it of independence
had been wrought up to a dangerous pitch of enthusiasm. The streets were
crowded with people of all ranks, exclaiming against English influence,
and threatening to sacrifice as traitors to their country all who
should embrace measures that seemed to favour a foreign interest. The
commissioner and his friends were confounded and appalled. Finding it
impossible to stem the torrent, he, with the concurrence of the other
ministers, wrote a letter to the queen, representing the uncomfortable
situation of affairs, and advising her majesty to pass the bill
encumbered as it was with the act of security. Lord Godolphin, on whose
council she chiefly relied, found himself involved in great perplexity.
The tories had devoted him to destruction. He foresaw that the queen's
concession to the Scots in an affair of such consequence, would furnish
his enemies with a plausible pretence to arraign the conduct of her
minister; but he chose to run that risk rather than see the army
disbanded for want of a supply, and the kingdom left exposed to an
invasion. He therefore seconded the advice of the Scottish ministers;
and the queen authorized the commissioner to pass the bill that was
depending. The act provided, that in case of the queen's dying without
issue a parliament should immediately meet and declare the successor to
the crown, different from the person possessing the throne of England,
unless before that period a settlement should be made in parliament of
the rights and liberties of the nation, independent of English councils;
by another clause they were empowered to arm and train the subjects, so
as to put them in a posture of defence. The Scottish parliament having,
by a laudable exertion of spirit, obtained this act of security, granted
the supply without further hesitation; but not yet satisfied with
this sacrifice, they engaged in debates about the conspiracy, and the
proceedings of the house of lords in England, which they termed an
officious intermeddling in their concerns, and an encroachment upon the
sovereignty and independency of the nation, They drew up an address to
the queen, desiring that the evidence and papers relating to the plot
might be subjected to their examination in the next session. Meanwhile,
the commissioner, dreading the further progress of such an ungovernable
ferocity, prorogued the parliament to the seventh day of October.
The act of security being transmitted to England, copies of it w