Argyle.—­They seemed in general to have lost every characteristic of their natural temper, except a desire to abuse the royal authority for the gratification of their private resentments in family quarrels.

Douglas.—­Your grandfather, my lord, has the glory of not deserving this censure.

Argyle.—­I am proud that his spirit, and the principles he professed, drew upon him the injustice and fury of those times.  But there needs no other proof than the nature and the manner of his condemnation to show what a wretched state our nobility then were in, and what an inestimable advantage it is to them that they are now to be tried as peers of Great Britain, and have the benefit of those laws which imparted to us the equity and the freedom of the English Constitution.

Upon the whole, as much as wealth is preferable to poverty, liberty to oppression, and national strength to national weakness, so much has Scotland incontestably gained by the union.  England, too, has secured by it every public blessing which was before enjoyed by her, and has greatly augmented her strength.  The martial spirit of the Scotch, their hardy bodies, their acute and vigorous minds, their industry, their activity, are now employed to the benefit of the whole island.  He is now a bad Scotchman who is not a good Englishman, and he is a bad Englishman who is not a good Scotchman.  Mutual intercourse, mutual interests, mutual benefits, must naturally be productive of mutual affection.  And when that is established, when our hearts are sincerely united, many great things, which some remains of jealousy and distrust, or narrow local partialities, may hitherto have obstructed, will be done for the good of the whole United Kingdom.  How much may the revenues of Great Britain be increased by the further increase of population, of industry, and of commerce in Scotland!  What a mighty addition to the stock of national wealth will arise from the improvement of our most northern counties, which are infinitely capable of being improved!  The briars and thorns are in a great measure grubbed up; the flowers and fruits may soon be planted.  And what more pleasing, or what more glorious employment can any government have, than to attend to the cultivating of such a plantation?

Douglas.—­The prospect you open to me of happiness to my country appears so fair, that it makes me amends for the pain with which I reflect on the times wherein I lived, and indeed on our whole history for several ages.

Argyle.—­That history does, in truth, present to the mind a long series of the most direful objects, assassinations, rebellions, anarchy, tyranny, and religion itself, either cruel, or gloomy and unsocial.  An historian who would paint it in its true colours must take the pencil of Guercino or Salvator Rosa.  But the most agreeable imagination can hardly figure to itself a more pleasing scene of private and public felicity than will naturally result from the union, if all the prejudices against it, and all distinctions that may tend on either side to keep up an idea of separate interests, or to revive a sharp remembrance of national animosities, can be removed.