There was much friction in the first year of the Union over excisemen and tax-collectors:  smuggling began to be a recognised profession.  Meanwhile, since 1707, a Colonel Hooke had been acting in Scotland, nominally in Jacobite, really rather in French interests.  Hooke’s intrigues were in part betrayed by De Foe’s agent, Ker of Kersland, an amusingly impudent knave, and were thwarted by jealousies of Argyll and Hamilton.  By deceptive promises (for he was himself deceived into expecting the aid of the Ulster Protestants) Hooke induced Louis XIV. to send five men-of-war, twenty-one frigates, and only two transports, to land James in Scotland (March 1708).  The equinoctial gales and the severe illness of James, who insisted on sailing, delayed the start; the men on the outlook for the fleet were intoxicated, and Forbin, the French commander, observing English ships of war coming towards the Firth of Forth, fled, refusing James’s urgent entreaties to be landed anywhere on the coast (March 24).  It was believed that had he landed only with a valet the discontented country would have risen for their native king.

In Parliament (1710-1711) the Cavalier Scottish members, by Tory support, secured the release from prison of a Rev. Mr Greenshields, an Episcopalian who prayed for Queen Anne, indeed, but had used the liturgy.  The preachers were also galled by the imposition on them of an abjuration oath, compelling them to pray for prelatical Queen Anne.  Lay patronage of livings was also restored (1712) after many vicissitudes, and this thorn rankled in the Kirk, causing ever-widening strife for more than a century.

The imposition of a malt tax produced so much discontent that even Argyll, with all the Scottish members of Parliament, was eager for the repeal of the Act of Union, and proposed it in the House of Peers, when it was defeated by a small majority.  In 1712, when about to start on a mission to France, Hamilton was slain in a duel by Lord Mohun.  According to a statement of Lockhart’s, “Cavaliers were to look for the best” from Hamilton’s mission:  it is fairly clear that he was to bring over James in disguise to England, as in Thackeray’s novel, ‘Esmond.’  But the sword of Mohun broke the Jacobite plans.  Other hopes expired when Bolingbroke and Harley quarrelled, and Queen Anne died (August 1, 1714).  “The best cause in Europe was lost,” cried Bishop Atterbury, “for want of spirit.”  He would have proclaimed James as king, but no man supported him, and the Elector of Hanover, George I., peacefully accepted the throne.

CHAPTER XXX.  GEORGE I.