JOHN HAMILTON, LORD BELHAVEN 1656-1708 Lord Belhaven belonged to the Hamilton family. He was one of the old Presbyterian lords, highly educated, especially in classical literature; lofty in his demeanor; dauntless in spirit; and wholly devoted to the peculiar interests of his country. He was born in 1656, and died in 1708. A century had elapsed since the union of the English and Scottish crowns in the person of James I, and Scotland still remained a distinct kingdom. Scotland was governed by alternate corruption and force. Her nobility and gentry were drawn to England in great numbers, and her merchants and tradesmen were led to transfer their capital to the sister kingdom, in consequence of the superior facilities for trade which were there enjoyed. There was one point where England was vulnerable. It was the succession to the crown. This had been settled by the English Parliament on the Protestant line in the House of Hanover, and it was fully expected that the Parliament of Scotland would readily unite in the same measure. Instead of this, the Scotch, in 1704, enacted that "the same person should be incapable of succeeding in both kingdoms, unless a free communication of trade, the benefits of the Navigation Act, and liberty of the Plantations was first obtained." It was now obvious that concessions must be made on both sides. The ministry of Queen Anne, therefore, proposed that commissioners from the two kingdoms should meet at London, to devise a plan of Union. This was accordingly done, in the month of April, 1706; and, after long negotiations, it was agreed, that the two kingdoms should be united into one under the British Parliament, with the addition of sixteen Scottish peers to the House of Lords, and of forty-five Scottish members to the House of Commons; that the Scotch should be entitled to all the privileges of the English in respect to trade, and be subject to the same excise and duties; that Scotland should receive £398,000 as a compensation or "equivalent" for the share of liability she assumed in the English debt of £20,000,000; and that the churches of England and Scotland respectively should be confirmed in all their rights and privileges, as a fundamental condition of the Union. These arrangements were kept secret until October, 1706, when the Scottish Parliament met. The moment the articles were read in that body, they were met with a burst of indignant reprobation from every quarter. A federal union which should confer equal advantages for trade, was all that the Scotch in general had ever contemplated: an incorporating union, which should abolish their_Parliament and extinguish their national existence, was what most Scotchmen had never dreamed of. It was with sentiments like these that, when the first article of the treaty was read, Lord Belhaven arose, and addressed the Parliament of Scotland in the following speech. It was designed merely to open the discussion which was expected to follow. It was a simple burst of feeling, in which the great leader of the country party poured out his emotions in view of that act of parricide, as he considered it, to which the Parliament was now called. He felt that no regard to consequences, no loss or advancement of trade, manufactures, or national wealth, ought to have the weight of a feather, when the honor and existence of his country were at stake. UNION OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND M 1 Y LORD CHANCELLOR: When I consider the affair of a union betwixt the two nations, as 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 the dukedoms of Europe are at this time engaged in the most bloody and cruel wars; to wit, a power to manage their own affairs by themselves, without the assistance and counsel of any other. I think I see a national Church, founded upon a rock, secured by a claim of right, hedged and fenced about by the strictest and most pointed legal sanctions that sovereignty could contrive, voluntarily descending into a plain, upon an equal level with Jews, Papists, Socinians, Arminians, Anabaptists, and other sectaries. I think I see the noble and honorable peerage of Scotland, whose valiant predecessors led armies against their enemies upon their own proper charges and expense, now divested of their followers and vassalages; and put upon such an equal foot with their vassals, that I think I see a petty English exciseman receive more homage and respect than what was paid formerly to their quondam MacCallammores. I think I see the present peers of Scotland, whose noble ancestors conquered provinces, overran countries, reduced and subjected towns and fortified places, exacted tribute through 1 This speech was delivered in the Parliament of Scotland, November 2, 1706. the greatest part of England, now walking in the Court of Requests, like so many English attorneys; laying aside their walking swords when in company with the English peers, lest their self-defence should be found murder. I think I see the honorable estate of barons, the bold assertors of the nation's rights and liberties in the worst of times, now setting a watch upon their lips, and a guard upon their tongues, lest they may be found guilty of scandalum magnatum, a speaking evil of dignities. I think I see the royal state of burghers walking their desolate streets, hanging down their heads under disappointments wormed out of all the branches of their old trade, uncertain what hand to turn to, necessitated to become 'prentices to their unkind neighbors; and yet, after all, finding their trade so fortified by companies, and secured by prescriptions, that they despair of any success therein. I think I see our learned judges laying aside their pratiques and decisions, studying the common law of England, gravelled with certioraris, nisi priuses, writs of error, verdicts, injunctions, demurs, etc., and frightened with appeals and avocations, because of the new regulations and rectifications they may meet with. I think I see the valiant and gallant soldiery either sent to learn the plantation trade abroad, or at home petitioning for a small subsistence, as a reward of their honorable exploits; while their old corps are broken, the common soldiers left to beg, and the youngest English corps kept standing. I think I see the honest industrious tradesman loaded with new taxes and impositions, disappointed of the equivalents, drinking water in place of ale, eating his saltless pottage, petitioning for encouragement to his manufactures, and answered by counter-petitions. In short, I think I see the laborious ploughman, with his corn spoiling upon his hands for want of sale, cursing the day of his birth, dreading the expense of his burial, and uncertain whether to marry or do worse. [The "equivalent," or compensation, of £398,000 spoken of above, was to be distributed, a great portion of it, to the shareholders of the African and India Company, who had suffered so severely by the breaking up of the Darien Settlement. As the shares must, in many instances, have changed hands, great inequality and disappointment were to be expected in the distribution of this money, which was likely, in most cases, to go into the hands of the friends of Government, as a bribe or recompense for services on this occasion.] |