was now set on commercial enterprises, which England everywhere thwarted, it was plain that the two kingdoms could not live together on the existing terms.  Union there must be, or conquest, as under Cromwell; yet an English war of conquest was impossible, because it was impossible for Scotland to resist.  Never would the country renew, as in the old days, the alliance of France, for a French alliance meant the acceptance by Scotland of a Catholic king.

England, on her side, if Union came, was accepting a partner with very poor material resources.  As regards agriculture, for example, vast regions were untilled, or tilled only in the straths and fertile spots by the hardy clansmen, who could not raise oats enough for their own subsistence, and periodically endured famines.  In “the ill years” of William, years of untoward weather, distress had been extreme.  In the fertile Lowlands that old grievance, insecurity of tenure, and the raising of rents in proportion to improvements made by the tenants, had baffled agriculture.  Enclosures were necessary for the protection of the crops, but even if tenants or landlords had the energy or capital to make enclosures, the neighbours destroyed them under cloud of night.  The old labour-services were still extorted; the tenant’s time and strength were not his own.  Land was exhausted by absence of fallows and lack of manure.  The country was undrained, lochs and morasses covered what is now fertile land, and hillsides now in pasture were under the plough.  The once prosperous linen trade had suffered from the war of tariffs.

The life of the burghs, political and municipal and trading, was little advanced on the mediaeval model.  The independent Scot steadily resisted instruction from foreign and English craftsmen in most of the mechanical arts.  Laws for the encouragement of trades were passed and bore little fruit.  Companies were founded and were ruined by English tariffs and English competition.  The most energetic of the population went abroad, here they prospered in commerce and in military service, while an enormous class of beggars lived on the hospitality of their neighbours at home.  In such conditions of inequality it was plain that, if there was to be a Union, the adjustment of proportions of taxation and of representation in Parliament would require very delicate handling, while the differences of Church Government were certain to cause jealousies and opposition.

CHAPTER XXIX.  PRELIMINARIES TO THE UNION.

The Scottish Parliament was not dissolved at William’s death, nor did it meet at the time when, legally, it ought to have met.  Anne, in a message, expressed hopes that it would assent to Union, and promised to concur in any reasonable scheme for compensating the losers by the Darien scheme.  When Parliament met, Queensberry, being Commissioner, soon found it necessary (June 30, 1702) to adjourn.  New officers of State were then appointed, and there was a futile meeting between English and Scottish Commissioners chosen by the Queen to consider the Union.