, I am afraid may prove as afflicting as what I have said; I shall therefore consider the motives which have engaged the two nations to enter upon a treaty of union at this time. In general, my lord, I think both of them had in their view to better themselves by the treaty; but before I enter upon the particular motives of each nation, I must inform this honorable house that since I can remember, the two nations have altered their sentiments upon that affair, even almost to downright contradiction—they have changed headbands, as we say; for the English, till of late, never thought it worth their pains of treating with us; the good bargain they made at the beginning they resolve to keep, and that which we call an incorporating union was not so much as in their thoughts. The first notice they seemed to take of us was in our affair of Caledonia, when they had most effectually broken off that design in a manner very well known to the world, and unnecessary to be repeated here; they kept themselves quiet during the time of our complaints upon that head. In which time our sovereign, to satisfy the nation, and allay their heats, did condescend to give us some good laws, and amongst others that of personal liberties; but they having declared their succession, and extended their entail, without ever taking notice of us, our gracious sovereign Queen Anne was graciously pleased to give the royal assent to our act of security, to that of peace and war after the decease of her Majesty, and the heirs of her body, and to give us a hedge to all our sacred and civil interests, by declaring it high treason to endeavor the alteration of them, as they were then established. Thereupon did follow the threatening and minatory laws against us by the Parliament of England, and the unjust and unequal character of what her Majesty had so graciously condescended to in our favors. Now, my lord, whether the desire they had to have us engaged in the same succession with them, or whether they found us like a free and independent people, breathing after more liberty than what formerly was looked after, or whether they were afraid of our act of security, in case of her Majesty's decease; which of all these motives has induced them to a treaty I leave it to themselves. This I must say only, they have made a good bargain this time also.
For the particular motives that induced us, I think they are obvious to be known, we found by sad experience, that every man hath advanced in power and riches, as they have done in trade, and at the same time considering that nowhere through the world slaves are found to be rich, though they should be adorned with chains of gold, we thereupon changed our notion of an incorporating union to that of a federal one; and being resolved to take this opportunity to make demands upon them, before we enter into the succession, we were content to empower her Majesty to authorize and appoint commissioners to treat with the commissioners of England, with as ample powers as the lords commissioners from England had from their constituents, that we might not appear to have less confidence in her Majesty, nor more narrow-heartedness in our act, than our neighbors of England. And thereupon last Parliament, after her Majesty's gracious letter was read, desiring us to declare the succession in the first place, and afterwards to appoint commissioners to treat, we found it necessary to renew our former resolve, which I shall read to this honorable house. The resolve presented by the Duke of Hamilton last session of Parliament:—
"That this Parliament will not proceed to the nomination of a successor till we have had a previous treaty with England, in relation to our commerce, and other concerns with that nation. And further, it is resolved that this Parliament will proceed to make such limitations and conditions of government, for the rectification of our constitution, as may secure the liberty, religion, and independency of this kingdom, before they proceed to the said nomination."
Now, my lord, the last session of Parliament having, before they would enter into any treaty with England, by a vote of the house, passed both an act for limitations and an act for rectification of our constitution, what mortal man has reason to doubt the design of this treaty was only federal?
My lord chancellor, it remains now, that we consider the behavior of the lords commissioners at the opening of this treaty. And before I enter upon that, allow me to make this meditation, that if our posterity, after we are all dead and gone, shall find themselves under an ill-made bargain, and shall have recourse unto our records, and see who have been the managers of that treaty, by which they have suffered so much; when they read the names, they will certainly conclude, and say, Ah! our nation has been reduced to the last extremity, at the time of this treaty; all our great chieftains, all our great peers and considerable men, who used formerly to defend the rights and liberties of the nation, have been all killed and dead in the bed of honor, before ever the nation was necessitated to condescend to such mean and contemptible terms. Where are the names of the chief men, of the noble families of Stuarts, Hamiltons, Grahams, Campbels, Gordons, Johnstons, Humes, Murrays, Kers? Where are the two great officers of the crown, the constables and marshals of Scotland? They have certainly all been extinguished, and now we are slaves forever.
Whereas the English records will make their posterity reverence the memory of the honorable names who have brought under their fierce, warlike, and troublesome neighbors, who had struggled so long for independence, shed the best blood of their nation and reduced a considerable part of their country to become waste and desolate.
I am informed, my lord, that our commissioners did indeed frankly tell the lords commissioners for England that the inclinations of the people of Scotland were much altered of late, in relation to an incorporating union; and that, therefore, since the entail was to end with her Majesty's life (whom God long preserve), it was proper to begin the treaty upon the foot of the treaty of 1604, year of God, the time when we came first under one sovereign; but this the English commissioners would not agree to, and our commissioners, that they might not seem obstinate, were willing to treat and conclude in the terms laid before this honorable house and subjected to their determination. If the lords commissioners for England had been as civil and complaisant, they should certainly have finished a federal treaty likewise, that both nations might have the choice which of them to have gone into as they thought fit; but they would hear of nothing but an entire and complete union, a name which comprehends a union, either by incorporation, surrender, or conquest, whereas our commissioners thought of nothing but a fair, equal, incorporating union. Whether this be so or not I leave it to every man's judgment; but as for myself I must beg liberty to think it no such thing; for I take an incorporating union to be, where there is a change both in the material and formal points of government, as if two pieces of metal were melted down into one mass, it can neither be said to retain its former form or substance as it did before the mixture. But now, when I consider this treaty, as it hath been explained and spoke to before us this three weeks by past, I see the English constitution remaining firm, the same two houses of Parliament, the same taxes, the same customs, the same excises, the same trading companies, the same municipal laws and courts of judicature; and all ours either subject to regulations or annihilations, only we have the honor to pay their old debts and to have some few persons present for witnesses to the validity of the deed when they are pleased to contract more.
Good God! What, is this an entire surrender!
My lord, I find my heart so full of grief and indignation that I must beg pardon not to finish the last part of my discourse, that I may drop a tear as the prelude to so sad a story.