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 Sco