An Account of the Affairs of Scotland In Answer to a Letter Written upon the occasion of the Address lately Presented to His Majesty by some Members of the Parliament of that Kingdom SIR I Will comply with your Desires in giving you a view of the Scottish-Affairs and before I make particular Answers to your Questions I will lay open the whole matter of Fact which hath occurred in the Meeting of Estates in Their Majesties Acceptance of the Crown and the Instructions given by His Majesty to His Commissioner for holding of the Parliament that you may be the better able to make a Judgment how far His Majesty hath made Concessions to satisfie the Minds and ease the Grievances of that Nation by His Offers in His Instructions to quite voluntarily these Advantages which the Crown hath insensibly got over the People ever since the Union of the two Kingdoms whereby Scotland is as much in the Power and Mercy of their Kings as most of the Nations in Europe by a Legal Constitution and the Consent of the People in Parliament It may be then Surprising if this great Opportunity hath not been Imbraced and these offered Concessions turned into perpetual Laws But the Ambition of some and the Selfish-Designs of others hath Obstructed the Happiness which that Nation could only expect from this Revolution and have kept it under the Power of these severe Laws and stretched Prerogatives which His Majesty was willing to have parted with A considerable number of the Nobility and Gentry of Scotland did Attend His Majesty in His Expedition for Britain and many moe having Met Him at London they did Address to His Majesty then Prince of Orange to Assume the Government till the Meeting of the Estates which they desired Him to Call. The Procedure in that Meeting was with a great deal of Discretion and Dispatch till the Country was put in a posture of Defence against an Invasion they had reason to apprehend from Ireland and till the Instrument of Government was finished which is almost in the same terms with that of England Upon the Eleventh day of April last the Estates did Proclaim Their Majesties King WILLIAM and Queen MARY King and Queen of Scotland with all the Joy and Sincerity that could be Exprest the same day Their Majesties were Crowned in England Upon the Eighteenth day of the said Moneth the Estates did proceed to the Consideration of some Grievances to be Represented to His Majesty which they humbly desired might be Redressed in His Majesties first Parliament The Instrument of Government doth contain what the Estates did Assert to be the Peoples Right and the several Facts condescended upon are declared Illegal and the highest Violations of Law for which the Throne was declared Vacant The Grievances do acknowledge the things complained upon to be Legal but that the Laws introducing or allowing them are grievous and therefore there was necessity of applying to the King for Rescinding and taking off these Laws Upon the Twenty Fourth of April all the Grievances were concluded and three Commissioners being one for each Estate of the Kingdom were dispatched with the offer of the Crown to their Majesties Upon the Eleventh of May the Commissioners did present a Letter from the Estates of Scotland to His Majesty which waâ— Read first then the Instrument of Government then the Grievances and last a Desire from the Estates to be turned into a Parliament The King Answered the Commissioners in these Terms When I engaged in this Vndertaking I had particular Regard and Consideration for Scotland and therefore I did Emit a Declaration for that as well as to this Kingdom which I intend to make good and effectual to them I take it very kindly that Scotland hath exprest so much Confidence in Me and Affection to Me They shall find Me willing to Assist Them in every thing that concerns the Well and Interest of that Kingdom by making what Laws shall be necessary for the Security of Their Religion Property and Liberty and to Ease them of what may be justly grievous to Them. Then Their Majesties took the Coronation Oath and within some few days the King declared His Pleasure for turning the Meeting of Estates into a Parliament at their own desire and He did Nominat the Duke of Hamilton His Commissioner and upon the Thirty One day of May His Majesty did Sign his Instructions Upon Their Majesties acceptance of the Crown all Commissions Gifts and other Writs Superscribed by the King must of necessity be Docueted and Counter-signed by His Secretary of State The King made choice of my Lord Melvil for that Office a person who could never be induced to act in the Publick during the former Reigns who had been Forefault and forced to abandon his Relations and native Countrey and flee to Holland where and in Germany he remained seven years of whose Integrity and Sufficiency the King had good proof abroad and of his sincere Inclinations for the interest of Religion and His Majesties Undertaking It was likewise necessary for His Majesty to have an Advocat and He did name Sir John Dalrymple one of the three Commissioners which the States had so much recommended and considered as to Signalize and Intrust Them with a Matter of the highest Credit and Reputation as the offer of the Crown and receiving the Coronation Oath The rest of the Offices His Majesty did not supply that He might have more opportunity to know who were Habile and Deserving Persons for these Imployments Hitherto Matters were Mannaged with Calmness and Concord But now when the other Offices of Honour and Profit began to be Disposed on many who formerly did pretend to be behind with none for their Zeal in Their King and Countreys Service they quickly forgot the sense of their Deliverance and that Duty and Gratitude they owe to their Deliverer It had been moved in the Grand Committee of the Meeting of the Estates that it might be specially Provided in the Instrument of Government That the King should not have Power to Name the Judges Privy Counsellors or Officers of State but with Consent of Parliament This Motion was universally Rejected and thrown out with Detestation as an unreasonable Incroachment upon the Monarchy and there were only three in that whole Meeting who did favour the Proposal of whom some have worthily Retrited themselves by owning the King 's Right in this Point when it was afterwards called in question but what was universally Considered as an intollerable Invasion on the Royalty when there was no Government hath been since owned for Law and a Matter of the highest Importance this alteration of some mens Sentiments fell out Critically at that period when the King came to dispose of the Honourable or Advantagious Posts of the State then every man began to value himself and to believe he was better Judge of his own fitness for these Offices than the King whose Right it is to Dispose on them and thus our
desire The King can imploy no more Actors than our Stage can hold He hath not put any Stranger nor any Scots-man that served Him abroad in any Scottish Imployment if the Nation could make a larger Fond no doubt He would be willing to intertain more persons for it s not likely the King intends to put up any Scots Money in His pocket at present He hath allowed no multiplication of Offices in one person but by putting the great and lucrative Offices into Commissions there are twice as many persons imployed in this Government as ever can be instanced in former Establishments In the whole Parliament of Scotland for all this noise there are not twenty persons as I do verily believe who are at bottom ill affected to their Majesties Service and Government but there are very many who have been seduced and have been imposed upon wholly under gross mistakes which have transported them beyond the bounds of Discretion or Duty There are persons amongst us who have their Thoughts so much set upon getting into the Government and Lucrative Places of the Kingdom that they are resolved to disquiet the Government and discontent the people before they fail of their pretensions and they turn themselves into all shapes and plyevery Wind to Deceive and amuse the people their influence is not so much because they are able and Leading Men as that they are restless and implacable Spirits and they have gotten this ascendent over a great part of the Parliament two or three wayes 1o. The most part of the Parliament have been kept ignorant of the King's Inctructions and there was no Artifice wanting to possess every State and Person that the King had refused Satisfaction or Redress to these points of the Grievances which were most material and I know to my experience that the Ministers and also several Members of Parliament who came up here with the loudest Complaints upon a sight of His Majesties Instructions they were surprised and convinced and the like success may be expected throughout the whole Kingdom and Parliament after a competent time to be informed and peruse the Instructions and that they may return to their former temper and shew that affection they had for His Majesty and the Deference and Submission to His Mannagement of Affairs 2o. These persons who are so insatiable for preferment and places they did very dexterously start and mannage an unnecessary Debate whether or not the King was obliged by their Offer and His acceptance of the Crown to Redress all Grievances and whatever Conclusions they were pleased to draw from them as their meaning though these be neither obvious nor exprest and albeit it be very true that the Grievances are not obligator upon the King as they are represented further than the King in His Wisdom shall find the things Complained upon to be truly prejudicial to the Nation and in so far as Father of the Countrey He is obliged to give His people Relief but Their Majesties were Declared Recognised and Proclaimed King and Queen of Scotland before the Grievances were Framed and so they could be no Condition or Quality of Their Right but being humbly represented to the King's Majesty from the Estates to be Redressed by Him in Parliament His Majesty did not at all engage Himself in any particular but Declared in general that he would Redress every thing that was truly Grievous to the Nation now while they mannage this disingenious and weak Argument whether the King be obliged to Redress the Grievances they in the mean time have endeavoured to perswade the people that the King hath not at all done it and that he is so far from performance that both he and his Ministers denyes there lyes any obligation upon him so that in this Revolution the people do only observe a change of Masters but no ease of Burden or Redress of Laws now after the publishing of the Instructions this Imposture is so gross and palpable that it can no longer detain the people in ignorance 3o. When the Parliament was willing to proceed according to the Instructions and to have settled their Church-Government These persons brought in always some new Motions which they did pretend to be necessarly previous as first they did pretend the Articles was a Preliminary and therefore nothing could be done till that point was Adjusted Next they did insinuat that it was to no purpose to settle the Church till first the State was purged and all the ill men rendered incapable for if ill men were permitted to come in to the Government they might easily turn the settlement of the Church round and thereupon there was a great Struggle and Debate whether Church Government should be first settled or the State purged by an Act of Incapacities 〈…〉 and it was carryed the Church Government should be delayed and postponed to the purging the State which may demonstrat that these men had more the State than the Church under their prospect Thereafter thesettling of Church Government being brought in they started a fresh Hare and mannaged a Debate with great earnestness that their Commissioners had not done their Duty in the offering of the Crown according to their Commission and Instructions and it was a second time brought to the Vote whether Church Government or the â—xoneration of the Commissioners should first come in It was carryed again to delay Church Government and several dayes being spent upon that Matter it came to nothing and was found to be pestered on groundless malice Thereafter the Church Government was talked of and then it was pretended that so long as the Act of Parliament stood unrepealed anent the Articles nothing could come in legally to the Parliament but from the Articles hereupon the King was pleased to make a further step and he sent down new Instructions which the Commissioner did intimat in plain Parliament bearing his Majesties Consent that Church Government might be settled Fines and Forefaultures considered by the Parliament either with Committees or without Committees as the Parliament pleased and in so far as concerns these points the King did pass from his Right and consented that his Officers of State should have no meddling in the matter but remitted these matters intirely to the Parliament and this Concession being publickly intimat from the Throne it was openly asserted by Lawers and others that albeit the King did pass from the Articles as to these points by an express Instruction to his Commissioner yet the Settlement could not be Legal till either the Articles were Repealed or a draught brought in to the Articles Here I shall intreat you to observe when these men had no mind to bring in a matter then the Articles was so indispensable that the Kings Instructions was not sufficient to warrant the Legality of any matter to be brought into Parliament otherwayes than from the Articles but when ever they resolved to have a matter brought in then there was neither necessity nor use of the
Sterling which he was willing to accept in stead of demanding the Eight Months during King James's life And supposing that he had redeemed us from that Eight Months Cess as well as many other miseries was it grateful or just to grudge him one years Cess for the relief of the rest There was more heat in this matter than consideration 6o. I cannot but admire their confidence in pretending to be surprised with the sudden Adjournment of the Parliament most men did wonder it sat so long and every body knew it was to rise that Week that strange Vote in refusing Four Months Supply after all the rest that had passed made it evident there was no better to be expected and when they had formerly refused to proceed upon the Instructions how could any man think that they should not be Adjourned As to your last Question where these mens strength lyes and whether the Presbyterians will desert the King and joyn with them I tell you plainly my thoughts these men play upon the Presbyterian Staik and though the Sticklers be persons who have little concern in Religion or regard to Church-government and when Episcopacy was formerly abolished and all the Laws establishing it Rescinded in consequence the Laws made at the Reformation in favours of the Presbyterian Government were redintegrat and revived the same might now have been done but thir same Addressers did oppose it and did add a Clause in the House declaring the Church-government was yet to be established upon this project that if Presbytery were once established they knew the Presbyterians needed no more depend upon them whereas the Presbyterians must either support them or else they will turn about and fall in with the Cavaleer Party against them for they Front to all Sides but to the King and in the mean time they render the Presbyterians jealous of the King and tell them that the Civil Magistrate likes always to have the Church in his power and that the King to oblige the Church of England will in the end abandon them whereas they are willing to establish Presbytery in what terms they can desire and to go the length of a Covenant and League with the Dissenters in England But after all I can hardly believe that the Presbyterians will be so imposed upon and whidled out of their Interest by persons they know to have no concern for Religion but to raise themselves by it And therefore I think the following Considerations will secure the Presbyterians First All the Presbyterian Lords in Scotland who have been all along of that Perswasion and have suffered for it have all to a Man stood firm to the King in this Parliament against the Club and they are almost all actually imployed in His Service Now it is not possible that any rational or sober Presbyterian will part with their old and great Friends who are able to do them good for new Undertakers whereof some have been lately their Persecutors and the Presbyterians have no safe retreat King James will neither trust nor forgive them Will they be Neuters and Associat again as the Five Western Shires did in Anno 1650. when they refused to joyn either with King Charles's Army or Cromwel's This design was both foolish and fatal they were quickly broken at Hamiltoun Secondly I can hardly believe that the Presbyterians will forget the regard the King had to their sufferings that he hath revived and restored them and will certainly settle the Government of the Church of Scotland by Presbyters and imploy them where they are capable in the Civil Government if they themselves do not hinder him For though I do not believe that the King either is or should be of a Party yet their circumstances lyes together his suscess and their deliverance For in Scotland though we had Bishops who were Tools for the Civil Government and led Horses for the State yet we never admitted Canons Service or any Forms in our Church so that even in time of Bishops the Nation was Presbyterian And whereas the Church and Bishops of England before this Revolution were standing in the Gap and suffering and the King in His Speech to the Parliament did avouch them to be a Bulwark to the Protestant Religion yet at that time our Bishops in Scotland in their Address to King James not only pray so his success and prosperity in that Expedition but they pray that God may give him the necks of his Enemies after they knew that the King then Prince of Orange was Embarqued and had set Sail for Britain This may conciliat a greater confidence and regard from the King to the Presbyterians of Scotland without giving any discouragement or displeasure to the Church of England For a Prince that hath different Countreys and Nations may maintain distinct Religions and much more distinct Forms of Government professing the same Religion without affecting or neglecting any man upon that account Thirdly As it is duty and gratitude for the Presbyterians to stand firm by the King they ly under a suspition to be difficile and uneasie under any Government and that their Principles are more suited to a Common-wealth than Monarchy they have now an opportunity to retrive and vindicate themselves from these aspersions and if they be such fools as to suffer themselves to be seduced to quite the King for the Club there are many that are now looking after their halting who will not be wanting to represent to the King that he hath neglected a far greater interest in looking after the Dissenters whom he could not manage These and other such considerations will certainly oblige the Presbyterians to look to their interest and foresee their danger if they should either ly by or prove unkind And if they do not support and sustain this Club it will fall to nothing and the Nation will return to some better temper and see their folly in not closing with the King's Instructions Sir I have been carried far beyond my design in giving you an account of my thoughts in this matter But without further I am Your most humble Servant London Dec. 1. 1689. ERRATA Page 1. Line 19. read as any p. 6. l 29. r. Barons p. 33. l. 29. r. who ly p. 38. l. 4. r. mystery