Scotland, in this hour of her darkness, presented a deplorable picture; the great part of her nobility beggared, and dependant on the scraps and fragments of royal bounty, ruled her parlia ment, and exhibited unalloyed, and unadorned, the necessary consequences of hereditary legislation, in intrusting the supreme councillorship of the kingdom, to men, who inherited the parliamentary rights of their ancestors, without their virtues or their wealth; especially, where, as in Scotland, the three estates of the realm met in the same apartment, and where the pride of birth and of station claimed a deference, which the commons had not yet acquired an importance sufficient to counteract. The majority of the gentry, still respectable, who cherished the spirit of piety and independence, which had animated their fathers, were excluded from all offices of trust or influence, by pernicious tests; and two-thirds of the industrious sober inhabitants of the country, were persecuted and harassed for their religious opinions, the very habits, which, in the natural and ordinary intercourse of life, render men good members of society, and loyal subjects, being proscribed as the marks of sedition; and, to finish the sketch, there was a standing army ready to execute almost every despotic command.

Could any thing aggravate the monstrous ingratitude of Charles in endeavouring to enslave an affectionate and loyal people, it would be the perfidious means by which he attempted to accomplish it-the base sacrifice of national glory for the grovelling purpose of sensual gratification; and in Lauderdale he had a most admirable counterpart. Accordingly, after employing him to forward the wretched and faithless policy of the second Dutch war, he considered him as a fit instrument for endeavouring to render one of the British nations an accomplice in establishing arbitrary power in the other. His office of commissioner, therefore, was prolonged, after the object for which it had been ostensibly bestowed had failed, and, decorated with the title of duke, he was sent down to Scotland to hold the third session of his parliament. Previously to attending to business, however, he made a triumphal tour through the country to exhibit his new dutchess, during which, a splendour and a servility were displayed equal, if not superior, to the royal pageantries of former times; his favourites vied with each

other in munificent hospitality, and anticipated reimbursement from hateful monopolies, or ruinous fines.*

At the opening of the parliament, June 11th, 1672, his lady had chairs placed for herself and some of her attendants, where they sat in great state and heard the commissioner deliver his speech-an honour never conferred on any of the Scottish kings' queens, and which, when contrasted with her origin and previous conduct, did not tend to exalt her in public estimation, Upon being assured that no money was required, the estates unanimously, and with great cordiality, returned his majesty their hearty thanks for his gracious communication, approved of the war with Holland, and made in due form the tender of their lives and fortunes for its prosecution, additional restrictions were imposed upon the presbyterians, and the 29th of May was ordered to be kept for ever as a day of thanksgiving for the restoration of his majesty, and the consequent happiness of his people! In the management of this session, the commissioner displayed the same boisterous, irascible and domineering haughtiness as in the former. It had been proposed to take away the summer session, and add a month or two to the winter instead. This motion, which a number of west country members approved, had been withdrawn, it was generally said, in consequence of some secret but powerful arguments used to the dutchess of Lauderdale by the citizens of Edinburgh, who were deeply interested in retaining the courts as long as possible in the city. Sir Colin Campbell, burgess for Inveraray, moved it again, at which Lauderdale in a fury exclaimed with an oath, that it should never be taken away, except his majesty should name another commissioner, and none should carry it, except over his belly.

Notwithstanding the promise, both in the king's letter and the commissioner's speech, that no subsidy should be requested, his grace induced Athole to move in the articles, that although

The Laird of Boussie, a rich gentleman, was brought before him, (Lauderdale,) for hearing a Presbyterian minister, whom he entertained as his chaplain, and was fined in 27,000 merks; and this was given to the earl of Athole, to clear Lauderdale's quarters, who at this time made a stately visit to the earl with his lady and family, where there was no complaint of want while they were there. Kirton, p. 326.

his majesty had declined asking, yet, considering the exigencies of the time, and the expense of the war, the house were bound in duty to offer a grant, that the money might be in readiness whatever unexpected necessity might arise, and the more generous the sovereign showed himself, the more devoted loyalty should they exhibit. Robert Mill, provost of Linlithgow, a ready sycophant, immediately seconded the proposition, and tendered a twelvemonths' cess, which would have been carried in the committee, had not the commissioner himself, surprised at the extravagance of the offer, held up five of his fingers to Athole, who reduced the quota to five. But even to this reduced vote many of the nobility objected, as the country was exhausted of money, and, owing to the war with Holland, neither grain, cattle, nor fish, could be exported; and a number of them having met privately, it was resolved to oppose this exaction. The commissioner, who anxiously wished the subsidy passed, then proposed that the landholders should retain the interest of monies due by them in their own hands to meet the tax, by which means those who were deeply in debt would be empowered to defraud their creditors of more than they were required to pay to the king-a proposition which met with ready approbation from many of the needy nobility and gentry. When the act, however, was brought into parliament, it encountered considerable opposition from the third estate. "They had," it was said, "the royal assurance, that no subsidy was to be craved; nor was it just and reasonable that they should contribute to prolong a contest, by the continuance of which the country was impoverished, and for the support of which his majesty, who certainly best knew the necessities of the state and the condition of the war, had assured them they should not be burdened. That ever since the restoration, the little money the usurpers had left had been drawn out in subsidies, and it would be proper for the parliament to let the people see at least one session without a cess; nor could the cess avail in the present instance; if the enemy did not invade it was useless, but insignificant if they did, for then nothing less than the cordial concourse of the whole kingdom could prove effectual, and the exacting such a tax at that time would cool the affections of the people; neither had any former similar impositions tended to

any thing but to drain the community, and enrich courtiers and favourites." The freedom of this language infuriated the commissioner, and he determined to wreak his vengeance on one of the most insignificant of his opponents. William Moor, an advocate and burgess of Inverurie, having suggested the propriety of consulting their constituents, as was usual in such cases in England, Lauderdale, in an ecstasy of rage, ordered the representative to be put to the bar, for offering to impose the customs of England upon the parliament of Scotland; and the silence of the insulted assembly upon this humbling occasion was only broken by the president of the court of session, who moved that the young man should be sent to prison till his crime was maturely considered, in order that their more important proceedings should not be interrupted, as if any proceedings could have been more important than vindicating their freedom of debate from such an outrage. The member was accordingly committed, and next day, on his knees, asked pardon of the commissioner, to the everlasting disgrace of the pusillanimous legislators, who, in his person, sacrificed their privileges, and exposed their meeting to derision.

The only act of this session which appears not to merit censure, was one for retrenching advocates' fees, and shortening processes, which, however pleasant to the lieges, was far from being agreeable to the faculty, and probably had some influence in the memorable stand which they afterwards made against an arbitrary measure of the court, and in the antipathy which Sir George M'Kenzie evidently bore to Hatton, with whom he alleges the act originated.

Among the miseries with which Scotland was afflicted, the various monopolies deserve particular notice, not only from the extent of the suffering they occasioned, but likewise from the united opposition to which they gave rise ;-the only serious resistance the power of Lauderdale experienced during his long and pernicious sway. The duty on salt, perhaps among the most mischievous species of excise, even when levied in the most regular manner by proper officers, became doubly pernicious in the hands of the salt masters, and the exchequer had, in consequence of complaints, negotiated with them so far, that

the general sale was transferred to the king's servants; but this management was found to be worse than the former, and, therefore, under pretext that the public would be better served, the earl of Kincardine farmed the trade from the crown, and immediately that necessary article rose from four to fourteen shillings sterling per boll, while the article itself was deteriorated, and the supply deficient. The importation of brandy had been prohibited, in order to encourage home distillation, but the seizures which were allowed to be sold were granted to lord Elphingston, the son-in-law of Hatton, and he, by granting licenses to importers, rendered that spirit more plenty and cheaper than ever, while he created for himself a handsome private exchequer. Tobacco was similarly disposed of to Sir John Nicolson, but under a more decent pretext-to liquidate the bonds which the nobility had granted to his grandfather, Sir William Dick, for the monies advanced by him at the beginning of the civil war. Sir Andrew Ramsay, the provost of Edinburgh, had a gift of the duties on ale and wines consumed within the city, in consideration of a handsome present to the duke. All Lauderdale's minions, his most distant relatives, and even his servants, were gratified with gifts, or waited in expectation of new monopolies; for the act which gave the king the regulation of foreign trade, left every kind of merchandise at the mercy of the commissioner.*

By the laws respecting religious conformity, almost the whole population of every rank was exposed either personally or relatively to the exaction of severe fines; nor were the lucrative statutes allowed to remain as dead letters. In the small shire of Renfrew, ten gentlemen, and these not the most opulent, were amerced in the enormous sum of nearly nine hundred thousand pounds Scots, or upwards of thirty thousand pounds sterling, besides what was levied in lesser penalties, and went into the pockets of the magistrates who exacted them—these, too, were monopolized and farmed out, and while the commissioner's income, far exceeding what any former Scottish monarch

* Scotland's Grievances under the Duke of Lauderdale. Wodrow's Appendix, vol. i. M'Kenzie, p. 242, et seq. Law's Memorials, p. 43. Burnet, vol. ii. p. 84. Scots Acts.