Since their religious enthusiasm had been laid at rest by the
Revolution Settlement, the Scottish people had been chiefly animated
by a desire of participating in the commerce of England. The treatment
of their expedition to Darien had now inspired them with a bitter
feeling against their southern neighbors, and they resolved to show
their power of counter-annoyance by holding up threats of dissenting
from England in the matter of the succession. In 1703, their
Parliament passed the famous _Act of Security_, by which it was
ordained that the successor of her majesty in Scotland should not be
the same with the individual adopted by the English Parliament, unless
there should be a free communication of trade between the countries,
and the affairs of Scotland thoroughly secured from English influence.
Another act was at the same time passed for putting the nation under
arms. The English ministers then saw that an incorporating union would
be necessary to prevent the Pretender from gaining the Scottish crown,
and to protect England from the attacks of a hostile nation. For this
purpose they exerted themselves so effectually in the Scottish
Parliament, as to obtain an act, enabling the queen to nominate
commissioners for the arrangement of a union. The men appointed,
thirty on each side, were, with hardly an exception, the friends of
the court and of the Revolution Settlement; and the treaty accordingly
was drawn up without difficulty.
In October 1706, this document was submitted to the Scottish
Parliament, and was found to contain the following principal
points:――That the two nations were to be indissolubly united under one
government and legislature, each, however, retaining its own civil and
criminal law; the crown to be in the House of Hanover; the Scottish
Presbyterian church to be guaranteed; forty-five members to be sent by
the Scottish counties and burghs to the House of Commons, and sixteen
elective peers to be sent to the Upper House by the nobles; the taxes
to be equalized, but, in consideration of the elevation of the Scotch
imposts to the level of the English (for the latter people already
owed sixteen millions), an equivalent was to be given to Scotland,
amounting to nearly four hundred thousand pounds, which was to aid in
renewing the coin, and other objects. These terms were regarded in
Scotland as miserably inadequate; and the very idea of the loss of an
independent legislature and a place among governments, raised their
utmost indignation. Nevertheless, by dint of bribery, the union was
carried through Parliament; and from the 1st of May 1707, the two
countries formed one state, under the title of the Kingdom of Great
Britain.