Since writing these hasty thoughts, I hear it reported that we are to
have an extension of our precarious reprieve, and that our six months
are to be extended to six years. I would not have Scotland trust to
this hollow truce. The measure ought, like all others, to be canvassed
on its merits, and frankly admitted or rejected; it has been stirred
and ought to be decided. I request my countrymen not to be soothed
into inactivity by that temporising, and, I will say, unmanly
vacillation. Government is pledged to nothing by taking an open
course; for if the bill, so far as applicable to Scotland, is at
present absolutely laid aside, there can be no objection to their
resuming it at any period, when from change of circumstances, it may
be advantageous to Scotland, and when, for what I know, it may be
welcomed as a boon.
But if held over our heads as a minatory measure, to take place within
a certain period, what can the event be but to cripple and ultimately
destroy the present system, on which a direct attack is found at
present inexpedient? Can the bankers continue to conduct their
profession on the same secure footing, with an abrogation of it in
prospect? Must it not cease to be what it has hitherto been--a
business carried on both for their own profit, and for the
accommodation of the country? Instead of employing their capital in
the usual channels, must they not in self-defence employ it in forming
others? Will not the substantial and wealthy withdraw their funds from
that species of commerce? And may not the place of these be supplied
by men of daring adventure, without corresponding capital, who will
take a chance of wealth or ruin in the chances of the game?
If it is the absolute and irrevocable determination that the bill is
to be extended to us, the sooner the great penalty is inflicted the
better; for in politics and commerce, as in all the other affairs of
life, absolute and certain evil is better than uncertainty and
protracted suspense.