a great promoter of the union, he frankly owned to me, that this necessity, brought upon us by the wrong management of the earl of Godolphin, was the only cause of the union.
Therefore I am ready to grant two points to the author of the Crisis: first, that the union became necessary for the cause above related; because it prevented this island from being governed by two kings; which England would never have suffered; and it might probably have cost us a war of a year or two to reduce the Scots. Secondly, that it would be dangerous to break this union, at least in this juncture, while there is a pretender abroad, who might probably lay hold of such an opportunity. And this made me wonder a little at the spirit of faction last summer, among some people, who, having been the great promoters of the union, and several of them the principal gainers by it[1], could yet proceed so far as to propose in the house of lords, that it should be dissolved: while, at the same time, those peers, who had ever opposed it in the beginning, were then for preserving it, upon the reason I have just assigned, and which the author of the Crisis has likewise taken notice of.
But when he tells us, "the Englishmen ought, in generosity, to be more particularly careful in pre-
- ↑ The duke of Argyll, who zealously promoted the union, the earl of Mar, Mr. Lockhart, and Mr. Cockburn, having been deputed on purpose, remonstrated to the queen against the malt tax, which they said would probably prompt the Scots to declare the union dissolved. The earl of Finlater soon after moved the house of lords for leave to bring in a bill for dissolving the union; he was seconded by the earl of Mar, and supported by lord Eglinton, the earl of Hay, the duke of Argyll, and others.
