abundant, to satisfy, in this way, all the clamorous expectants, who from birth, wealth, or fancied importance, will think themselves entitled to its particular notice, especially when, as was now the case in Scotland, these expectants are very numerous, and their claims almost equally balanced. In all such cases, in proportion as the successful expectant is gratified, the unsuccessful one will be mortified and enraged, and this rage and mortification, when he has many fellows, he will be at little pains to conceal, though he will be careful, lest he should lose his revenge, to clothe them with names of gentle, or of imposing import, and to back them with pretensions, that, however false or foolish they be, are found by experience to be always prevalent with mankind. Society is never, at any period, or in any place, so happily constituted, as not to supply materials for such unworthy purposes, but never, perhaps, did any country afford more complete scope for the exercise of this pernicious ingenuity than did Scotland at this time. The absence of her monarchs, and of course of her principal gentry, for nearly a century, part of which had been imbittered by violent internal warfare, and a still more extensive portion by an odious tyranny, alike destructive to the lives and the properties of the people, had paralyzed her industry, crippled her commerce, and carried any surplus arising from her yet infant agriculture, to be spent in a foreign land. The administration of the Middletons, the Lauderdales, Rotheses and Perths, aided by the Dalziels, the Grahams, the Griersons, the Johnstons and the Bruces, with their assistant hordes of barbarians, had impoverished a great part of the country, particularly the western shires, to such a degree, that, notwithstanding the indemnifications granted by the revolution parliament, many respectable families were reduced to the verge of beggary. A course of untoward seasons too, had added greatly to the general distress, and England, unlucky England, with her intrigues and connexions, was charged by the popular voice, as having occasioned the whole.

The union, of course, so far from being regarded as a blessing, was looked upon as a curse, confirmatory of all the evils under which the nation had groaned for ages, and its dissolution considered an end so desirable, as almost to war

By genuine

rant the use of any means for its attainment. presbyterians, though one of its most ostensible ends was, the securing the Protestant succession, to which they were most sincerely attached, it was regarded with horror, as involving the nation in the guilt of a partial, if not in a formal, renunciation of the covenants, National, and Solemn League, the indissoluble obligations of which the most lax among them had not, as yet, ever thought of calling in question; and though the church of Scotland concurred in it, upon having her establishment made an unalterable article thereof, she lost, by so doing, the favour and the support of many of her sons, which to this day she has not been able to regain. By Episcopalians and Papists it was abhorred, as trampling upon what they accounted peculiarly sacred, indefeasible hereditary right; and the nobility, even many of them who had basely sold themselves to promote the measure, when they beheld the annihilation of the parliament, and the dissolution of the whole frame of government, feeling the loss of influence, and the degradation of their order, felt the most pungent regret, and would most gladly have retraced their steps. The merchant, from the total loss of trade, which was now diverted into new channels, where, though he had possessed the inclination, he had neither the skill nor the capital necessary for following it, partook of the same regrets in a still higher degree, as did the whole body of the people, from their abhorrence of the multitude of taxes and taxgatherers, with which they felt themselves in every department surrounded and daily insulted.

This universal feeling of dislike, was also greatly aggravated by the manner in which the union was carried into effect. Though the management of the Scotish revenue was to fall into the hands of the English administration on the 1st of May, commissions were neither made out, nor officers appointed to execute them, so that the whole trade of Scotland was suspended for nearly three months-nor was even the equivalent remitted, till after the lapse of the same period. The commission

In the XV. Article of the Treaty of Union, "It is agreed that Scotland shall have an Equivalent for what the subjects thereof shall be charged towards payment of the said debts of England, in all particulars whatever, in

ers also, when they were appointed, whether for the excise, the customs, or even for managing the equivalent, were not at all such as a prudent respect for the prejudices of the people would have selected. Instead of being men eminent for political wisdom, good manners, and moral dignity, who might have conciliated the refractory, soothed the wayward, and awed into submission the petulant and the presumptive part of the community, they appear to have consisted of the refuse of both countries, Scotishmen who, by obsequious servility and interested fawning, had rendered themselves odious to all classes of their countrymen, with Englishmen, who, no longer able to subsist at home, were willing to undertake a pilgrimage to this land of barbarity and barrenness, as the last resource of sordid souls, to prolong, at whatever expense, the last dregs of an existence already swallowed up in misery. From such characters, placed in circumstances of peculiar difficulty, filling

*

manner following, viz. that before the Union of the said kingdoms, the sum of three hundred, ninety-eight thousand and eighty-five pounds, ten shillings, be granted to her Majesty, by the Parliament of England, for the uses after mentioned, being the Equivalent to be answered to Scotland, for such parts of the customs and excises, upon all exciseable liquors with which that kingdom is to be charged upon the Union, as will be applicable to the payment of the said debts of England, according to the proportions which the present customs of Scotland, being thirty thousand per annum, do bear to the customs in England, computed at one million, three hundred forty-one thousand, five hundred and fifty-nine pounds per annum.”

* "A set of commissioners was appointed, one for managing the customs, the other the excise of Scotland, consisting partly of English and partly of Scotsmen, though these latter had no pretensions to entitle them to that name, save their being born in that country; they and all that were employed afterwards as commissioners for managing the equivalent, or advanced to any of the new posts, being downright renegadoes, and rewarded on no other account, than the assistance they gave in selling their country. At the same time, vast numbers of surveyors, collectors, waiters, and in short, all or most of the officers of the customs and excise, were sent down from England, and these, generally speaking, the very scum and canalia of that country, which remembers me of a very good story. "Some time thereafter a Scots merchant travelling in England, and showing some apprehensions of being robbed, his landlady told him he was in no hazard, for all the highwaymen were gone; and upon his inquiring how that came about, "Why truly," replied she, "they are all gone to your country to get places."" Lockhart Papers, vol. i. pp. 223, 224.

offices which the virtues and the talents of archangels could with difficulty have rendered respectable, what was to be expected? What but that which really followed, increased disgust and disaffection. So far, indeed, were the English from manifesting any friendly feelings, that they carried all their home measures toward Scotland, with extreme rigour, seizing, "with a peculiar affection of roughness, wines and other commodities," that had been imported, on the faith of the union, otherwise perhaps, than strict prudence would have dictated, but in a way which, it had been confidently anticipated, by a liberal and friendly policy would be overlooked. The consequence of all this was, on the part of the Scotish people, hatred to England, and increased interest in the exiled family, which they displayed by celebrating, in Edinburgh and various other places of the kingdom, the birth-day of the pretender, in the most open and avowed manner.

In the meantime, the court of France, reduced, by the vigour of the English administration, and the military talents of the duke of Marlborough, to a state of despondency bordering on despair, despatched, at the request of the court of St. Germains, colonel Hooke, an Englishman who had gone over with James VII. and had obtained preferment in the French service, on a special mission to Scotland, furnished with letters from the chevalier de St. George, to prepare his adherents for a general rising in his favours. For this rising, the means were to be furnished partly by the French, though they were in no condition to spare either men or money, and by means of it, they hoped to be able, if not to overthrow, at least so to embarrass, the government of England, as to obtain a peace, such as they themselves should dictate, in the course of the winter.* Through unforeseen circumstances, however, the winter elapsed before any thing could be undertaken.

Having made all necessary preparations for his journey, Hooke left Paris in the month of January, 1707, taking his route direct for Scotland, hoping, no doubt, to profit by the tumultuary spirit that, in consequence of the treaty of union, then in the course of being concluded, was raging in that un

* Secret History of Col. Hooke's Negotiations in Scotland, &c. p. 10.

happy country. Meeting, however, with contrary winds, it was the month of March before he arrived at the castle of Slaines, an old fortress in the shire of Aberdeen. Here he found the countess of Errol, the earl's mother, in waiting for him, with letters from her son, of the most friendly and flattering import, testifying the greatest impatience to be introduced to him, and assuring him, "that all the well affected would exert themselves to the utmost on this occasion, as their last resource, being persuaded, that at the worst they would obtain better conditions sword in hand, than those of the union." From the countess he also learned, further, "that Mr. Hall, a priest, and the confident of the duke of Hamilton, had been with her, waiting for his [Mr. Hooke's] arrival for some considerable time," and she put into his hands a letter, in which, for his employer, the duke of Hamilton, he entreated Mr. Hooke to come to Edinburgh, where, he informed him, the duke, who, with all his friends, was ready to risk every thing for the chevalier de St. George, would take care to have every thing ready for his accommodation, and begging for his grace, immediately, what letters he might have been intrusted with for him. The countess, at the same time, like a prudent and wise politician, wishing to secure, for herself and family, the ear and the services of Mr. Hooke, advised him not to be in haste, "as the duke of Hamilton's affairs were greatly altered within a few months past, all the world having abandoned him, and all the well affected come to an open rupture with him ;" and though lord Kilsyth, the great marshal, and even her son the high constable, still kept some little correspondence with him, it was not at all upon political accounts, but merely for the sake of ancient intimacy; and as he had been suspected of corresponding with the court of London, she cautioned Hooke to be particularly careful how he trusted him. But for more minute information she referred him to her son.*

In order to avail himself of this advice, Hooke, who seems to have been very well qualified for the business in which he was employed, ordered M. de Ligondes, who had brought him over from Dunkirk, to proceed with his vessel to Norway, and

* Hooke's Secret Negotiations, p. 17.