252

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CfJAP.

XIII.

1089.

Questionof anUnionbetweenEnglandand Scot-land rai-sed.

came dropping into Edinburgh, by tens and twenties, for thepurpose of protecting, or, if need should be, of overawing theConvention. Glasgow alone sent four hundred of these men.It could hardly be doubted that they were directed by someleader of great weight. They showed themselves little in anypublic place: but it was known that every cellar was filled withthem; and it might well be apprehended that, at the first signal,they would pour forth from their caverns, and appear armedround the Parliament house.*

It might have been expected that every patriotic and en-lightened Scotchman would have earnestly desired to see theagitation appeased, and some government established whichmight be able to protect property and to enforce the law. Animperfect settlement which could be speedily made might w T ellappear to such a man preferable to a perfect settlement whichmust be the work of time. Just at this moment, however, aparty, strong both in numbers and in abilities, raised a newand most important question, which seemed not unlikely toprolong the interregnum till the autumn. This party maintainedthat the Estates ought not immediately to declare William andMary King and Queen, but to propose to England a treaty ofunion, and to keep the throne vacant till such a treaty shouldbe concluded on terms advantageous to Scotland.**

It may seem strange that a large portion of a people, whosepatriotism, exhibited, often in a heroic, and sometimes in acomic form, has long been proverbial, should have been willing,nay impatient, to surrender an independence which had been,through many ages, dearly prized and manfully defended. Thetruth is that the stubborn spirit which the arms of the Plan-tagenets and Tudors had been unable to subdue had begun toyiehfto a very different kind of force. Customhouses and tariffs

* Balcarras’s Memoirs; Mackay’s Memoirs.

** Burnet, ii. 21.