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    FLETCHER OF SALTOUN

    FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES

    _The following Volumes are now ready_--

    THOMAS CARLYLE. By HECTOR C. MACPHERSON
    ALLAN RAMSAY. By OLIPHANT SMEATON
    HUGH MILLER. By W. KEITH LEASK
    JOHN KNOX. By A. TAYLOR INNES
    ROBERT BURNS. By GABRIEL SETOUN
    THE BALLADISTS. By JOHN GEDDIE
    RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor HERKLESS
    SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By EVE BLANTYRE SIMPSON
    THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. GARDEN BLAIKIE
    JAMES BOSWELL. By W. KEITH LEASK
    TOBIAS SMOLLETT. By OLIPHANT SMEATON
    FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. By G. W. T. OMOND

    FLETCHER OF SALTOUN

    BY
    G : W : T OMOND

    FAMOUS
    SCOTS:
    SERIES

    PUBLISHED BY:
    CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
    NEW YORK

PREFACE

In 1792 the eleventh Earl of Buchan published a volume of _Essays on
the Life and Writings of Fletcher of Saltoun and the Poet Thomson_. It
contains our only biography of Fletcher; but, though founded on
original sources of information, it is frequently inaccurate, and
must, therefore, be used with great caution. The author of the article
on Fletcher in the third edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_
(1797) mentions that the tenth Earl Marischal, when Governor of
Neuchâtel, suggested to Rousseau that he should write the life of
Fletcher. Rousseau was furnished with MSS. for this purpose; but
nothing came of it, and most of the materials on which that work was
to have been founded seem to have been lost. Some interesting
documents, however, are preserved in the University Library at
Edinburgh, including MSS. used by Lord Buchan, and a letter to him
from Lord Hailes, who had evidently been applied to for information.
(Laing MSS. 364.)

Mr. F. Espinasse refers to most of the printed authorities for the
life of Fletcher, in a succinct but exhaustive article in the
_Dictionary of National Biography_, vol. xix. p. 292; and in the
_Scottish Review_ for July 1893 (vol. xxii. p. 61) there is a very
interesting paper on ‘Andrew Fletcher, the Scottish Patriot,’ from the
pen of Mr. J. R. Donaldson. Many allusions to Fletcher’s conduct as a
member of the last Scottish Parliament are to be found in the
Godolphin Correspondence in the British Museum. (Add. MSS. 28,055.)

I have to thank Mr. Fletcher of Saltoun for allowing me to consult a
volume of _Recollections respecting the Family of Saltoun_, and for an
opportunity of examining the library and visiting the scenes of
Fletcher’s early life.

Mr. E. Gordon Duff, librarian of the John Rylands Library, Manchester,
and Mr. R. A. S. Macfie have for some time been engaged in compiling a
Bibliography of Fletcher; and I desire to thank them for their
kindness in placing their MS. unreservedly in my hands. There is
considerable doubt respecting the authorship of several pamphlets
which have been attributed to Fletcher, as well as regarding the
places at which his works were printed; and if this Bibliography
appears in print, it will be found most valuable by all who take an
interest in his writings.

  G. W. T. O.

  OXFORD, _March 1897_.

    CONTENTS

    CHAPTER I
                                                                    PAGE
    Fletcher’s Birth and Education--Travels Abroad--A Member
    of the Scottish Parliament--Goes to the Continent                  9

    CHAPTER II

    The Whig Plot--Comes to England with Monmouth--Shoots
    Dare--Is found guilty of High Treason and attainted--The
    Estate of Saltoun forfeited                                       20

    Adventures in Spain--Serves in Hungary against the Turks--Returns
    to Scotland at the Revolution--Reforms in the
    Scottish Parliament--Saltoun Restored--Darien                     37

    CHAPTER IV

    Fletcher’s Political Writings--‘A Discourse on Militias’--The
    Affairs of Scotland--Supports Slavery as a Cure for
    Mendicancy--Attacks the Partition Treaty                          49

    CHAPTER V

    The First Session of the Union Parliament--Fletcher proposes
    his Twelve Limitations on the Crown--An Act of Security--The
    Supplies are refused                                              61

    CHAPTER VI

    ‘A Conversation concerning a Right Regulation of Government
    for the Common Good of Mankind’                                   85

    CHAPTER VII

    A New Ministry in Scotland--Scenes in the Parliament House--The
    Act of Security becomes Law--England retaliates
    by passing the Alien Act                                          96

    CHAPTER VIII

    A Ministerial Crisis, and a Change of Government in Scotland--The
    Government is defeated--The Limitations again--Fletcher’s
    Duel with Roxburghe--The Act for a Treaty
    of Union passed                                                  108

    CHAPTER IX

    The Union Commission at Westminster--The Act of Union
    passed--Belhaven’s Speech--Violent Conduct of Fletcher
    and other Members during the Debates                             129

    CHAPTER X

    Arrest of Fletcher--His Release--The Jacobite Prisoners of
    1708--Death of Belhaven--Fletcher retires into Private
    Life--Conversations with Wodrow--His Death--Views
    of his Character                                                 142

CHAPTER I

    Fletcher’s Birth and Education--Travels Abroad--A Member of the
    Scottish Parliament--Goes to the Continent.

Andrew Fletcher, eldest son of Sir Robert Fletcher of Saltoun, in the
county of Haddington, and of Catherine, daughter of Sir Henry Bruce of
Clackmannan, was born in the year 1653. He was educated either at home
or in the parish school of Saltoun until 1665. On the thirteenth of
January in that year his father died, having, on his deathbed,
intrusted the charge of educating his son to Burnet, the future Bishop
of Salisbury, who had just been presented to the living of Saltoun, of
which Sir Robert was the patron. Burnet’s first published work was, _A
Discourse on the Memory of that rare and truly virtuous person, Sir
Robert Fletcher of Saltoun, written by a gentleman of his
acquaintance_. This volume, which the author calls, ‘The rude essay of
an unpolished hand,’ contains almost nothing about either Sir Robert
or his son; and, in fact, Burnet does little more than use his patron
as a peg on which to hang a string of platitudes. But from the moment
Burnet became minister of Saltoun, Andrew Fletcher lived in an
atmosphere of learning. There was a library belonging to the Church of
Saltoun, founded by one of the parish ministers, and added to by
Burnet and the Fletcher family; and among this collection of books we
may fancy Burnet and his pupil spending many hours. There were two
catalogues, one of them written by Sir Robert Fletcher; and in August
1666 we find the ‘Laird of Saltoun,’ then thirteen years of age,
visiting the library, comparing the books with the catalogues, and
gravely reporting to the Presbytery of Haddington that Burnet was
taking proper care of the books.

These books were chiefly theological, but among them were _The Acts of
the Second Parliament of King Charles_, from which Burnet might teach
the boy many useful lessons, and the ‘_Book of the Martyrs_, 3 vol. in
folio, gifted by my Lady Saltoun.’ For the support of this library
Burnet left a sum of money; and it is still known in the district as
‘Bishop Burnet’s Library.’ The books are preserved in a room in the
manse of Saltoun under the charge of the parish minister, and
prominent among them are a fine folio edition of Burnet’s own works,
and a black-letter copy of Foxe’s _Book of Martyrs_.

Of Fletcher’s earliest days little is recorded, except that he was,
from infancy, of a fiery but generous nature. According to family
tradition Burnet imbued his pupil ‘with erudition and the principles
of free government’; and perhaps it is not mere fancy which leads us
to picture the keen, eager, excitable boy reading the _Book of
Martyrs_, and listening to Burnet, who describes his system of
education in the account which he gives of the manner in which he
taught the Duke of Gloucester in after years. ‘I took,’ he says, ‘to
my own province, the reading and explaining the Scriptures to him, the
instructing him in the Principles of Religion and the Rules of Virtue,
and the giving him a view of History, Geography, Politics, and
Government.’ History, politics, and the theory of government--these
were, all through his life, Andrew Fletcher’s favourite studies; and
we cannot doubt that Burnet not only drilled him thoroughly in Greek
and Latin, as he certainly did, but also fostered that taste for
letters from which not even the turmoil of politics could ever wean
him.

Fletcher also owed much to the influence of his mother; and to this he
himself, in his later years, bore testimony. ‘One day,’ it is recorded
in the private family history, ‘after Andrew Fletcher had entertained
his company with a concert of music, and they were walking about in
the hall at Saltoun, a gentleman fixed his eye on the picture of
Katherine Bruce, where the elegant pencil of Sir Peter Lely had
blended the softness and grace that form the pleasing ornaments of the
sex. “That is my mother,” says Andrew; “and if there is anything in
my education and acquirements during the early part of my life, I owe
them entirely to that woman.”’

Burnet remained at Saltoun until November 1669, when he was appointed
Professor of Divinity at Glasgow. It is, however, possible that
Fletcher was sent to the University of Edinburgh before that date, as
the name of an Andrew Fletcher occurs in the University Register for
the year 1668. This may not have been young Fletcher of Saltoun; but
in any case we would suppose, from the acquirements which he
afterwards displayed, that he had received a University education,
though this is not to be gathered from Lord Buchan, who says: ‘When he
had completed his course of elementary studies in Scotland, under the
care of his excellent preceptor, he was sent to travel on the
Continent.’ But as Fletcher was only fifteen when Burnet left Saltoun,
it seems more probable that he was sent to the University of Edinburgh
for a year or two before starting on the ‘Grand Tour.’

Of his travels nothing appears to be known; but he doubtless followed
the route usually taken, through France, Germany, and Italy, by young
Scotsmen of family, who, it need scarcely be said, were almost always
sent to finish their education by visiting foreign countries. Fletcher
knew French, but with regard to Italian Lord Buchan mentions a curious
fact. ‘He had,’ says Lord Buchan, ‘acquired the grammatical knowledge
of the Italian so perfectly as to compose and publish a treatise in
that language; yet he could not speak it, as he found when having an
interview with Prince Eugene of Savoy, and being addressed in that
language by the Prince, he could not utter a syllable to be
understood.’

Having returned to Scotland, he was, in June 1678, sent as one of the
members for Haddingtonshire to the Convention of Estates which met
that summer. His colleague was Adam Cockburn of Ormiston, a fine
gentleman of the old school, but one of the most virulent
Presbyterians even of that day. It is to be observed that the rolls of
parliament have the name of ‘James Fletcher of Saltoun.’ It appears,
from the Official Return of Members (published in 1878) that the
original commissions for Haddingtonshire have been lost; but there is
no doubt whatever that the rolls are wrong, and the name ‘James’
appears by a mistake instead of ‘Andrew.’

This Convention of Estates, in which Lauderdale was Lord High
Commissioner, sat from the 26th of June to the 11th of July. It was
summoned for the purpose of voting money to maintain the troops who
were to be employed in suppressing the conventicles or field meetings
of the Presbyterians; and a supply of thirty thousand pounds a year,
for five years, was granted. The Opposition, led by Hamilton, could
muster only thirty-nine votes, while the supporters of the Government
numbered one hundred, including, of course, all the Bishops. Among the
thirty-nine was Fletcher, who thus, from the outset of his public
life, took his stand against the arbitrary system on which Scotland
was governed until the Revolution.

During this short session an incident took place which was very
characteristic of Fletcher. The Estates had ordered that none but
members were to be admitted to the Parliament House. Fletcher’s
brother Henry, however, had managed to slip in. He was discovered,
fined, and sent to the Tolbooth. So next day Andrew Fletcher ‘pitched
on little William Tolemache as no member,’ as Lord Fountainhall puts
it. On this Lauderdale was forced to declare that he was one of his
servants, whom he was entitled to bring into the House. This is the
first instance of that hot, pertinacious spirit which Fletcher so
often displayed on the floor of the Parliament House; nor, trifling as
the incident was, must it be forgotten that it required some courage
to face Lauderdale, whose easygoing, plausible manner concealed a most
vindictive spirit.

The Government had now resolved to rule Scotland by the sword; and
their policy was to turn the militia, as far as possible, into a
standing army. The Scottish Privy Council was ordered to draw five
thousand foot and five hundred horse from the militia, and quarter
them at the expense of the heritors in all the counties; and
instructions were given that, in addition to the oaths of allegiance
and supremacy, the soldiers should be called upon to swear ‘to
maintain the present Government in Church and State, as it is now
established by law, and to oppose the damnable principle of taking up
arms against the King, or those commissionate by him.’ In other words,
the militia of Scotland, where a majority of the people were opposed
to the Church established by law, were to swear that they would
maintain the principles of passive obedience and non-resistance. And
this oath was to be taken, ‘not in the ordinary way that such military
oaths used to be executed, by drawing up the troop or company together
in a body, but that every soldier, one after another, shall by himself
swear the same.’

Of the ‘New Model,’ as, borrowing the phraseology of the Commonwealth,
the Ministers called the troops, two hundred foot and forty-six horse
were quartered upon Haddingtonshire; and this led Fletcher into
collision with the Government. At the end of July 1680, along with
Sinclair of Stevenston and Murray of Blackbarrony, he was accused,
before the Privy Council, of seditiously obstructing the King’s
Service, ‘in putting the Act of the Privy Council to execution for
levying the five thousand five hundred men out of the militia.’ It
was expected that the accused, who, says Lord Fountainhall, stated
‘difficulties and scruples,’ would be fined and imprisoned, but they
escaped with a rebuke. In January of the following year Lord Yester,
Fletcher, and ten other gentlemen of Haddingtonshire, presented a
petition to the Privy Council, ‘complaining of the standing forces,
ther quartering upon them.’ This petition was extremely resented,
because it spoke of the quartering of soldiers on the country, in time
of peace, as contrary to law, and seemed to reflect upon the
Government.

At the general election of 1681 there was a double return from
Haddingtonshire. The Lairds of Saltoun and Ormiston were returned by
those freeholders who opposed the Government, and Hepburn of Humbie
and Wedderburn of Gosford by the Ministerial party. It is said that
when the matter came before the committee on disputed elections,
Bishop Paterson of Edinburgh, who was chairman, proposed that ‘for the
sake of serving the King,’ some votes which had been given in favour
of Fletcher should not be counted. But this dishonest advice was not
taken; the case was fairly tried, and Fletcher and Cockburn were
declared to have been duly elected.

The Duke of York was Commissioner in this Parliament, which met on the
28th of July 1681. The two great measures of the session were the ‘Act
acknowledging and asserting the Right of Succession to the Imperial
Crown of Scotland,’ which was passed for the purpose of securing the
succession of the Duke of York, and the famous ‘Act anent Religion and
the Test.’

Both of these measures were strenuously opposed by Fletcher, who is
said to have written a number of private letters to members of the
Parliament, imploring them to vote against the Succession Act, on the
ground that the Duke was both a Roman Catholic and a tyrant.

The Test Act was, in spite of its vast importance, brought in and
passed in the course of a single day; but at least one amendment was
moved by Fletcher. ‘Mr. Fletcher of Saltoun,’ says Dalrymple, ‘after
long opposing the bill, with all the fire of ancient eloquence, and of
his own spirit, made a motion which the Court party could not, in
decency, oppose; that the security of the Protestant Religion should
be made a part of the Test.’

The new clause was prepared by Sir James Dalrymple, then Lord
President of the Court of Session, who so framed it that the
‘Protestant Religion’ was defined as that set forth in the Old Scots
Confession of Faith of 1567, which was inconsistent with Episcopacy,
and also allowed the lawfulness of resistance. ‘That was a book,’ says
Burnet, ‘so worn out of use, that scarce any one in the whole
Parliament had ever read it. None of the Bishops had, as appeared
afterwards.’ The result was that Fletcher’s amendment, as framed by
Dalrymple, became part of the Act, all the Bishops agreeing to it.

Fletcher also resisted the monstrous and unconstitutional clause which
compelled the county electors, on pain of forfeiting the franchise, to
swear that they would never attempt to ‘bring about,’ as the statute
puts it, ‘any change or alteration either in church or state, as it is
now established by the laws of this Kingdom.’ There was a division on
this question. No lists remain to show how the members voted; but the
following protest is inscribed on the rolls of Parliament: ‘That part
of the Act--If the Test should be put to the Electors of Commissioners
for Shires to the Parliament, having been put to the vote by itself,
before the voting and passing of the whole Act; and the same being
carried in the Affirmative, the Laird of Saltoun and the Laird of
Grant, having voted in the negative, desired their dissent might be
marked.’

Fletcher had now incurred the implacable enmity of the Duke of York,
who, says Mackay, ‘would not forgive his behaviour in that
Parliament’; and he was, moreover, soon involved once more in trouble
with the Privy Council. The Estates had voted money for the public
service; and Fletcher was named as one of the Commissioners of Supply
for Haddingtonshire. Part of the Commissioners’ duty was to arrange
for the troops which were quartered on the country; and in April 1682
the Lord Advocate accused them before the Privy Council for not
meeting with the Sheriff-Depute, to set prices on corn and straw,
grass and hay, for the soldiers’ horses; ‘or at least for making a
mock act, in setting down prices, but not laying out the localities
where the forces may be served with these necessaries.’ In short, the
Laird of Saltoun and the Commissioners of Supply did all they could to
thwart and annoy the Government.

‘After much trouble and pains,’ in the words of Lord Fountainhall, the
gentlemen of East Lothian consented to fix store-houses and magazines
in the county; but in a short time Fletcher came to the conclusion
that he could no longer remain in Scotland. He accordingly went to
London, perhaps to consult Burnet on the situation, and thence made
his way to the Continent.

CHAPTER II

    The Whig Plot--Comes to England with Monmouth--Shoots Dare--Is
    found guilty of High Treason and attainted--The Estate of
    Saltoun forfeited.

Fletcher’s movements cannot be accurately traced for some time after
he left Scotland. Argyll wrote to him, on several occasions, for the
purpose of enlisting his services against the Government; but he did
not answer the letters. At last, however, when he was at Brussels, he
heard that the English Ministers had privately requested the Marquis
de Grand to have him apprehended. This seems to have irritated him;
for he went to London and joined the circle of Whigs who were then
engaged in preparing to resist the succession of the Duke of York. As
is well known, before the plot was matured Shaftesbury fled to
Holland, where he died, and the management of this dangerous business
was left in the hands of a council of six--Monmouth, Russell, Essex,
Howard, Hampden, and Algernon Sidney.

According to Lord Buchan, Fletcher and Baillie of Jerviswoode were the
only two Scotsmen who were admitted into the secrets of the six; but
what part Fletcher took in the Whig Plot, which, it need scarcely be
said, must be distinguished from the Rye-House Plot, of which Fletcher
probably knew nothing, it is impossible to say. Baillie of Jerviswoode
was offered his life, on condition that he would give evidence against
his friends, and against Fletcher in particular; but he answered, in
the often quoted words, ‘They who make such a proposal know neither me
nor my country.’

In October 1683 he was in Paris, whither he had perhaps journeyed in
company with Burnet, who had left England at the beginning of
September. Viscount Preston who was then at Paris as
Envoy-Extraordinary from the English Court, wrote to Halifax about
Fletcher. ‘Here,’ he says, ‘is one Fletcher, lately come from
Scotland. He is an ingenious but a very dangerous fanatic, and
doubtless hath some commission, for I hear he is very busy and very
virulent.’

Burnet returned to England in the beginning of the following year; and
Fletcher seems then to have gone to Holland, where he saw he would be
safer than anywhere else, for we next find him travelling about in
that country and in Belgium, visiting the libraries of Leyden, and
picking up volumes among the bookstalls of Haarlem. It was perhaps at
this time that the curious incident recorded by Mrs. Calderwood of
Polton, in the Coltness Collection, occurred. The story is almost
incredible; but Mrs. Calderwood gives it in the most matter-of-fact
way.

‘They tell,’ she says, ‘a story of old Fletcher of Salton and a
skipper: Salton could not endure the smoak of toback, and as he was in
a night-scoot, the skipper and he fell out about his forbidding him to
smoak; Salton, finding he could not hinder him, went up and sat on the
ridge of the boat, which bows like an arch. The skipper was so
contentious that he followed him, and, on whatever side Salton sat, he
put his pipe in the cheek next him, and whifed it in his face; Salton
went down several times, and brought up stones in his pockets from the
ballast, and slipt them into the skipper’s pocket that was next the
water, and when he found he had loadened him as much as would sink
him, he gives him a shove, so that over he hirsled. The boat went on,
and Salton came down amongst the rest of the passengers, who probably
were asleep, and fell asleep amongst the rest. In a little time bump
came the scoot against the side, on which they all damned the skipper;
but, behold, when they called, there was no skipper; which would breed
no great amazement in a Dutch company.’

In the meantime the Government had not lost sight of Fletcher; for on
the 21st of November 1684 he was cited at the Market Cross of
Edinburgh, and at the pier and shore of Leith, to appear within sixty
days, and answer to the charge of ‘Conversing with Argyll and other
rebels abroad.’ With regard to this charge, Lord Fountainhall says
that Fletcher’s intrigues with Monmouth, at the time of the Whig Plot,
could not be criminal, as Monmouth had received his pardon in December
1683; but this was not the opinion of the Lord Advocate, for in the
following January the Laird of Saltoun and a number of other ‘fugitive
rebels,’ including Lord Loudoun, Lord Melville, and Sir James
Dalrymple of Stairs, were charged with high treason, and declared
outlaws.

Soon after the death of Charles II. Fletcher was at Brussels; and
Monmouth, who was then living incognito at Amsterdam, sent his
confidential servant, William Williams, with a letter to him. Williams
afterwards, when he was called as a witness against Fletcher, said he
did not know the contents of the letter; but it doubtless contained a
request that Fletcher would come to Amsterdam.

Monmouth was now in despair. With the death of his father, his last
chance of being received at the English Court was gone. He had fallen
into the hands of conspirators who were urging him to invade England.
His own opinions were all against this; and he wished to take the
advice of Fletcher, which, whether sound or not, was certain to be
disinterested. So Fletcher went to Amsterdam; and what happened shows
that Monmouth had acted wisely in sending for him.

A long list could be compiled of the exiles who were now assembled at
Amsterdam. Argyll, Lord Grey of Wark, and Ferguson the Plotter, were
the most active and persistent of the conspirators who surrounded
Monmouth; but a great part in these fateful deliberations was taken by
Ayloffe and Rumbold, whose names are so well known in connection with
the Rye-House Plot, by Wade, and by Captain Matthews. Dare, known as
‘Old Dare,’ to distinguish him from his son, must be specially
remembered, as his name will presently occur in connection with the
most painful event in Fletcher’s life. He had been a goldsmith of
Taunton before he went into exile. He was a man of rough manners, but
very popular in his native place. Having lived abroad for some time,
he was now eager for an immediate descent on England, and persisted,
more than any one else, in promising to Monmouth a general rising in
the west country.

Another of the party was Anthony Buyse, who had served under the
Elector of Brandenburgh, and whom readers of fiction may recollect as
the ‘Brandenburgher’ with whom Micah Clarke has the bout of
‘handgrips,’ in Mr. Conan Doyle’s famous romance.

‘The person,’ Sir John Dalrymple says, ‘in whom the Duke of Monmouth
chiefly confided was Mr. Fletcher of Saltoun, in whom all the powers
of the soldier, the orator, and the scholar were united; and who, in
ancient Rome, would have been the rival and the friend of Cato.’
Fletcher’s opinion was strong and clear. He was against making an
attempt on England. Monmouth himself held the same view. But the fates
were driving Monmouth and Argyll relentlessly to their doom. Argyll’s
mind was made up, and nothing could turn him from his purpose of
invading Scotland. Fletcher was so convinced that the expedition to
Scotland was useless, that he refused to take a part in it, and said
that, if there was to be an invasion, he would accompany Monmouth to
England.

He was, nevertheless, as strong against the expedition to England as
against that to Scotland; but it appears, from what he afterwards told
Burnet, that all the English, except Captain Matthews, were pressing
Monmouth to make the venture. The west of England, they told him,
would rise to a man, as soon as he appeared. There would be no
fighting. Even the King’s Guards would support him. In London, too,
the people were as disaffected as in the west. The King would not dare
to send troops out of the capital; and so there would be time to raise
such an army for the Protestant cause that he would be able to fight
the King on equal terms. Monmouth was a soldier, and therefore knew
that a force newly enlisted, and hastily organised, would have no
chance against well-drilled troops. In the discussions, Fletcher and
Matthews alone seemed to have agreed with Monmouth--Lord Grey,
Ferguson, Wade, and Dare all clamouring for action. ‘Henry the
Seventh,’ said Grey, ‘landed with a smaller force, and succeeded.’ ‘He
was sure of the nobility, who were little Princes in those days,’
answered Fletcher shrewdly. ‘It is a good cause,’ cried Ferguson, ‘and
God will not leave us, unless we leave Him.’

And, in the end, the rash counsels of Grey and Ferguson prevailed; and
Monmouth, who seems to have been at last talked into believing that
success was possible, resolved to make the attempt. Nor could Fletcher
persist in his opposition when, on the 2nd of May, Argyll, taking
Rumbold and Ayloffe with him, sailed for Scotland, having received a
promise from Monmouth that he would follow in six days.

It was not, however, until the 24th that the party of adventurers,
thirty in number, left Amsterdam in a lighter. The weather in the
Zuider Zee was bad, and it took them nearly a week to reach the Texel.
Here the frigate _Helderenberg_ and three tenders awaited them. The
frigate, with papers made out for Bilboa, had been chartered by
Monmouth, and carried arms and ammunition. An attempt was made by the
agent of the English Government to induce the authorities at Amsterdam
to prevent the ship sailing; but, though the States-General gave
orders that she should be stopped, the Admiralty of Amsterdam
professed that they had not a force at their disposal strong enough to
take her. One of the tenders was seized; but the _Helderenberg_, with
the other two, sailed with Monmouth and his followers, who now
numbered eighty-two--of whom Lord Grey and Fletcher were the highest
in rank. The bad weather continued after they left the Texel; but at
last the little company found themselves off the shores of
Dorsetshire.

Their intention was to land at Lyme; but Dare was put ashore at
Seaton, which lies a short distance to the west of Lyme, with orders
to make his way to Taunton, and inform the friends of the Protestant
cause that Monmouth was at hand.

Between seven and eight o’clock on the evening of Thursday, the 11th
of June, the frigate anchored off Lyme, and Monmouth, accompanied by
Fletcher, Grey, and the rest of his followers, landed.

What happened next is well known. The town was seized; the blue flag
was hoisted in the market-place; the manifesto which Ferguson had
prepared was read; and the people assembled with cries of ‘Monmouth,
and the Protestant Religion.’

The leaders of the expedition lodged in the George Inn; and during the
following day Fletcher and Monmouth were constantly together, while
recruits arrived in such numbers that the Duke’s hopes rose high. All
that day they were arriving, and the lists filled rapidly--one of
those who joined being Daniel Defoe, the future author of _Robinson
Crusoe_, then a young man of twenty-four. The only bad news which
reached Lyme was that the Dorsetshire Militia were assembling at
Bridport.

Early next morning, Saturday the 13th of June, Dare returned from his
mission to Taunton at the head of forty horsemen. He was mounted on a
fine charger, which he was said to have obtained at Fort Abbey, the
seat of Mr. Prideaux.

On that day Fletcher dined with Monmouth, and a council of war, at
which Lord Grey was doubtless present, was held. It was resolved to
attack the Dorset Militia at Bridport, and the command of the horse
was intrusted to Grey and Fletcher. Orders were given that the attack
on Bridport, which is only a few miles from Lyme, should take place
that afternoon.

And now occurred that unhappy incident which not only sent Fletcher
once more into exile, but probably had a fatal influence on the
fortunes of Monmouth. The horse on which Dare had ridden into Lyme
that morning had attracted the attention of Fletcher, and, without
asking leave of Dare, he went and took it, thinking, as Dalrymple puts
it, that times of danger were not times of ceremony. Dare objected,
assailing Fletcher with a volley of insults and bad language, which
he bore patiently, perhaps because the other was not his equal in
rank, or because he was unwilling to engage in a private quarrel when
on duty. But the rough Englishman was at last foolish enough to think,
from the calm demeanour of Fletcher, that he could bully him into
giving up the horse, and had the insolence to shake a stick in his
face. On this Fletcher, in a passion, pulled out a pistol, and in
another moment Dare was a dead man.

There can be little doubt that this is what actually took place.
Ferguson, indeed, represents it as a mere accident for which Fletcher
was not to blame. ‘The death of Dare was caused,’ he says, ‘by his own
intemperate and unruly passion, and beyond the intention of the
gentleman whose misfortune it was to do it; who, having snatched his
pistol into his hand for no other end but to preserve himself from the
other’s rude assault with a cane, had the unhappiness, unawares, to
shoot him, contrary to his thoughts and inclinations, and to his
inconceivable grief.’ But Burnet, who probably heard the story from
Fletcher himself, says nothing about any accident, and his account is
corroborated by the evidence which Buyse afterwards gave at Edinburgh,
which will be found in the eleventh volume of the State Trials.
Fletcher went and told Monmouth what had happened; and, while they
were speaking, the country people, headed by Dare’s son, appeared,
demanding that justice should be done. Monmouth instantly saw that it
would be impossible to retain Fletcher in his service, and advised him
to make haste on board the frigate, and at the same time he sent
orders to the master to sail.

Ferguson says that Monmouth advised Fletcher to withdraw for a time,
‘to prevent murmuring among some of ourselves, as well as to remove
occasion of resentment in the inhabitants of Taunton.’ But he says
that he only told Fletcher to go ‘under a desire and command to return
and meet him at a place which he named, but where, alas! we never had
the happiness to arrive.’

But Monmouth knew that he had lost the services of Fletcher, and he
was distressed beyond measure at the double blow. The loss of Dare,
who knew the country well, was serious; and when Fletcher rushed to
the shore and made his way to the _Helderenberg_, Monmouth felt that
he was losing the only competent officer in his little army, and one
of the few men of any rank who were with him. ‘Though,’ says Ferguson,
‘the damage that befell us by the dismissing of that gentleman cannot
easily be imagined or expressed, yet this I may say towards giving an
idea of it--that as he was a person who, by his courage, military
skill, civil prudence, application to business, and the interest he
had in the Duke, would have contributed much to the conduct of our
whole affairs, and have promoted the embracing all opportunities for
action attended with any probable success; so he would have done
everything that could have been expected from a person of character
and worth in a decisive engagement.’ Though prudence was not one of
Fletcher’s virtues, this is scarcely an over-estimate of the loss
which Monmouth’s army had sustained in the loss of Fletcher; and when,
next morning, the attack on Bridport took place, in which the horse
made such a poor display under the command of Grey, not only the
Scotsman Ferguson, but the whole army, must have regretted the absence
of the brave Scottish gentleman. ‘With Fletcher,’ says Dalrymple, ‘all
Monmouth’s chances of success in war left him.’

Lord Buchan’s account of the reasons which led Fletcher to leave
Monmouth may be at once rejected. ‘The account,’ he says, ‘given by
Fletcher himself of his general conduct at this time to the late Earl
Marshal of Scotland was, that he had been induced to join the Duke of
Monmouth on the principles of the Duke’s manifestoes in England and
Scotland, particularly by the laws promised for the permanent security
of civil and political liberty and of the Protestant religion, and the
calling of a general congress of delegates from the people at large,
to form a free constitution of government, and not to pretend to the
throne upon any claim, except the free choice of the representatives
of the people. That, when Monmouth was proclaimed King at Taunton, he
saw his deception, and resolved to proceed no further in his
engagement, which he considered from that moment as treason against
the just rights of the nation, and treachery on the part of Monmouth.
That, finding himself therefore no longer capable of being useful, he
left Taunton and embarked on board a vessel for Spain.’

It is difficult to explain this statement. That it is not in
accordance with fact is undeniable; for the very simple reason that
nothing can be more certain than that Fletcher killed Dare and left
England on the 13th of June, and that Monmouth was not proclaimed King
until the 20th. In fact, Fletcher had probably reached Spain before
Monmouth entered Taunton, where the proclamation was made.

One explanation may be suggested. It is quite impossible that Fletcher
could have told the Earl Marischal that he left England because
Monmouth was proclaimed King; but it is possible that when Fletcher
was hurried on board the _Helderenberg_ to save him from the fury of
the mob, there was an understanding that he would return. When,
however, he heard that Monmouth had assumed the royal title, he may
have changed his mind. He may have said something to this effect to
the Earl Marischal, who misunderstood him. At the same time, it is to
be observed, he was soon in situations where he could scarcely have
heard of the proclamation until after the battle of Sedgemoor, and
perhaps not until after the execution of Monmouth. All that can be
said is that there was some misunderstanding on the part either of the
Earl Marischal or of Lord Buchan.

The Government in Scotland had put Henry Fletcher, Saltoun’s brother,
under lock and key as soon as they heard of Argyll’s expedition; and
they now took proceedings against Andrew. In August, Buyse, the
Brandenburger, and Captain Robert Bruce, who were to be called as
witnesses, reached Leith in one of the royal yachts; but it was not
until the 21st of December that the case came on in the High Court of
Justiciary at Edinburgh.

By that time Monmouth was dead; but he was cited, as Duke of
Buccleuch, along with his widow and children.[1] At the same time Sir
James Dalrymple and Fletcher were arraigned.

    [1] James vi. Parl. 6, Act 69.--‘Though regularly crimes die
    with the committers, and cannot be punished after their death,
    yet by this Act it is ordained that Treason may be pursued after
    the committer’s death.’--Sir George Mackenzie’s _Observations on
    the Statutes_, p. 136.

Sir George Mackenzie, then Lord Advocate, prosecuted. The charge was
that Monmouth, Dalrymple, and Fletcher had, in the year 1683, entered
into a plot with Shaftesbury, Argyll, Russell, and others, to kill
the King; in short, they were accused, in the first place, of
complicity in the Whig Plot and the Rye-House Plot. But the most
serious charge against Fletcher was that he had come from Holland with
Monmouth. The indictment against him set forth that he ‘landed with
him (Monmouth) and rode up and down the country with him, and was in
great esteem with him at Lyme for two or three days, and continued in
open rebellion with him, till, having killed one Dare, an English
goldsmith, who was likewise with them in the said rebellion, he was
forced to fly in the frigotts in which they came, and make his
escape.’

When the case against Fletcher came on, it was found that of
forty-five jurymen who had been summoned only thirteen were in
attendance; and the proceedings were adjourned until the 4th of
January. On that day the charge of complicity in the Whig and
Rye-House Plots was withdrawn, and he was accused only of taking part
in Monmouth’s invasion.

Fletcher was called, as a matter of form, and, when he did not appear,
was declared a fugitive from the law. Then the Lord Advocate asked
that his estate should be forfeited. A jury was chosen, amongst the
members of which were the Marquis of Douglas, the Earl of Mar, the
Earl of Lauderdale, and other peers, and of commoners Sir John Clerk
of Pennycuik and Sir John Dalmahoy of that Ilk. Two witnesses,
Captain Bruce and Anthony Buyse, were examined. Buyse could only say
that he had himself sailed in the ship with Monmouth, ‘where he did
see a gentleman who was called “Fletcher of Saltoun,” who was a little
man, and had a brown periwig, of a lean face, pock-marked,’ and that
he heard he was ‘a Scots gentleman of a good estate.’ After the death
of Dare he saw this gentleman ‘flee to the ship.’ Captain Bruce knew
Fletcher, and had sailed with him to Lyme.

The judges, however, were very punctilious about complete
identification, and the evidence was not considered sufficient until
the deposition of Monmouth’s servant Williams, then a prisoner in
Newgate, was read. He stated that a few days before Monmouth embarked
for England he ‘saw the said Mr. Fletcher with the late Duke, at his
lodging in Mr. Dare’s house in Amsterdam,’ and then described
Fletcher’s doings from the day they left Amsterdam until the afternoon
of the 13th of June 1685.

The proceedings of the jury, when they retired to consider their
verdict, show that the judges were right in requiring full legal
evidence as to the identity of Fletcher; for Lord Torphichen, Sir John
Clerk, Somerville of Drum, and at least one more of the jury, argued
that the evidence was insufficient, on the ground that only one
witness, Captain Bruce, had been examined who could identify Fletcher
of his own personal knowledge. Buyse, they said, who had spoken only
from hearsay, ‘might be mistaken.’ But when they returned to the
court-room, Lord Lauderdale, the foreman, announced that by a majority
they found a verdict of Guilty.

Then Fletcher was sentenced to be put to death wherever he was found.
He was attainted as a traitor. His name and memory were declared
extinct, his blood tainted, his descendants incapable of holding any
places or honours, and all his estates forfeited to the Crown.

This sentence was pronounced on the 4th of January 1686; and, by a
grant under the Great Seal, dated Whitehall, 16th January, the lands
and barony of Saltoun were given to George, Earl of Dumbarton.

    Adventures in Spain--Serves in Hungary against the
    Turks--Returns to Scotland at the Revolution--Reforms in the
    Scottish Parliament--Saltoun restored--Darien.

As soon as Fletcher gained the deck of the _Helderenberg_ the master
sailed for Spain, carrying with him one John Kerridge, a pilot who had
been pressed into Monmouth’s service for the purpose of steering the
vessel to Bristol. As soon as they reached Bilboa, Fletcher, the
master, and this unfortunate Kerridge were all seized and put in
prison; and soon afterwards the English Minister at Madrid requested
the Spanish Government to send Fletcher to England. If he had been
sent to England his fate would not have long remained doubtful; but,
by some strange chance, he escaped. The Earl Marischal’s account of
what Fletcher told him of his adventures at this period is as
follows:--

One morning he was sitting at the window of his prison, when a
‘venerable person’ appeared, and made signs that he had something to
tell him. Fletcher somehow found an open door, at which he was met by
the ‘venerable person,’ who led him past the sentinels, who, strange
to say, were all fast asleep. As soon as he was outside the prison,
his deliverer, who was a perfect stranger, disappeared before he had
time to thank him. Thereafter, in disguise, he wandered through Spain,
where, as soon as he thought himself out of danger, he spent some time
in studying in the conventual libraries, and buying rare and curious
books.

‘He made,’ says Lord Buchan, ‘several very narrow escapes of being
detected and seized in the course of his peregrinations through Spain,
particularly in the neighbourhood of a town (the name of which Lord
Marshall had forgotten) where he intended to have passed the night;
but in the skirts of a wood a few miles distant from thence, upon
entering a road to the right, he was warned by a woman of a very
respectable appearance to take the left-hand road, as there would be
danger in the other direction. Upon his arrival he found the citizens
alarmed by the news of a robbery and murder on the road against which
he had been cautioned.’

We next find him serving under the Duke of Lorraine in Hungary against
the Turks, whom he calls ‘the common enemy of Christendom.’ Here he is
said to have distinguished himself by his gallantry and military
talents; but now events were happening elsewhere which soon led to his
return from exile. The Revolution was rapidly approaching. James was
losing ground in Scotland as well as in England; and when the
Scottish Parliament, at which the apostate Earl of Murray was Lord
High Commissioner, met in April 1686, the King’s letter, artfully
framed for the purpose of inducing the Estates to tolerate the Roman
Catholics, contained not only the offer of free trade with England,
but also the promise of a ‘full and ample indemnity for all crimes
committed against our royal person and authority.’ It is possible that
if the Scottish Parliament had yielded to the wishes of the King this
indemnity might have been granted, and Fletcher might have returned to
Scotland. But it was soon found that even the Episcopalians would not
submit to the royal wishes; and the Parliament replied that they could
only do as much for the relief of the Roman Catholics as their
consciences would permit. Then followed the assertion of the
dispensing power, the declarations of indulgence, and the series of
events which brought about the Revolution.

On the 2nd of October 1688, the very eve of his downfall, the King
granted a general pardon; but from that pardon several persons were
specially excepted by name, and among these were Burnet, Ferguson the
Plotter, Titus Oates, and Fletcher of Saltoun. By that time, however,
Fletcher was at the Hague, whence he accompanied the Prince of Orange
to England.

He did not linger in the south, but made his way as soon as possible
to Scotland.

Lord Buchan errs in saying that Fletcher was a member of the
Convention of Estates which met at Edinburgh in March 1689. The
members for Haddingtonshire were Sir Robert Sinclair of Stevenston and
Adam Cockburn of Ormiston; but Fletcher was already taking an active
part in public affairs. He had come back from the Continent with his
Whig principles deepening into Republicanism, with his mind full of
projects for the welfare of Scotland, and with a fixed opinion that
the power of the Crown ought to be diminished.

He therefore joined the Club, that association which had been formed
for the express purpose of thwarting the Government and decreasing the
royal authority. Sir James Montgomery, Annandale, Ross, and Sir
Patrick Hume were the leaders of this body; and among them there was
‘no man, though not a member, busier than Saltoun,’ writes Sir William
Lockhart to Lord Melville on the 11th of July 1689.

His great aim, then and ever after, was to reduce the royal authority
to a shadow, and to place all real power in the hands of Parliament.
‘He is,’ said Mackay in the paper which he drew up for the use of the
Princess Sophia, ‘a zealous assertor of the liberties of the people,
and so jealous of the growing power of all Princes, in whom he thinks
ambition to be natural, that he is not for intrusting the best of them
with a power which they can make use of against the people. As he
believes all Princes made by, and for the good of, the people, he is
for giving them no power but that of doing good.’ The Club did not
long survive; but apart from some of the questionable and factious
purposes for which it had been formed, it was mainly responsible for
that salutary reform by which the institution known as the ‘Lords of
the Articles’ was abolished. Though Fletcher was not a member of the
Convention, we are soon to enter on that period of his career when he
was one of the foremost members of the Scottish Parliament; and the
proceedings of that body, of which an account must be given, will be
unintelligible unless certain facts connected with its history and
character are understood.

The Scottish Parliament was originally divided into the three Estates
of the Bishops, the Barons, and the Boroughs. The Estate of the Barons
included the peers, or greater barons, and the county members, or
lesser barons. The ‘Boroughs’ meant the representatives of the royal
boroughs of Scotland. The three Estates sat in one chamber, there
being no Upper and Lower House as in England. At the Revolution, when
Episcopacy was abolished, the bishops lost their seats. The peers then
became the first Estate, the county members (known as the ‘barons’)
the second Estate, and the borough members the third Estate. The peers
numbered sixty-four in 1606, soon after the Union of the Crowns; but
by 1707 they had increased to one hundred and fifty-three. The number
of commoners who sat in the Estates was never more than one hundred
and fifty-six. Thus in the Scottish Parliament the feudal aristocracy
was almost supreme. The franchise was then genuine, without the
fictitious votes which were afterwards created on all sides; but the
county members were really nominated, in many constituencies, by the
peers. This, coupled with the fact that there was only one chamber,
made the subjection of the Commons complete.

The Commons, at the date of the Revolution, consisted of sixty-four
county and sixty-six borough members. The county franchise was in the
hands of the freeholders, who were few in number. The borough
franchise was in the hands of the magistrates, who were self-elected.
There was thus scarcely a trace of popular representation. Moreover,
the officers of state had seats and votes without having to undergo
any form of election, a custom which was often complained of.

But the chief peculiarity, and the most glaring defect in the
constitution of the Scottish Parliament, before the Revolution, was
the institution known as the Lords of the Articles. This was a
committee chosen, at the beginning of each session, to prepare
measures for the consideration of the Estates. It usually consisted of
forty members, eight bishops, eight peers, eight county members, eight
borough members, and eight officers of state. The manner in which
they were chosen was as anomalous as their powers. First the bishops
chose eight peers. Then those peers chose eight bishops; and those
sixteen chose the county and borough members. Eight officers of state,
nominated by the King or his Commissioner, were added, and the
Committee on Articles was complete. ‘Not only,’ Lauderdale once said,
‘hath the King in Scotland his negative vote, but, God be thanked, by
this constitution of the Articles, he hath the affirmative vote also,
for nothing can come to the Parliament but through the Articles, and
nothing can pass in Articles but what is warranted by his Majesty; so
that the King is absolute master in Parliament, both of the negative
and affirmative.’

All the business was, in most Scottish Parliaments, transacted by the
Lords of the Articles. The usual course of procedure was this. As soon
as the Estates met, the Committee on Articles was chosen, and directed
to prepare the measures which were intended to become law during the
session. The House then adjourned for a few days. When it met again,
these measures were read, and passed at once into law. There was
seldom any debating, and sometimes more than one hundred Acts of
Parliament were passed, and received the royal assent, in one day.
There was thus a constant danger of hasty legislation, and for this
there was no remedy. In England the Lords could reject any measure
passed by the Commons, and the Commons could reject any measure passed
by the Lords. But in Scotland, where there was only one chamber, there
was nothing to prevent the Estates making any law, however rash or
ill-considered, in the space of a single day.

At the Revolution, however, the Committee of Articles, which the
Estates had declared to be a grievance, was abolished. Henceforth the
Acts of the Scottish Parliament were no longer compiled in secret,
brought, cut and dry, into the House, read over by the clerks, and
carried to the Throne to receive the royal assent, in batches of a
dozen at a time, within the space of a few hours. Power was given to
the Estates to choose freely such committees as they might think
necessary, subject only to the condition that some of the officers of
state should sit on these committees, but without the right of voting.

The statute which put an end to the old institution of the Lords of
the Articles became law on the 8th of May 1690. On the 1st of May 1707
the Union took place. Thus the Scottish Parliament lasted for just
seventeen years after the introduction of this great reform. The old
defects in the rules of procedure remained; the method of conducting
debates was still irregular; and the risk of hasty legislation was as
great as ever, only a slight attempt having been made to remedy this
evil by a statute which forbade that any measure should be passed
until it had been read twice.[2] But during these seventeen years the
Scottish Parliament was free. There was nothing to hinder the full
discussion of any topic; and independent members could bring in
measures, and move resolutions, as freely as in the Parliament of
England.

    [2] _Act that no law pass at the First Reading_, 25th September
    1695. The term ‘bill’ was not used in the Scottish Parliament.
    When a measure was brought in, and while it was before the
    Estates, it was called an ‘overture,’ or ‘the draft of an Act,’
    or simply an ‘Act.’

In the session of 1689 Fletcher presented a petition to the Estates
for the restoration of the estate of Saltoun, in which he asserted
that the sentence of forfeiture had proceeded on ‘frivolous and weak
pretences, and upon lame and defective probation.’

This petition, along with some others of a similar character, was
remitted to a committee of Parliament for inquiry. There was a long
delay; and at last Fletcher was put forward to complain to the Duke of
Hamilton, who was then Commissioner. So he went to Hamilton, and said
it was unfair that Argyll’s forfeiture should have been reversed
without delay, while he and others, who had suffered unjustly, should
have to wait so long. Having lodged this complaint, he asked Hamilton
to mention the matter to the King.

‘Tell the King,’ he said, ‘that Fletcher of Saltoun has a better
right to his estate than his Majesty has to the Crown.’

‘Devil take me,’ said the Duke in reply, ‘if it isn’t true!’

At last, on the 30th of June 1690, an Act was passed, rescinding the
forfeiture, and putting Fletcher once more in possession of his family
estate.

Before this event, so important to Fletcher, took place, Hamilton,
superseded by Melville, had retired in disgust from public life; and
there is some reason to believe that it was Fletcher who was the means
of bringing him back to support the Revolution principles in 1692,
when the country was alarmed by the threat of a Jacobite invasion. ‘I
know you will be surprised,’ Fletcher wrote to Hamilton in April of
that year, ‘to receive a letter from me; but my writing to you in such
an exigence shows the high esteem I must have of you, and of the true
love you bear your religion and country. If, laying aside all other
considerations, you do not come in presently, and assist in council,
all things will go into confusion; and your presence there will easily
retrieve all. The castle has been very nearly surprised, and an
advertisement which Secretary Johnstone had from France, and wrote
hither, has saved it. When things are any ways composed you may return
to your former measures, for I do not approve of them. I do advise
your Grace to the most honourable thing you can do; and without which
your country must perish.’ This ‘spirited letter,’ as it is called by
Dalrymple--in whose _Memoirs_ it is printed--is said to have induced
Hamilton to make up his quarrel with the Court, and in the following
year he was once more presiding over the debates of the Scottish
Parliament.

It was probably about this time, or soon after, that the project of
forming the ‘Company of Scotland trading to Africa and the Indies’
first took shape in the fertile brain of William Paterson, who may
perhaps have met Fletcher in Holland before the Revolution. He was in
London in 1690; and Dalrymple says that in Scotland it was always
believed that Fletcher brought him down to Saltoun, and presented him
to the Marquis of Tweeddale, to whom Paterson unfolded the great
scheme. Then Fletcher, ‘with that power which a vehement spirit always
possesses over a diffident one, persuaded the Marquis, by arguments of
public good, and of the honour which would redound to his
administration, to adopt the scheme.’

Sir John Dalrymple of Stairs, Mr. Secretary Johnstone, and Sir James
Stewart, then Lord Advocate, took the matter in hand, and the famous
Act constituting the Company was passed by the Scottish Parliament,
and received the royal assent on the 26th of June 1695. When the
subscription list was opened, in February 1696, Fletcher put his name
down for one thousand pounds’ worth of stock.

The story of the expedition which the Company sent to Darien, and of
the tragic fate of the adventurers, has been told and retold so often
that every child from John o’ Groat’s House to the Cheviots knows it
off by heart. It has never been forgotten in Scotland. England had to
face the question--Shall we run the risk of a war with Spain to save
the property of a Scottish trading Company, and the lives of some
twelve hundred Scotsmen? And England answered--No.

Fletcher was a rich man, and the disaster at Darien did not mean ruin
to him, as it did to so many of his countrymen. But the sight of their
sufferings, the callous indifference of the English Government, and
the knowledge that there was not one London merchant in a hundred who
did not, in his heart, rejoice in the ruin which had befallen the
Scottish traders, made him, as it made most Scotsmen, distrust
England, and devote himself, heart and soul, for the rest of his life,
to the cause of Scottish independence.

CHAPTER IV

    Fletcher’s Political Writings--‘A Discourse on Militias’--The
    Affairs of Scotland--Supports Slavery as a cure for
    Mendicancy--Attacks the Partition Treaty.

It was in 1698, while the fate of the Darien expedition was still
uncertain, that Fletcher first appeared as an author.

In their original form his writings may be described as short,
anonymous pamphlets, of duodecimo or small octavo size, and printed in
italics. They were republished, some years after Fletcher’s death, in
one volume, in 1732, under the title of _The Political Works of Andrew
Fletcher, Esq._, and since then there have been other editions.

These earlier works consisted of--(1) _A Discourse of Government with
relation to Militias_: Edin., 1698; (2) _Two Discourses concerning the
Affairs of Scotland, written in the year 1698_; (3) a work in Italian,
called _Discorso delle cose di Spagna, scritto nel mese di Luglio
1698_: Napoli, 1698; (4) _A Speech upon the State of the Nation_,
1701.

After the Peace of Ryswick there was a war of pamphlets on the
question of standing armies. William III. desired to maintain a force
sufficient to cope with France; but, as Burnet says, ‘the word
“standing army” had an odious sound in English ears’; and most
Englishmen thought that a thoroughly trained militia and a strong navy
would afford the best means for repelling an invasion from abroad, and
securing order at home.

Fletcher plunged into this controversy with his work upon militias.
His argument is that standing armies kept up in peace have changed the
governments of Europe from monarchies into tyrannies. ‘Nor,’ he says,
‘can the power of granting or refusing money, though vested in the
subject, be a sufficient security for liberty, when a standing
mercenary army is kept up in time of peace; for he that is armed is
always master of him that is unarmed. And not only that government is
tyrannical which is tyrannically exercised, but all governments are
tyrannical which have not in their constitution a sufficient security
against the arbitrary power of the Prince.’ Therefore no monarchy is
sufficiently limited unless the sword is in the hands of the subject.
A standing army tends to enslave a nation. It is composed of men whose
trade is war. To support them heavy taxes must be imposed; and it thus
becomes the interest of a large and formidable party in the state,
consisting of those families whose kinsmen are soldiers, to keep up
the army at the expense of their countrymen.

No standing armies, Fletcher points out, have ever yet been allowed in
this island. The Parliament of England has often declared them
contrary to law; and the Parliament of Scotland not only declared them
to be a grievance, but made his keeping of them up one of its reasons
for disowning King James. But, on the other hand, every free man
should have arms, which are ‘the only true badge of liberty.’ Military
service ought to be compulsory upon all classes; for ‘no bodies of
military men can be of any force or value unless many persons of
quality or education be among them.’ The only men who are fit to be
officers are gentlemen of property and position.

He has a plan all ready for organising the national militia. Four
camps should be formed, three in England and one in Scotland. All men,
on reaching their twenty-first birthday, must enter them, and serve
for two years, if rich enough to support themselves, and for one year,
if they must be maintained at the public expense. They are to be
taught ‘the use of all sorts of arms, with the necessary evolutions;
as also wrestling, leaping, swimming, and the like exercises.’ Every
man who can afford it should be forced to buy a horse, and be trained
to ride him. These camps were to remain for only eight days in one
place, moving from one heath to another, not only for the sake of
health and cleanliness, but to teach the men to march, to forage, to
fortify camps, and to carry their own tents and provisions. The food
of all, both officers and privates, was to be the same. ‘Their drink
should be water, sometimes tempered with a proportion of brandy, and
at other times with vinegar. Their cloaths should be plain, coarse,
and of a fashion fitted in everything for the fatigue of a camp.’

Each camp was to break up, at certain seasons, into two parties, and
spread over the mountains, marshes, and country roads, and practise
tactics by manœuvring against each other. No clergymen nor women
should be allowed to enter them; but ‘speeches exhorting to military
and virtuous actions should be often composed, and pronounced publicly
by such of the youth as were, by education and natural talents,
qualified for it.’ The strictest discipline was to be enforced. ‘The
punishments should be much more rigorous than those inflicted for the
same crimes by the law of the land. And there should be punishments
for some things not liable to any by the common law, immodest and
insolent words or actions, gaming, and the like.’

In this Spartan system Fletcher had the fullest confidence. ‘Such a
militia,’ he says, ‘might not only defend a people living in an
island, but even such as are placed in the midst of the most warlike
nations of the world.’ But the practical conclusion to which he comes
is that, in the meantime, the existing militia was sufficient. No
standing army was necessary. The sea was the only empire which
naturally belonged to Britain. Conquest could never be our interest,
still less to consume our people and our treasure in crusades
undertaken on behalf of other nations.

This _Discourse on Militias_, which was first printed in 1698, in the
form of a pamphlet, will be found in the various editions of his
_Works_ published in 1732, 1737, 1749, and 1798, and was also
reprinted in London in the year 1755.[3]

    [3] _MS. Bibliography._ By Mr. Gordon Duff and Mr. R. A. S.
    Macfie.

It appears, from internal evidence, that the _Two Discourses
concerning the Affairs of Scotland_ were written in the autumn of
1698. The Darien expedition had sailed at the end of July, and
Fletcher urges the necessity of providing supplies for the new colony.
The whole future of Scotland, he says, depends on the fate of this
enterprise. The condition of the country has become desperate. Partly
through the fault of Scotsmen themselves, and partly because the seat
of government has been removed to London, it is cruelly impoverished,
and has fallen so low ‘that now our motto may be inverted, and all may
not only provoke, but safely trample upon us.’ Commerce we have none.
No use has been made of our harbours. Nothing has been done for the
poor. Every year people are emigrating in search of work. We have no
trade and no manufactures. Everything depends on the colony at Darien.
Therefore the first business of Parliament should be to support the
Company of Scotland, for which he proposes that the Estates should
vote a large sum of money, and that three frigates which had lately
been built by Scotland should be employed to convoy the next fleet
that sailed for Darien.

He hopes that, after providing for the Darien colonists, the Scottish
Parliament will take steps to encourage trade at home. The war is at
an end. In that war Scotland has done great things. Seven or eight
thousand Scotsmen served in the English fleet, and two or three
thousand in that of Holland. ‘Besides,’ he says, ‘I am credibly
informed that every fifth man in the English forces was either of this
nation, or Scots-Irish, who are a people of the same blood with us.’
But there is now no reason for keeping up the standing forces in
Scotland. ‘There is no pretence for them, except only to keep a few
wretched Highlanders in order, which might easily be done by a due
execution of our old laws made for that purpose, without the help of
any fort or garrison.’ As to danger from the Jacobites, ‘the party of
the late King James was always insignificant, and is now become a
jest.’ Scotland is called upon to provide £84,000 a year for the army.
This is the same thing as if England had to find £2,500,000; and yet
all England provides is £350,000. Scotland is, therefore, unfairly
taxed; and for that reason, and also because the militia is
sufficient, the Estates should refuse to vote supplies for the army,
and devote the money to the improvement of trade and industry.

It is in the Second Discourse that Fletcher gives his well-known
account of the poverty-stricken condition of Scotland, and prescribes
domestic slavery as one remedy. No one who has minutely studied
Scottish history during the seventeenth and the first half of the
eighteenth centuries will think the picture overdrawn. The country was
barren, and the seasons were inclement. But Fletcher thought of
Holland, where he had seen field upon field rescued from the sea,
harbours and ships, wealthy towns, flourishing farmers, canals running
between rich pasturelands, or banks adorned by villas and gardens; and
all this had been the work of the sober and industrious people of a
free republic, who had worked out their own salvation. Then he looked
at Scotland, the country which he loved, and saw ‘many thousands of
our people who are at this day dying for want of bread,’ and asked,
‘How is this to be changed?’ He was under no illusions. He saw things
as they really were. The Trading Company might do much. If the
Parliament would spend money on the encouragement of industry instead
of on the army, Glasgow and Dundee might rise from petty seaports
into rich commercial cities, and agriculture might flourish in the
Lothians. But a great part of the population of Scotland consisted of
people who would do anything rather than work. These were the
descendants of the Border mosstroopers, the wild clansmen of the
Highlands, and a vast migratory horde of sturdy beggars who wandered,
in ragged hordes, over Lowlands and Highlands alike--starving,
pilfering, and incorrigibly idle. ‘How,’ he asked, ‘are we to deal
with these vagabonds?’ His answer was, ‘Force them to work.’ He
foresees that he will be accused of inconsistency, and must face the
question how he, the champion of liberty, can propose such a measure.
But he answers that he regards not names but things. ‘We are told,’ he
says, ‘there is not a slave in France; that when a slave sets his foot
upon French ground, he becomes immediately free; and I say there is
not a freeman in France, because the King takes away part of any man’s
property at his pleasure; and that, let him do what he will to any
man, there is no remedy.’ Public liberty may be complete in a country
where there is domestic slavery, and he only proposes that the idle,
sturdy beggar should be made a slave for the benefit of the country at
large.

That Fletcher was favourable to domestic slavery, as a social
institution, is clear. He argues that the clergy are to blame for the
‘multitude of beggars who now oppress the world.’ His view is that
churchmen, ‘never failing to confound things spiritual with temporal,
and consequently all good order and good government, either through
mistake or design,’ recommended masters, when Christianity was
established, to set at liberty such of their slaves as would become
Christians; and the result of this advice was that thousands of
persons, who had been well clothed, well fed, and well housed as
slaves, were thrown loose upon the world, which has ever since been
overrun by a ragged army of idle freemen who live on alms.

He therefore urges that in Scotland stern measures should be taken,
especially with the Highlanders, for whom he has a profound contempt.
‘Nor indeed,’ he says, ‘can there be any thorough reformation in this
affair, so long as the one-half of our country, in extent of ground,
is possessed by a people who are all gentlemen only because they will
not work, and who in everything are more contemptible than the vilest
slaves, except that they always carry arms, because for the most part
they live upon robbery.’ His proposals are that hospitals should be
provided for such beggars as are old and feeble; but as for the rest,
he would divide them into two classes. The harmless beggars should be
employed as domestic slaves. The dangerous ruffians should be sent to
Venice, to ‘serve in the galleys against the common enemy of
Christendom.’

Such were the means by which Fletcher would have put an end to
idleness and mendicancy in Scotland; and his well-known description of
the state of things may be once more quoted, as an explanation of how
he came to hold such views. ‘In all times there have been about a
hundred thousand of those vagabonds who have lived without any regard
or subjection to the laws of the land, or even those of God and
nature.... Many murders have been discovered among them, and they are
not only a most unspeakable oppression to poor tenants (who, if they
give not bread or some kind of provision to perhaps forty such
villains in one day, are sure to be insulted by them), but they rob
many poor people who live in houses distant from any neighbourhood. At
country weddings, markets, burials, and other the like occasions, they
are to be seen--both men and women--perpetually drunk, cursing,
blaspheming, and fighting together.’

Apart from this evil of a large pauper population, for which he had
the courage to propose the remedy of slavery, Fletcher thought that
much of the poverty in Scotland was caused by high rents. These, he
says, are so excessive that they make ‘the tenant even poorer than his
servant, whose wages he cannot pay,’ and this affects not only the day
labourer, but the village tradesmen, and the merchants of the county
towns. Rents must therefore be reduced; and not only so, but an Act
of Parliament should be passed, forbidding any man to possess more
land than he can cultivate by his own servants. By this means more
labour would be employed, the soil would be better cultivated, and the
wealth of the country vastly increased. ‘In a few years,’ says
Fletcher, ‘the country will be everywhere enclosed and improved to the
greatest height, the plough being everywhere in the hand of the
possessor.’

He also suggested, as a cure for the depressed state of agriculture,
the crude remedy that lending money on interest should be forbidden.
By this means, he says, ‘men who have small sums at interest will be
obliged to employ it in trade or the improvement of land.’

Proposals such as these, which nowadays some will say were in advance
of his time, and others will regard as impracticable and absurd, were
not taken seriously at the time he made them. ‘Mr. Fletcher’s
schemes,’ says Sir John Clerk, a commonplace man, but a shrewd and
cautious observer, ‘had but very little credit, because he himself was
often for changing them; though, in other respects, a very worthy man.
It used to be said of him, that it would be easy to hang by his own
schemes of government; for, if they had taken place, he would have
been the first man that would have attempted an alteration.’[4]

    [4] MS. note on Lockhart, quoted in Somerville, p. 204.

The Italian essay on the affairs of Spain was apparently suggested by
the Partition Treaty of 1698. In the editions of Fletcher’s collected
works there is an ‘Auviso,’ or advertisement, prefixed to this
pamphlet, in which the author explains that he has written the
discourse in order to show how easily any prince who succeeds to the
throne of Spain may acquire the empire of the world; and in the
_Speech upon the State of the Nation_, he deals with the same topic.
The letter of the Treaty, he urges, speaks of keeping the peace of
Europe by breaking up the Spanish monarchy, but the spirit of it
throws that monarchy into the hands of the Bourbons. The result will
be that the balance of power will be upset, a war will follow, civil
and religious liberty will be endangered. William III., he hints, may
offer to support the Spanish policy of France, if Louis will assist
him to become an absolute monarch in England and Holland. ‘This
treaty,’ he says, ‘is like an alarum-bell rung over all Europe. Pray
God it may not prove to you a passing-bell.’[5]

    [5] The 1749 edition of Fletcher’s _Works_ contains an English
    translation of the _Discorso di Spagna_.

This manifesto, though described as a speech, was probably never
delivered. But it may be regarded as an election address; for on the
dissolution of the Convention Parliament, Fletcher was returned, at
the general election, for the county of Haddington, with Adam Cockburn
of Ormiston as his colleague.

CHAPTER V

    The First Session of the Union Parliament--Fletcher proposes his
    Twelve Limitations on the Crown--The Act of Security--The
    Supplies are refused.

The Estates met at Edinburgh on the 6th of May 1703. The forms of the
opening ceremony were similar to those which had been used for at
least a hundred years. But it was observed that on this day the
preparations were more elaborate than usual. Queensberry, who was Lord
High Commissioner, occupied the royal apartments in Holyrood House. On
the evening of the 5th the crown, the sceptre, and the sword of state,
known as the ‘honours,’ and regarded with peculiar veneration as the
symbols of the ancient monarchy, were carried from the castle to the
palace by the officials of the Treasury, and presented to the
Commissioner. Next morning, at an early hour, Lord Errol, the
hereditary High Constable of Scotland, waited upon the Commissioner to
receive his last instructions, and then proceeded to the Parliament
House, for the arrangements of which he was responsible during the
sittings of the Estates. In the meantime, the long steep street which
still leads from Holyrood to the Parliament House, and which was then
the fashionable quarter of the city, had been cleared of traffic, and
lined with wooden railings, to keep back the crowd which assembled to
witness the Riding of the Parliament, as the procession of members to
the place of meeting was called. The tall houses, with their
picturesque gables and projecting balconies, were hung with tapestry,
and the windows were filled with gay parties of gentlemen and ladies.
The street was lined by a regiment of foot-guards, under the command
of General Ramsay, then commander-in-chief of the forces in Scotland,
and by the members of the town-guard.

At ten o’clock the Commissioner held a levee, which was attended by
all the members of the Parliament, both peers and commoners. The Lyon
King of Arms was there, with his heralds, pursuivants, and trumpeters,
and the palace-yard was crowded by grooms and lackeys, in charge of
the horses on which the members were to ride. The spectators on this
day noticed that the liveries of the servants were richer than had
ever been seen before, and that the horses were unusually fine. While
the levee was proceeding, Lord Chancellor Seafield; Annandale,
President of the Council; Tarbat, Secretary of State; and
Tullibardine, Lord Privy Seal, mounted and rode, with their
attendants, to the Parliament House, to await the arrival of the
Estates.

When the Commissioner was ready to start, the Lyon King declared the
order in which the procession was to be formed, and one of his
heralds, from a window of the palace, repeated his words to the
attendants in the yard below. A troop of horse grenadiers headed the
cavalcade. Then came the borough members, riding two abreast on horses
with trappings of black velvet, and followed by the county members in
the same order. After them rode those officers of state who were not
peers of the realm. The barons, the viscounts, and the earls formed
the next part of the procession, all arrayed in scarlet robes, and
their horses led by serving-men in liveries which displayed the arms
of their masters. Each earl had four, and each viscount three,
servants with him. The Lyon King, wearing his official dress and
carrying his baton, rode alone, with his pursuivants and trumpeters,
immediately in front of the honours, which were carried by three
peers. The sword of state was carried by the Earl of Mar, the sceptre
by the Earl of Crawford, and the crown by the Earl of Forfar, as
nearest kinsman of Archibald, Marquis of Douglas, who was then too
young to take part in the ceremony. Then came the Lord High
Commissioner, surrounded by his pages and the gentlemen of his
household, and followed by Argyll, who rode last of the procession, at
the head of a squadron of the royal horse-guards.

When the procession reached the precincts of the Parliament House,
the members were received by the High Constable, whose officers
escorted them to the door of the hall in which the sittings were held.
The last to enter was the Commissioner, who was conducted to the
throne by the High Constable, and by William, ninth Earl Marischal,
hereditary Keeper of the Regalia of Scotland.

The place in which the last Parliament of Scotland met that day was
the spacious and lofty chamber which is now used as an entrance-hall
to the Court of Session. The old oak roof, rising from curiously
carved corbals, still remains; but in other respects the appearance of
the place is completely changed since the days of Fletcher. Then, at
the south end, under the large mullioned window, stood the throne,
elevated on steps to a considerable height. On either side there rose
from the floor tiers of benches, on which the members of the Estates
sat in places fixed according to their different ranks. In the centre
of the hall, between the benches, was a long table, at which the Lord
Clerk-Register, the clerks of the House, and sometimes the judges,
sat. At the upper end of the table, in front of the throne, the crown,
the sceptre, and the sword lay during each sitting. The officers of
state clustered on the steps of the throne; and near them the Lord
Chancellor, who acted as Speaker of the House, had his chair. At the
other end of the hall was the bar, behind which there was an open
space, in which strangers were allowed to stand and listen to the
proceedings; and often, during the debates of the next four years,
when the evenings closed in and the candles were lighted in the body
of the House, murmurs of disapproval or shouts of applause came from
the darkness behind the bar. It was amidst these surroundings that the
Whig lords defended the policy of the English Government, and were
answered by the Cavaliers, and that Fletcher and the Country Party
declaimed on freedom and a limited monarchy.

The leader of the Country Party, of which Fletcher was the most
enthusiastic and thoroughgoing member, was James, fourth Duke of
Hamilton, the Hamilton of _Esmond_. ‘Of a middle stature, well made,
of a black, coarse complexion, a brisk look,’ is the contemporary
account of his appearance. He was, indeed, a gallant gentleman, as
Thackeray describes him; but though perhaps afterwards, when he was
appointed Ambassador to France, he may have been waited upon by
obsequious tradesmen laden with jewels, and velvets, and brocades, yet
during the greater part of his career he was overwhelmed with debts, a
circumstance which interfered with his independence, and probably was
the secret cause of a great deal that was mysterious in his conduct.
As Earl of Arran he had, at the time of the Revolution, openly
professed his devotion to King James, and had, soon after, suffered
imprisonment on suspicion of carrying on a correspondence with the
Court of Saint Germains. By his dexterity mainly the opposition was
organised during the last years of William’s reign, and, though his
haughty demeanour sometimes gave offence, he was followed both by the
Jacobites and by the Country Party.

He was assisted in the leadership by four peers, whose opinions,
unlike his, were entirely on the Whig side. These were John, second
Marquis of Tweeddale, and his son-in-law, the seventh Earl of Rothes,
James, fourth Marquis of Montrose, and John, fifth Earl of Roxburghe.
Tweeddale was now a man of between fifty and sixty; but Rothes,
Montrose, and Roxburghe were young, each about twenty-four, fiery and
impetuous, qualities which made them favourites at a time of great
popular excitement. These were the chief colleagues of Fletcher during
the arduous contest which now began; but none of them displayed a
consistency or a disinterestedness equal to his.

At the beginning of the session Fletcher was occupied with an election
petition from Haddingtonshire, which was presented by Sir George
Suttie of Balgonie, who opposed the return of John Cockburn, younger
of Ormiston, as one of the county members. The Committee on contested
elections found that Suttie and Cockburn had received an equal number
of votes. A new election was ordered, and, to Fletcher’s
satisfaction, Cockburn was on the 1st of June returned as his
colleague.

But more important matters than contested elections were already
engaging the attention of the Estates. Queensberry had attempted to
strengthen the Government by forming an alliance with the Jacobites,
who had promised to vote the supplies for which the Parliament was to
be asked. But Argyll and his friends had refused to follow him in this
policy, and it became evident that the Government would have to fight
a strong opposition, composed of the Jacobites and the Country Party
acting in concert. The struggle began on the 26th of May, when the
Estates discussed the question of whether they should vote the
supplies, or proceed to ‘make such conditions of government and
regulations in the constitution of the kingdom, to take place after
the decease of her Majestie and the heirs of her body, as shall be
necessary for the preservation of our religion and liberty.’

The terms of this resolution, which was moved by Tweeddale, were often
heard during the rest of the session; and the issue was soon narrowed
down to the single point of whether the Estates should grant a supply,
or pass an Act of Parliament for the security of liberty, religion,
and trade.

On the 26th of May Fletcher moved that the Estates should divide on
the question of whether they were to take the first reading of the
Supply Act or proceed to make Acts for the security of liberty and
religion.

‘My Lord Chancellor,’ he said, ‘I am not surprised to find an Act for
a supply brought into this House at the beginning of a session. I know
custom has, for a long time, made it common. But I think experience
might teach us that such Acts should be the last of every session; or
lie upon the table, till all other great affairs of the nation be
finished, and then only granted. It is a strange proposition which is
usually made in this House, that if we will give money to the Crown,
then the Crown will give us good laws; as if we were to buy good laws
of the Crown, and pay money to our princes, that they may do their
duty, and comply with their coronation oath. And yet this is not the
worst, for we have often had promises of good laws, and when we have
given the sums demanded, those promises have been broken, and the
nation left to seek a remedy--which is not to be found, unless we
obtain the laws we want, before we give a supply. And if this be a
sufficient reason at all times to postpone a money Act, can we be
blamed for doing so at this time, when the duty we owe to our country
indispensably obliges us to provide for the common safety in case of
an event, altogether out of our power, and which must necessarily
dissolve the Government, unless we continue and secure it by new
laws: I mean the death of her Majesty, which God in His mercy long
avert.’

There was a long debate; and it was not until two days later, that the
Ministers, seeing themselves in a minority, gave in, and allowed what
was afterwards known as the Grand Resolve, of 28th May 1703, to pass
without a division. By this Resolve it was declared that Acts for the
security of religion, liberty, and trade were to have precedence over
Supply or any other business whatsoever.

Fletcher, with the whole of the Opposition at his back, supported
every proposal the effect of which was to guard against the influence
of England, and to emphasise the fact that Scotland was an independent
kingdom. But he had also elaborated a great scheme of his own, which
he laid before the Estates. ‘Before the Union of the Crowns,’ he said,
‘no monarchy in Europe was more limited, nor any people more jealous
of liberty than the Scots.’ But the result of the Union of the Crowns
was that the people of Scotland lost their liberties. English
influence, the source of every evil, had become supreme. Now was the
time to strike a blow for freedom; and he proposed Twelve Limitations,
or conditions on which, after the death of Anne, the Crown of Scotland
was to go to the same Sovereign as should rule in England. These
Limitations were: 1. Annual Parliaments, which should choose their
own President, adjourn at their own pleasure, and vote by ballot. 2.
That for every new peerage granted by the Crown, another county member
should be added to the Parliament. 3. That none should vote in
Parliament except peers or elected members. 4. That the king should
not have the power of refusing the royal assent to any Act passed by
the Estates. 5. That when Parliament was not sitting the executive
Government should be in the hands of a Committee chosen by Parliament.
6. That the King should not have the power of making war or peace, or
concluding any treaty, except with consent of Parliament. 7. That all
offices, civil and military, and all pensions, should be given by
Parliament, instead of by the King. 8. That without consent of
Parliament there should be no standing army. 9. That a national
militia, of all men between the ages of sixteen and sixty, should be
at once armed with bayonets, firelocks, and ammunition. 10. That no
general pardons should be valid without consent of Parliament. 11.
That no judge should sit in Parliament, or hold any other office, and
that the office of President of the Court of Session should be in
three of the judges, named by the Estates. 12. That if the King should
break any of these conditions, the Estates were to declare that he had
forfeited the throne, and proceed to choose a successor.

These conditions, for proposing which he would have been sent to the
gallows in the days of the Stuarts, and to Botany Bay in the days of
Mr. Pitt, Fletcher pressed upon the Estates as essential for the
protection of Scotland against England. ‘If,’ he said, ‘our Kings
lived among us, it would not be strange to find these limitations
rejected. It is not the prerogative of a King of Scotland I would
diminish, but the prerogative of English Ministers over this nation.
These conditions of Government being either such as our ancestors
enjoyed, or principally directed to cut off our dependence on an
English Court, and not to take place during the life of the Queen, he
who refuses his consent to them, whatever he may be by birth, cannot
sure be a Scotsman by affection. This will be a true test to
distinguish, not Whig from Tory, Presbyterian from Episcopal, Hanover
from Saint Germains, nor yet a courtier from a man out of place, but a
proper test to distinguish a friend from an enemy to his country.’

But the Scottish Parliament, in spite of all its high-strung
patriotism, was not prepared to accept so republican a scheme as this;
and by a majority of twenty-six votes it was decided that the Laird of
Saltoun’s Limitations should not form a part of the ‘Act of Security’
which the Estates were now engaged in framing.

The basis of this famous statute was a measure introduced by the Lord
Privy Seal, providing that the Estates should meet within twenty days
after the death of Anne, and proceed to name a Protestant successor
to the throne of Scotland. But to this simple measure a number of
clauses were added, until it grew into that elaborate Act which was
the pivot on which Scottish history turned until the Union.

Rothes proposed a clause which embodied the principle of one of
Fletcher’s Limitations: That war and peace were to be made only by
consent of Parliament. Queensberry said that he was ready to consent
to anything which was for the good of the country, and which ‘the
Queen had under her view when she left London.’ This proposal, he
said, she had never heard of.

On this Fletcher declared that it was now evident, as he had often
thought, that in Scottish affairs the Crown was under the influence of
English councillors. At these words some members were so ill-advised
as to interrupt him, and even to suggest that he should be censured.
This led to a scene. ‘What!’ exclaimed Hamilton, ‘is this the liberty
of Parliament?’ There were shouts of ‘privilege’ from all parts of the
House; and several members rose at the same time to demand that the
member should be allowed, without interruption, to explain his words.

As soon as silence was obtained Fletcher continued. He had no
difficulty, he said, in explaining. He spoke, not as a slave, but as a
free man. He had the greatest respect for the Queen and for her
Commissioner. But the love and duty which he bore to his country
obliged him to speak as he had spoken. What the Commissioner had said
that day convinced him that the only way to secure Scotland from
English interference was to refuse to settle the Scottish Crown on the
English Sovereign. The two countries must have separate Kings.

This statement was received with a tumult of applause; but the matter
was allowed to drop. Nor did the Estates embody the clause proposed by
Rothes in the Act of Security. The next great fight was over a clause
introduced by Roxburghe. It provided that the Succession was not, on
the death of Anne, to be the same in Scotland as in England, unless
conditions of government were settled which would secure the
independence of the Crown of Scotland, the power of the Estates, and
the liberty and trade of the country ‘from the English or any foreign
influence.’

This was really the most formidable proposal which any member of the
Country Party, with the exception of Fletcher, had as yet brought
forward. It was, nevertheless, evident that the House was ready to
accept it, and that the Act of Security would, therefore, contain
provisions which, though not so drastic as the Twelve Limitations,
could scarcely be tolerated by England.

Fletcher was up, supporting the clause with his usual vehemence, when
suddenly the Chancellor rose and stopped him. It was, he explained,
too late to finish the debate, and he, therefore, adjourned the House.
Instantly there was one of those scenes to which members were becoming
accustomed. Some declared that they would address the Queen, and
complain that her Ministers were attempting to interfere with the
liberty of debate. Others maintained that what the Chancellor had done
was a violation of the Claim of Right, and that, therefore, he was
guilty of treason. It was with difficulty that the noise was stopped
while prayers were said. Hamilton announced that he would remain in
the House and instantly draw up the address to the Queen, and Fletcher
hurried to his side to help him; but when the Duke saw the
Commissioner descending from the throne, he changed his mind and
followed him out of the House.

That night, however, the address was prepared and signed by sixty
members. On the morrow more signatures were obtained, and when the
Estates met the Country Party tabled a protest against the irregular
adjournment of the previous evening. But the Chancellor declared that
the late hour was the reason why he had adjourned the House, said the
Government had no desire to encroach on the privileges of members, and
announced that the debate on Roxburghe’s clause would be resumed on
the following day.

In the meantime the Government had adjusted a clause which was
admirably fitted to secure a large measure of support, and also to
stave off the awkward question which had been raised by Roxburghe. It
provided that, after the death of Anne, the same person should not
wear both the Crowns unless free trade between the two countries was
established, and the right of trading to the colonies was granted to
Scotland. When the debate was resumed, the Lord Advocate, Sir James
Stewart, moved that this clause should be substituted for that
proposed by Roxburghe. To this Fletcher adroitly answered that the
Country Party was delighted with the conduct of the Ministers in
framing this most useful clause, and would gladly accept it as well as
that of Roxburghe. He then moved that the two clauses should be
joined, and made part of the Act of Security. The House would have
agreed to this at once; but the Ministers made one struggle more, and
obtained a short respite by moving the adjournment of the debate,
which they carried, but only by a majority of three votes.

But the Government were in a hopeless position. The opinion of the
Estates evidently was that the King of England must not be King of
Scotland, unless England would agree to such conditions of government
as the Scottish Parliament chose to enforce, and unless the home and
colonial trade was thrown open to the Scottish people. The clauses
were joined, and then a division was taken on the question, ‘Add them
to the Act or not?’ The Government voted against adding them, and were
beaten by no less than seventy-two votes.

Godolphin heard with dismay of what had been done. In a letter to
Athole he says that the Queen was not pleased with either of the
clauses proposed by Roxburghe and by the Lord Advocate, as tending,
each of them, to make a perfect separation, instead of a Union. Her
Majesty, he declares, would never consent to any Act which establishes
a different succession in Scotland to that in England.

The division in which the Government were so hopelessly beaten, took
place on the 26th of July, and after that the Opposition had matters
all their own way. The last great debate was on the 10th of August,
when a clause was proposed directing the Protestant landowners and
burgesses to arm and drill all the men in their districts who were
capable of bearing arms.

This was a clause after Fletcher’s own heart, and he supported it in a
short but trenchant speech, in which he argued that to insist upon
conditions of government, without the means of enforcing them, was
folly. Without the support of arms, all enactments for the security of
the country were vain and empty propositions. ‘To rely upon any law,’
he said, ‘without such a security, is to lean upon a shadow.... To be
found unarmed, in the event of her Majesty’s death, would be to have
no manner of security for our liberty, property, or the independence
of this kingdom.... If we do not provide for arming the kingdom in
such an exigency, we shall become a jest and a proverb to the world.’
The Government divided the House against this clause, but were beaten,
and it was added to the Act.

Three days later, every bench in the Parliament House being crowded,
the Act of Security was read over twice. No further amendments were
proposed. The roll was then called; and, though a number of members
did not answer to their names, the measure was passed by a majority of
sixty votes.

The chief provisions of the Act of Security, in framing which the
Estates had now spent two months, were as follows: On the death of
Anne the Parliament was to meet, and settle the succession. If the
Queen left an heir, or a recognised successor, the Crown was to be
offered to him on the terms contained in the Claim of Rights. But if
there was no heir, or recognised successor, then the Estates were to
choose a successor, who must be of the royal line of Scotland, and of
the Protestant religion. But it was not to be in the power of the
Estates to choose the successor to the throne of England as successor
to that of Scotland, ‘nor shall the same person be capable, in any
event, to be King or Queen of both realms,’ unless there were
established, to the satisfaction of the Scottish Parliament, free home
and colonial trade, and also such conditions of government as would
secure the Crown, the Parliament, the religion, and the liberty of
Scotland from English or any foreign influence. And, ‘for a further
security of the kingdom,’ the men of every county and borough were to
be furnished with fire-arms and drilled once a month. The Act was
transmitted to London, and Godolphin was requested to say whether or
not it was to be touched with the sceptre.

William the Third had, on several occasions, refused the royal assent
to Acts passed by the Parliament of Scotland; and now the Courtiers,
the Cavaliers, and the Country Party waited with curiosity to hear
what course the Queen, on the advice of her Ministers, would take at
the present crisis. The Country Party and the Cavaliers were equally
determined not to settle the Scottish Succession except on the
conditions set forth in the Act, and Queensberry was repeatedly
questioned on the subject. Fletcher, in particular, made several
speeches on this topic; but the Commissioner gave no sign until the
10th of September, when he stated that he had obtained leave to give
the royal assent to all the Acts which had been passed, excepting the
Act of Security. ‘You may easily believe,’ he explained, ‘that
requires her Majesty’s further consideration.’

He ended a speech, which it must have needed some courage to deliver,
by asking them to vote the Supplies. But the House was in no mood to
comply with this request. We should have been told, one member said,
at the beginning of the session that we were called together merely to
vote money, and then adjourn. It would have saved us a great deal of
trouble. If any Scotsman has advised the Queen in this matter, cried
another, he is a traitor to his country. Fletcher denied the power of
the Sovereign to refuse the royal assent, and there is a good deal to
be said in favour of this view of the Scottish constitution. Hamilton
and Roxburghe moved that an address be presented to her Majesty,
praying her to reconsider the matter, and direct the Commissioner to
touch the Act with the sceptre. After a long debate, in which every
member who spoke blamed the English Ministers for what had happened,
the motion to address the throne was rejected by twelve votes, and the
House rose.

A few days after the Commissioner had announced that the royal assent
was refused, Lord Boyle, the Treasurer-Depute, moved that the Act of
Supply, which had been lying on the table since May, should be read,
and on this Fletcher once more brought forward his Limitations. ‘My
Lord Chancellor,’ he said, ‘his Grace, the High Commissioner, having
acquainted this House that he has instructions from her Majesty to
give the royal assent to all Acts passed in this session except that
for the security of the kingdom, it will be highly necessary to
provide some new laws for securing our liberty upon the expiration of
the present entail of the Crown.’ From this text he delivered an
impassioned address, imploring the Estates, in particular, to accept
his proposal that all places, offices, and pensions should, after the
death of Anne, be conferred by Parliament alone, so long as Scotland
was under the same Prince as England. ‘Without this limitation,’ he
exclaimed, ‘our poverty and subjection to the Court of England will
every day increase; and the question we have now before us is, whether
we will be free men or slaves for ever; whether we will continue to
depend, or break the yoke of our dependence; and whether we will
choose to live poor and miserable, or rich, free, and happy?... By
this limitation our Parliament will become the most uncorrupted senate
of all Europe. No man will be tempted to vote against the interest of
his country, when his country shall have all the bribes in our own
hands: offices, places, pensions.... If, therefore, either reason,
honour, or conscience have any influence upon us; if we have any
regard either to ourselves or posterity; if there be any such thing as
virtue, happiness, or reputation in this world, or felicity in a
future state, let me adjure you by all these not to draw upon your
heads everlasting infamy, attended with the eternal reproaches and
anguish of an evil conscience, by making yourselves and your posterity
miserable.’

The Ministry, well aware that only a portion of the Country Party
would follow Fletcher on this question of the Limitations, wished the
House to vote on the issue of whether Supply or the Limitations should
be discussed. But Fletcher, who saw in a moment at what the Government
were aiming, interposed, and said that he had had the honour to offer
a means of securing the liberties of the nation against England; that
in his opinion the country was nearly ruined, and that his proposals
were necessary; but still he relied on the wisdom of the Estates, and
withdrew his motion.

Thus checkmated, the Ministers were at a loss what to do. They knew
that the motion to discuss overtures for liberty would be carried
against their motion to discuss Supply, and they could think of
nothing else on which they could ask the House to vote. There were
anxious faces, and some hasty whispering on the steps of the throne.
Cries of ‘Vote! Vote!’ resounded from all the benches. The
Commissioner rose. ‘If the House,’ he said, ‘will agree to the first
reading of the Subsidy Act, I promise that it shall not be heard of
for the next three sittings.’

Instantly Fletcher was on his feet. ‘Those about the throne,’ he
exclaimed, ‘could not really expect the House to agree to this.’ It
meant that the Subsidy Act was to be read a first time now. Then the
House was to be amused with three sittings on overtures for liberty,
‘which sittings shall meet at six and adjourn at seven.’ On the fourth
day, the Supplies would be voted; and then Parliament would be
prorogued. He was certain the House knew the artifices of the
Government too well to be misled by them.

Another member pointed to the throne, and declared that the men who
sat round it were endeavouring to destroy the privileges of
Parliament, and filch away its liberty. ‘The House,’ says Lockhart,
‘was crowded with a vast number of people; nothing for two hours could
be heard but voices of members and others (it being dark and candles
lighted) requiring “liberty and no subsidy.”’ The excitement of the
members increased; the clamour of spectators behind the bar grew
louder; and at last the voice of young Roxburghe was heard, above the
din, shouting, ‘What we desire is reasonable, and if we cannot obtain
it by Parliamentary means, we shall demand it, upon the steps of the
throne, with our swords in our hands.’

Upon this the Chancellor rose, and announced that the Government
yielded, and that the overtures for liberty would be discussed upon
the following day.

That night at Holyrood Queensberry and the Ministers discussed the
situation. The town was in an uproar. For several nights the troops
had been under arms; and it had come to the ears of some members of
the Estates that their commander had been so foolish as to threaten,
in his cups, that ‘ways would be found to make the Parliament calm
enough.’ The members were incensed against the Government and against
England; and if they were allowed to discuss the favourite ‘overtures
for liberty,’ there was no saying what might happen. As to the
Supplies, the small sum of money which was obtained from Scotland was
not worth fighting for; and when the Council separated, Queensberry
had almost made up his mind to prorogue the Parliament at once.

Early next morning Fletcher and his friends had a meeting at which
they prepared a measure which they intended to introduce. It provided
that there should be an election every year, at which no officer of
the army, or of the customs or excise, could be elected; that
Parliament should meet at least once in every two years, and that each
sitting should be adjourned on the motion of a member, and not by the
Commissioner. They agreed that if the royal assent was given to this
Act, they would vote the Supplies.

Queensberry heard of this, but he could not, for the sake of securing
a small sum of money, run the risk of giving the royal assent to a
measure which introduced such important changes. Accordingly, when
the House met, he rose, and prorogued the Parliament.

The Country Party spared no pains to let the people of England know
the importance which the people of Scotland attached to the measure to
which the royal assent had been refused. The Act of Security was
circulated, and widely read in London, in an edition to which some
notes were added stating that nothing was ever done with more
deliberation by the Scottish Parliament, and that there was not a
shadow of a reason for supposing that bribery, or any unfair means,
had been used to secure a majority, ‘considering the quality and
estates of those who were for it.’

Fletcher revised his speeches, and printed them in a small octavo
volume, for the purpose of educating the English mind. They were,
perhaps, not much appreciated. The leaves of the copy in the Bodleian
Library at Oxford remained uncut till the autumn of 1896. Englishmen
saw just two facts--that the Scottish Parliament had refused Supplies
in the midst of an European war, and that the Scottish people wished
to be independent of the English Crown.

CHAPTER VI

    ‘A Conversation concerning a Right Regulation of Government for
    the Common Good of Mankind.’

When the turmoil of the Parliament House had ceased for a time,
Fletcher took up his pen. The edition of his speeches which he
prepared has already been mentioned. _A Speech without-doors
concerning Toleration_, supposed to have been published about this
time, has been attributed to him, but, both in style and argument, it
is unlike anything he is known to have written. He has also been
credited with the authorship of an _Historical Account of the Ancient
Rights and Power of the Parliament of Scotland_, which appeared in
1703. The style is like that of Fletcher, but there is no evidence
that he wrote it. Indeed, a passage in the preface, where he speaks of
the author of the _Discourse of Government with Relation to Militias_
as ‘a very learned gentleman of our own country, a great patron of
liberty, and happy in a polite pen,’ makes it almost impossible. He
composed, however, a short piece in which he embodied his theories of
government, and his views regarding the relations of England and
Scotland, in the form of a dialogue on politics, under the title of
‘_An Account of a Conversation concerning a Right Regulation of
Government for the Common Good of Mankind_: In a Letter to the Marquis
of Montrose, the Earls of Rothes, Roxburghe, and Haddington. From
London the first of December 1703.’ In this little duodecimo, of
ninety-two pages printed in italics, he described himself as walking
slowly on the Mall one morning. The Earl of Cromartie and Sir
Christopher Musgrave met him. Cromartie said he would be glad of
Fletcher’s company at dinner, and introduced him to Sir Christopher,
with whom Fletcher was not previously acquainted. Some compliments
passed between them, and then they went to Cromartie’s lodgings in
Whitehall to pass away the time till dinner.

‘Here, gentlemen,’ said the Earl, ‘you have two of the noblest objects
that can delight the eye--the finest river and the greatest city in
the world.’

From the window they saw a charming view of London and the Thames,
which led them to speak of the wonderful situation of the English
capital; the ground on which it was built, sloping to the river and
giving it a natural drainage; the gravel soil, and the salubrious
climate. Then all the country round--Kent, with its choice fruits;
Hertfordshire, with its fields of golden corn; Essex and Surrey,
producing the best of beef and mutton; and Buckinghamshire, whence
came huge wains laden with wood. The river, too, brought to their
doors the produce of all parts of the world in such plenty that
nowhere else were things so cheap and abundant.

Fletcher, thinking how different it all was from Scotland, said that
he had often admired the peace and happiness of the inhabitants,
caused either by the advantages which they enjoyed, or by their
natural temperament. He spoke of their civil and religious liberty, of
the judgments of Westminster Hall, of the great affairs of the
Parliament of England, of the vast transactions on the Exchange, of
the shipping, and of the flourishing trade. He was going on to praise
the recreations and pleasures of the court and the town, when Sir
Christopher called out that these last words had spoilt all he said
before. Talking about the pleasures of the town, he said, reminded
them of all the cheating on the Exchange and in the gaming-houses, and
of the facilities for intrigues which were afforded by the masques,
the hackney coaches, the taverns, and the playhouses of a great city.

This interruption to the flow of Fletcher’s eloquence led them to
discuss social questions. But the problem of how to reform the morals
of society seemed insoluble, and especially in London, where, as Sir
Christopher pointed out, they had to deal both with extreme poverty
and excessive riches. While they were thus conversing, Sir Edward
Seymour arrived, and Fletcher was presented to him.

‘Ah,’ said Sir Edward, ‘you are one of those who, in the late session
of the Scots Parliament, opposed the interests of the Court.’

Then they began to talk politics, and Seymour said Fletcher had been
engaged in framing Utopias. ‘In which, sir,’ he said, ‘you had the
honour to be seconded by several men of quality, of about two or three
and twenty years of age, whose long experience and consummate prudence
in public affairs could not but produce wonderful schemes of
government.’

Fletcher took this sally in good part, and was defending himself
stoutly, when Sir Edward interrupted him.

‘Sir,’ he said, with a sneer, ‘you begin to declaim as if they
overheard you.’

But Fletcher maintained that the Country Party had been right in
acting as they did.

‘Pray, sir,’ asked Seymour, ‘of what is it that they complain?’

Fletcher’s answer was that Scotland was an independent nation, and
that the National Party wanted to secure the honour of the Scottish
Crown, and the freedom of their own Parliament and trade, from either
English or foreign influence.

‘Heyday!’ cried Sir Edward, all in a pet. ‘Here is a fine cant indeed!
Independent nation! Honour of our Crown! And what not? Do you consider
what proportion you bear to England? Not one to forty in rents of
lands. Besides, our greatest riches arise from trade and manufactures,
of which you have none.’

To all this Fletcher replied by saying that the Union of the Crowns
had ruined Scotland; that the French trade had once been great, and
also the Spanish trade, whilst Spain and England were at war; but that
since the Union of the Crowns everything had changed. The Scottish
nobles spent their money in England, and the jealousy of English
merchants had prevented the growth of Scottish commerce.

Here Cromartie said that, in his opinion, there was an easy remedy for
all this, ‘which was an Union of the two nations.’ But Fletcher
thought that an Union would not easily come to pass, nor would it be a
remedy for the grievances he complained of. England, it seemed to him,
had never shown any real willingness to unite. ‘I have always
observed,’ he said, ‘that a Treaty of Union has never been mentioned
by the English, but with a design to amuse us when they apprehended
some danger from our nation.’ This was, he had no doubt, the reason
for the late treaty. England, having chosen a successor to Queen Anne
without consulting Scotland, had thought that the only way to gain
the assent of the Scottish people to the Hanoverian succession was to
propose an Union. Then he gave an account of the state of public
feeling in Scotland on that subject. ‘The Scots, however fond they
have formerly been of such a coalition, are now become much less
concerned for the success of it, from a just sense they have that it
would not only prove no remedy for our present ill condition, but
increase the poverty of our country.’

He gave his reasons. An incorporating Union, which would abolish the
Scottish Parliament, would make Scotland poorer than ever, because
Scotsmen would spend more money than ever in England. Members of
Parliament would go to London and live there. No Scotsman who wanted
public employment would ever set foot in Scotland. Every man who made
a fortune in England would buy land there. The trade of Scotland would
be nothing more than an inconsiderable retail business in an
impoverished country.

Cromartie said he did not think so, and tried to convince Fletcher
that free commerce with England, and the right of trading to the
Colonies, would be an immense boon to Scotland.

‘For my part,’ exclaimed Fletcher, ‘I cannot see what advantages a
free trade to the English plantations would bring us, except a further
exhausting of our people, and the utter ruin of all our merchants,
who should vainly pretend to carry that trade from the English.’

Then he said that the Scots had a further grievance against England.
They were indignant at the scurrilous attacks which were made upon
them by Englishmen.

Here Sir Edward broke out ‘all in a flame.’

‘What a pother is here,’ he cried, ‘about an Union with Scotland, of
which all the advantage we shall have will be no more than what a man
gets by marrying a beggar--a louse for a portion!’

At this Fletcher fired up, and told Cromartie and Sir Christopher that
if Sir Edward had spoken these words in the House of Commons,[6] he
might not notice them, but that as he had chosen to use them in a
private conversation, he would take the liberty to say that he
wondered Sir Edward was not afraid lest such language should make the
company suspect him not to be descended of the noble family whose name
he bore. This pretty way of saying he was no gentleman put Sir Edward
into a towering rage, and they came to high words about the past wars
between the two countries.

    [6] Sir Edward Seymour had actually used these words in the
    House of Commons.

‘’Tis inseparable from the fortunes of our Edwards to triumph over
your nation,’ he said.

‘Do you mean,’ retorted Fletcher, ‘Edward of Carnarvon and his victory
at Bannockburn?’

The altercation was stopped by Sir Christopher, who adroitly changed
the subject, and asked Fletcher what he thought of an Union between
England and Ireland.

‘The better conditions you give them,’ Fletcher represents himself as
saying, ‘the greater wisdom you will show.’

‘But you do not consider,’ said Sir Christopher, ‘that Ireland lies
more commodiously situated for trade, and has better harbours than
England, and if they had the same freedom and privileges, might carry
the trade from us.’

‘Ay,’ said Fletcher, ‘there ’tis. Trade is the constant
stumbling-block and ball of contention. But do you think that if
Ireland, by a just and equal Union with England, should increase in
riches, such an increase would prove so prejudicial to England, where
the seat of the Government is?’

Sir Christopher argued that England, having conquered Ireland, had a
right to use the Irish people ‘at discretion.’

‘Then,’ replied Fletcher, ‘you have a right to do injustice.’

‘’Tis not injustice,’ said Sir Christopher, ‘because it is our right.’
The danger, he argued, is that Ireland may break away from England,
and ‘set up a distinct Government in opposition to our right, and
perhaps with the ruin of this nation.’ ‘What can tempt and provoke
them so much,’ asked Fletcher, ‘to do so, as unjust usage?’ ‘But the
surest way,' was the reply, ‘is to put it out of their power to
separate from us.’ ‘If so,’ said Fletcher, ‘you must own your way of
governing that people to be an oppression; since your design is to
keep them low and weak, and not to encourage either virtue or
industry.’

He went on to expound his theory, which was that London should no
longer be the only seat of Government, but that England, Scotland, and
Ireland should be joined together in a federal Union. ‘That London,’ he
said, ‘should draw the riches and government of the three kingdoms to
the south-east corner of this island, is in some degree as unnatural
as for one city to possess the riches and government of the world....
I shall add that so many different seats of Government will highly
encourage virtue. For all the same offices that belong to a great
kingdom must be in each of them; with this difference, that the
offices of such a kingdom being always burdened with more business
than any one man can rightly execute, most things are abandoned to the
rapacity of servants; and the extravagant profits of great officers
plunge them into all manner of luxury, and debauch them from doing
good; whereas the offices of these lesser Governments, extending only
over a moderate number of people, will be duly executed, and many men
have occasions put into their hands of doing good to their
fellow-citizens. So many different seats of Government will highly
tend to the improvement of all arts and sciences, and afford great
variety of entertainment to all foreigners, and others of a curious
and inquisitive genius, as the ancient cities of Greece did.’

‘I perceive now,’ Sir Edward broke in, ‘the tendency of all this
discourse. On my conscience, he has contrived the whole scheme to no
other end than to set his own country on an equal foot with England
and the rest of the world.’

Fletcher’s answer was that Scotland, if separated from England, must
be involved in constant war; but that if united to England, and at the
same time left in possession of the power of self-government, she
would be prosperous. ‘This,’ he exclaimed, ‘is the only just and
rational kind of Union. All other coalitions are but the unjust
subjection of one people to another.’

At this point the conversation ended. ‘I was going on,’ he concludes,
‘to open many things concerning those leagued Governments, when a
servant came to acquaint us that dinner was set on the table. We were
nobly entertained, and after dinner I took leave of the company, and
returned to my lodgings, having promised to meet them again at another
time to discourse further on the same subject.’

This imaginary dialogue is perhaps the best known of Fletcher’s
writings. The style almost approaches that of the _Tatlers_ and
_Spectators_, and it contains the well-known saying about ballads. Sir
Christopher alludes to the infamous ballads which were sung in the
streets of London, and their bad influence on the morals of the
people. ‘One would think,’ says Cromartie, ‘this last were of no great
consequence.’

‘I knew,’ remarks Fletcher, ‘a very wise man so much of Sir
Christopher’s sentiment that he believed if a man were permitted to
make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a
nation.’

The ‘very wise man’ is, of course, Fletcher’s ironical description of
himself; and the epigram may be taken as an instance of the kind of
humour which flashes out, every now and then, in his treatment of the
grave topics on which he most delights to dwell. Lord Buchan has
preserved another instance of Fletcher’s irony. ‘Fletcher,’ he says,
‘used to say with Cromwell and Milton that the trappings of a monarchy
and a great aristocracy would patch up a very clever little
commonwealth.’ Being in company with the witty Dr. Pitcairn, the
conversation turned on a person of learning whose history was not
distinctly known. ‘I knew the man well,’ said Fletcher; ‘he was
hereditary Professor of Divinity at Hamburgh.’ ‘_Hereditary_
Professor!’ said Pitcairn, with a laugh of astonishment and derision.
‘Yes, Doctor,’ replied Fletcher, ‘hereditary Professor of Divinity.
What think you of an hereditary King?’

CHAPTER VII

    A New Ministry in Scotland--Scenes in the Parliament House--The
    Act of Security becomes Law--England retaliates by passing the
    Alien Act.

Before the next session of the Scottish Parliament there had been a
change in the Scottish Ministry. The ‘Scots Plot,’ in connection with
which Queensberry had played such a sorry part, had proved to
Godolphin that a new Commissioner must be appointed; and Queensberry
was discarded in favour of Tweeddale, who formed a Ministry in which
Johnston of Warriston was Lord Register, Cromartie was Secretary of
State, and Seafield Chancellor. He succeeded, moreover, in securing
the support of several members of the Country Party, among whom
Rothes, Roxburghe, Belhaven, and Dundas of Arniston were prominent.
This party took the name of the New Party; and the Government in
London hoped that the Opposition would now be so far weakened that
nothing more would be heard of the Act of Security.

Parliament met in the beginning of July 1704. The Queen’s Speech urged
the necessity of settling the Protestant Succession in Scotland, and,
at the same time, promised that the royal assent would be given to any
proper means of securing the liberties and the independence of
Scotland; but it was soon found that the Estates were as intractable
as ever. Hamilton at once moved ‘that this Parliament will not proceed
to the nomination of a successor to the Crown until we have had a
previous treaty with England in relation to our commerce, and other
concerns with that nation.’

On this subject there were long debates, in which Fletcher, says
Lockhart, ‘did elegantly and pathetically set forth the hardships and
miseries to which we have been exposed since the Union of the two
Crowns of Scotland and England in one and the same Sovereign.’ At last
Hamilton moved that the Act of Security and an Act granting supplies
to the Crown should be tacked together. When this proposal was
discussed, Johnston said that the plan of ‘tacking’ was reasonable in
England where there were two Houses, and where the Commons might be
forced to bring the Lords to reason by sending up a Money Bill along
with some measure which the Upper House would not otherwise pass. Such
a system, he argued, did not suit the Scottish Parliament, which
consisted of only one chamber. It was, moreover, ‘a straitening of the
Queen, who might possibly consent to the one and not to the other.’

‘Now,’ said Fletcher, ‘it appears there must be a bargain, and unless
the Parliament go into the measures laid down in England, nothing must
be done; and he who spoke last has undertaken to obtain these measures
to be performed here. I know,’ he went on, ‘and can make it appear
that the Register has undertaken to persecute the English designs for
promotion to himself.’

On this some of the members called out that Fletcher should be sent to
the bar of the House for using such language.

Fletcher, backed up by Hamilton, then declared that the Queen’s letter
had been written when no Scotsman was with her, and must, therefore,
have been concocted under English influence. Johnston denied this, and
said that the draught of the letter had been sent up from Scotland.

Fletcher still maintained that he was right; and on this Sir James
Halket called out that Saltoun was impertinent. To this Fletcher’s
reply was that any member who used such words of him was a rascal.

‘The House,’ says Sir David Hume, ‘being alarmed at such expressions,
Sir James Erskine moved both should be sent to prison.’ The incident
ended by the Chancellor giving a ‘sharp rebuke’ to both the honourable
members, who were forced to express their regret, and to promise, upon
their word of honour, that they would not take any notice elsewhere of
what had happened.

In the end the House decided that the Act of Security should be read a
first time, and should, along with the Act of Supply, lie on the table
until it was known whether it was to receive the royal assent. It was
soon found that the Scottish Parliament had at last gained the day;
and in the beginning of August the Act of Security received the royal
assent. On this the Estates voted the supplies.

During the rest of the session Fletcher spoke frequently. He was
especially indignant against the House of Lords for an address which
they had presented to the throne on the subject of the Scots Plot; and
he went so far as to move that ‘the House of Peers in England their
address to the Queen to use her endeavours to get the succession of
England settled in Scotland, and inquiring into the plot, so far as it
concerned Scotland and Scotsmen, was an undue intermeddling with our
affairs, and an encroachment upon the sovereignty and independency of
Scotland; and that the behaviour of the House of Commons in these
matters was like good subjects of our Queen, and as neighbourly
friends of this nation.’

The feeling of the Estates may be gathered from the fact that they
refused to approve of the conduct of the Commons, but agreed to
censure the House of Lords. Nothing done by the English Parliament was
right.

Just before the end of the session Fletcher brought in a measure for
the purpose of adding eleven county members to the Parliament, and one
more, in future, for every new peer who might be created. Hamilton, at
the same time, introduced an ‘Act about free voting in Parliament,’
the object of which was to exclude from the House officers in the
army, collectors of customs, and some other persons in the pay of the
Crown.

On the 24th of August, Fletcher moved the second reading of his
measure; and, as soon as he sat down, Hamilton moved the second
reading of his. On this Fletcher said, ‘The member who has just spoken
contradicts himself,’ and explained that Hamilton had been in favour
of the measure for adding to the county members, which he was now
hindering.

Hamilton at once complained of the way in which he had been spoken of,
and offered to go to the bar, ‘If I have said anything amiss.’