CONFERENCES OPENED FOR A TREATY OF UNION WITH SCOTLAND.

The eyes of Great Britain were now turned upon a transaction of the utmost consequence to the whole island; namely, the treaty for an union of the two kingdoms of England and Scotland. The queen having appointed the commissioners 139 [See note 2 A, at the end of this Vol.] on both sides, they met on the sixteenth day of April, in the council chamber of the Cockpit near Whitehall, which was the place appointed for the conferences. Their commissions being opened and read by the respective secretaries, and introductory speeches being pronounced by the lord-keeper of England, and the lord chancellor of Scotland, they agreed to certain preliminary articles, importing, that all the proposals should be made in writing; and every point, when agreed, reduced to writing; that no points should be obligatory, till all matters should be adjusted in such a manner as would be proper to be laid before the queen and the two parliaments for their approbation; that a committee should be appointed from each commission, to revise the minutes of what might pass, before they should be inserted in the books by the respective secretaries; and that all the proceedings during the treaty should be kept secret. The Scots were inclined to a federal union, like that of the United Provinces; but the English were bent upon an incorporation, so that no Scottish parliament should ever have power to repeal the articles of the treaty. The lord-keeper proposed that the two kingdoms of England and Scotland should be for ever united into one realm, by the name of Great Britain: that it should be represented by one and the same parliament; and that the succession of this monarchy, failing of heirs of her majesty’s body, should be according to the limitations mentioned in the act of parliament passed in the reign of king William, intituled, an act for the further limitation of the crown, and the better securing the rights and liberties of the subject. The Scottish commissioners, in order to comply in some measure with the popular clamour of their nation, presented a proposal implying that the succession to the crown of Scotland should be established upon the same persons mentioned in the act of king William’s reign; that the subjects of Scotland should for ever enjoy all the rights and privileges of the natives in England, and the dominions thereunto belonging; and that the subjects of England should enjoy the like rights and privileges in Scotland; that there should be a free communication and intercourse of trade and navigation between the two kingdoms, and plantations thereunto belonging; and that all laws and statutes in either kingdom, contrary to the terms of this union, should be repealed. The English commissioners declined entering into any considerations upon these proposals, declaring themselves fully convinced that nothing but an entire union could settle a perfect and lasting friendship between the two kingdoms. The Scots acquiesced in this reply, and both sides proceeded in the treaty without any other intervening dispute. They were twice visited by the queen, who exhorted them to accelerate the articles of a treaty that would prove so advantageous to both kingdoms. At length they were finished, arranged, and mutually signed, on the twenty-second of July, and next day presented to her majesty, at the palace of St. James’s, by the lord-keeper, in the name of the English commissioners; at the same time a sealed copy of the instrument was likewise delivered by the lord chancellor of Scotland; and each made a short oration on the subject, to which the queen returned a very gracious reply. That same day she dictated an order of council, that whoever should be concerned in any discourse or libel, or in laying wagers relating to the union, should be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law.