THE KING DISOWNS THE SCOTTISH TRADING COMPANY.

By this time a ferment had been raised in Scotland by the opposition and discouragements their new company had sustained. They had employed agents in England, Holland, and Hamburgh, to receive subscriptions. The adventurers in England were intimidated by the measures which had been taken in parliament against the Scottish company. The Dutch East India company took the alarm, and exerted all their interest to prevent their countrymen from subscribing; and the king permitted his resident at Hamburgh to present a memorial against the Scottish company to the senate of that city. The parliament of Scotland being assembled by the earl of Marchmont as king’s commissioner, the company presented it with a remonstrance containing a detail of their grievances, arising from the conduct of the English house of commons, as well as from the memorial presented by the king’s minister at Hamburgh, in which he actually disowned the act of parliament and letters patent which had passed in their favour, and threatened the inhabitants of that city with his majesty’s resentment in case they should join the Scots in their undertaking. They represented that such instances of interposition had put a stop to the subscriptions in England and Hamburgh, hurt the credit of the company, discouraged the adventurers, and threatened the entire ruin of a design in which all the most considerable families of the nation were deeply engaged. The parliament having taken their case into consideration, sent an address to his majesty representing the hardships to which the company had been exposed, explaining how far the nation in general was concerned in the design, and entreating that he would take such measures as might effectually vindicate the undoubted rights and privileges of the company. This address was seconded by a petition from the company itself, praying that his majesty would give some intimation to the senate of Hamburgh, permitting the inhabitants of that city to renew the subscriptions they had withdrawn; that, as a gracious mark of his royal favour to the company, he would bestow upon them two small frigates then lying useless in the harbour of Burnt Island; and that, in consideration of the obstructions they had encountered, he would continue their privileges and immunities for such longer time as should seem reasonable to his majesty. Though the commissioner was wholly devoted to the king, who had actually resolved to ruin this company, he could not appease the resentment of the nation; and the heats of parliament became so violent that he was obliged to adjourn it to the fifth day of November. In this interval the directors of the company, understanding from their agent at Hamburgh that the address of the parliament and their own petition had produced no effect in their favour, wrote a letter of complaint to the lord Seafield, secretary of state, observing that they had received repeated assurances of the king’s having given orders to his resident at Hamburgh touching their memorial, and entreating the interposition of his lordship that justice might be done to the company. The secretary in his answer promised to take the first convenient opportunity of representing the affair to his majesty; but he said this could not be immediately expected, as the king was much engaged in the affairs of the English parliament. This declaration the directors considered, as it really was, a mere evasion, which helped to alienate the minds of that people from the king’s person and government.

WILLIAM, 1688—1701.