es. Their commissions being opened and read by the
respective secretaries, and introductory speeches being pronounced by
the lord-keeper of England, and the lord chancellor of Scotland,
they agreed to certain preliminary articles, importing, that all the
proposals should be made in writing; and every point, when agreed,
reduced to writing; that no points should be obligatory, till all
matters should be adjusted in such a manner as would be proper to be
laid before the queen and the two parliaments for their approbation;
that a committee should be appointed from each commission, to revise the
minutes of what might pass, before they should be inserted in the books
by the respective secretaries; and that all the proceedings during
the treaty should be kept secret. The Scots were inclined to a federal
union, like that of the United Provinces; but the English were bent upon
an incorporation, so that no Scottish parliament should ever have power
to repeal the articles of the treaty. The lord-keeper proposed that the
two kingdoms of England and Scotland should be for ever united into one
realm, by the name of Great Britain: that it should be represented by
one and the same parliament; and that the succession of this monarchy,
failing of heirs of her majesty's body, should be according to the
limitations mentioned in the act of parliament passed in the reign of
king William, intituled, an act for the further limitation of the crown,
and the better securing the rights and liberties of the subject. The
Scottish commissioners, in order to comply in some measure with the
popular clamour of their nation, presented a proposal implying that the
succession to the crown of Scotland should be established upon the same
persons mentioned in the act of king William's reign; that the subjects
of Scotland should for ever enjoy all the rights and privileges of the
natives in England, and the dominions thereunto belonging; and that
the subjects of England should enjoy the like rights and privileges in
Scotland; that there should be a free communication and intercourse of
trade and navigation between the two kingdoms, and plantations thereunto
belonging; and that all laws and statutes in either kingdom,
contrary to the terms of this union, should be repealed. The English
commissioners declined entering into any considerations upon these
proposals, declaring themselves fully convinced that nothing but an
entire union could settle a perfect and last