Argyle.—­They were; but yet they did us no lasting good.  They left us still dependent on the protection of France.  They left us a poor, a feeble, a distressed, though a most valiant nation.  They irritated England, but could not subdue it, nor hinder our feeling such effects of its enmity as gave us no reason to rejoice in our triumphs.  How much more happily, in the auspicious reign of that queen who formed the Union, was my sword employed in humbling the foes of Great Britain!  With how superior a dignity did I appear in the combined British senate, maintaining the interests of the whole united people of England and Scotland against all foreign powers who attempted to disturb our general happiness or to invade our common rights!

Douglas.—­Your eloquence and your valour had unquestionably a much nobler and more spacious field to exercise themselves in than any of those who defended the interests of only a part of the island.

Argyle.—­Whenever I read any account of the wars between the Scotch and the English, I think I am reading a melancholy history of civil dissensions.  Whichever side is defeated, their loss appears to me a loss to the whole and an advantage to some foreign enemy of Great Britain.  But the strength of that island is made complete by the Union, and what a great English poet has justly said in one instance is now true in all:—­

   “The Hotspur and the Douglas, both together,
   Are confident against the world in arms.”

Who can resist the English and Scotch valour combined?  When separated and opposed, they balanced each other; united, they will hold the balance of Europe.  If all the Scotch blood that has been shed for the French in unnatural wars against England had been poured out to oppose the ambition of France, in conjunction with the English—­if all the English blood that has been spilt as unfortunately in useless wars against Scotland had been preserved, France would long ago have been rendered incapable of disturbing our peace, and Great Britain would have been the most powerful of nations.

Douglas.—­There is truth in all you have said.  But yet when I reflect on the insidious ambition of King Edward I., on the ungenerous arts he so treacherously employed to gain, or rather to steal, the sovereignty of our kingdom, and the detestable cruelty he showed to Wallace, our brave champion and martyr, my soul is up in arms against the insolence of the English, and I adore the memory of those patriots who died in asserting the independence of our Crown and the liberty of our nation.

Argyle.—­Had I lived in those days I should have joined with those patriots, and been the foremost to maintain so noble a cause.  The Scotch were not made to be subject to the English.  Their souls are too great for such a timid submission.  But they may unite and incorporate with a nation they would not obey.  Their scorn of a foreign yoke, their strong and generous love of independence and freedom, make their union with England more natural and more proper.  Had the spirit of the Scotch been servile or base, it could never have coalesced with that of the English.