ether another could be procured equally agreeable to their purposes.
In order to remove this doubt, the ministry resolved to surprise the
kingdom with a new election, before the malcontents should be prepared
to oppose the friends of the government.

{1747}

Accordingly, when the business of the session was despatched, the king
having given the royal assent to the several acts they had prepared,
dismissed them in the month of June, with an affectionate speech that
breathed nothing but tenderness and gratitude. The parliament was
immediately dissolved by proclamation, and new writs were issued for
convoking another. Among the laws passed in this session, was an act
abolishing the heritable jurisdictions, and taking away the tenure
of wardholdings in Scotland, which were reckoned among the principal
sources of those rebellions that had been excited since the revolution.
In the highlands they certainly kept the common people in subjection
to their chiefs, whom they implicitly followed and obeyed in all their
undertakings. By this act these mountaineers were legally emancipated
from slavery; but as the tenants enjoyed no leases, and were at all
times liable to be ejected from their farms, they still depended on
the pleasure of their lords, notwithstanding this interposition of the
legislature, which granted a valuable consideration in money to every
nobleman and petty baron, who was thus deprived of one part of his
inheritance. The forfeited estates indeed were divided into small farms,
and let by the government on leases at an under value; so that those
who had the good fortune to obtain such leases tasted the sweets of
independence; but the highlanders in general were left in their
original indigence and incapacity, at the mercy of their superiors. Had
manufactures and fisheries been established in different parts of
their country, they would have seen and felt the happy consequences of
industry, and in a little time been effectually detached from all their
slavish connexions.

{GEORGE II. 1727-1760}

THE FRENCH AND ALLIES TAKE THE FIELD IN FLANDERS.

The operations of the campaign had been concerted in the winter at the
Hague, between the duke of Cumberland and the states-general of the
United Provinces, who were by this time generally convinced of France's
design to encroach upon their territories. They therefore determined to
take effectual measures against that restless and ambitious neighbour.
The allied