ey could have foreseen that
the effect of an union would be to make Glasgow a greater city than
Amsterdam, and to cover the dreary Lothians with harvests and woods,
neat farmhouses and stately mansions. But there was also a large class
which was not disposed to throw away great and substantial advantages in
order to preserve mere names and ceremonies; and the influence of this
class was such that, in the year 1670, the Scotch Parliament made direct
overtures to England, [275] The King undertook the office of mediator;
and negotiators were named on both sides; but nothing was concluded.

The question, having slept during eighteen years, was suddenly revived
by the Revolution. Different classes, impelled by different motives,
concurred on this point. With merchants, eager to share in the
advantages of the West Indian Trade, were joined active and aspiring
politicians who wished to exhibit their abilities in a more conspicuous
theatre than the Scottish Parliament House, and to collect riches from
a more copious source than the Scottish treasury. The cry for union was
swelled by the voices of some artful Jacobites, who merely wished to
cause discord and delay, and who hoped to attain this end by mixing up
with the difficult question which it was the especial business of
the Convention to settle another question more difficult still. It is
probable that some who disliked the ascetic habits and rigid discipline
of the Presbyterians wished for an union as the only mode of maintaining
prelacy in the northern part of the island. In an united Parliament the
English members must greatly preponderate; and in England the bishops
were held in high honour by the great majority of the population. The
Episcopal Church of Scotland, it was plain, rested on a narrow basis,
and would fall before the first attack. The Episcopal Church of Great
Britain might have a foundation broad and solid enough to withstand all
assaults.

Whether, in 1689, it would have been possible to effect a civil union
without a religious union may well be doubted. But there can be no doubt
that a religious union would have been one of the greatest calamities
that could have befallen either kingdom. The union accomplished in 1707
has indeed been a great blessing both to England and to Scotland. But
it has been a blessing because, in constituting one State, it left two
Churches. The political interest of the contracting parties was the
same: but the ecclesiastical di