the English in debarring them from the Liberty and Benefit of Traffick to such Places as are under the Power and Jurisdiction of those respective Kingdoms and States and from and with which they drive and pursue their most useful and enriching Commerce so the Subjects of foreign Princes and States are through the alone Countenance Concession and Authority of their own proper and respective Soveraigns always at liberty to erect and establish what Trade they please to Places either unpreocoupied or where freedom of Commerce is allowed promiscuously to those of all Countries that shall think fit to deal with them Wherein as Foreigners fall not under the Controul of the English nor are discouraged by their Menaces so in reference to those Princes and Rulers under whom those Foreigners live there is no room to make impression upon them to withdraw from countenancing their own People by the little Arts and the various means of Influence which the English are in a Condition to use and are supposed sometimes to practise for diverting the Kings of Great Britain from giving that equal Encouragement to the Scots in matter of Trade which the People of England think they have a Right both to demand and to expect and which through the Favour of the Common Soveraigns of both Nations has been distinctively vouchsafed them Which leads me to the next thing that I do crave the liberty to lay unpartially before you Which is that the Kingdom of Scotland is as much a free and independent Kingdom as the Kingdom of England is That it is neither a Subdued nor a Tributary Nation nor in the quality of a Province peopled by a Swarm and Colony from hence For tho it may and doth acknowledg England to be a more large more populous opulent and powerful Kingdom than it self yet it is far from owning any Subjection or Inferiority to it For as to all the mutual Duties and Offices which may only argue the Esteem and Respect which one Independent Nation yieldeth to another these it both confesseth to be due and is ready to pay unto England But to receive Laws from it or yield an Obedience to its Authority it neither ought to do it nor will And of how near Affinity and Alliance soever the two Kingdoms may be to one another with respect to Identity of Language Similitude of Manners Analogy of Customs and Agreeableness of Essential Rights and Liberties and by reason of their being under one and the same King Yet they do nevertheless preserve and maintain distinct and different Jurisdictions and Authorities have separate and independent Parliaments and are governed by their own proper peculiar and respective Laws as if they were the Subjects of several Kings and each of them ruled by a distinct Monarch Nor are the Parliaments of Scotland less the Representatives of that Kingdom and People or under less Obligations of consulting for and promoting the Welfare and Prosperity of their Country than the Parliaments of England are Neither can the latter comptrol or supersede the Acts of the former more than the former can the Acts of the latter For it is not with the Parliament of Scotland as it is with that of Ireland in that the Irish Parliament have not so much as a Consultative Power about a Bill and much less are they cloth'd with a Right and Authority so far to pass it as to offer it prepared and agreed upon for the Royal Assent unless it hath previously received the Approbation of the Privy Council of England and hath been transmitted thither under the Stamp and Impression of the Broad-Seal of England granting them Liberty and Permission so to do Whereas the Parliament of Scotland hath both a full and plenary as well as the sole Right of introducing moulding preparing and passing whatsoever Bills it judges to be subservient to the King's Honour adapted to the preservation of the Publick Peace and conducible to the advancing the Trade and Prosperity of that Kingdom without being obliged to have the least antecedent regard to what Opinion the Privy Council or the Kingdom of England either in its Great Senate or in its Inferiour Courts may have of those Bills which the Scots bring in debate and vote in order to their being enacted into Laws Nor is the King of Great Britain under less Obligation both by the Duty of his High and Sovereign Station and by his Regal Oath to seek and promote the Good and Welfare of Scotland than he is bound by the like Ties to contrive and pursue the Prosperity and Happiness of England And as England doth not allow it to fall within the Circle and Verge of the Royal Authority to supersede vacate and dispense with Laws once enacted So the Scots do no less disclaim such a Prerogative in the Soveraign especially with respect to beneficial Laws and such as are of a civil and political Nature Yea they have as much blamed and withstood all Pretensions of their Monarchs of dispensing with Laws that are penal and about Religious and Ecclesiastical Matters as the English themselves have done tho possibly they have both withstood that Claim of their Kings as much to their own Damage and the Prejudice of their true Interests as to the Restraint upon and Diminution of the Regal Prerogative And then as for that Right commonly granted to be resident in the Kings of Great Britain and to be an Incident inseparable from the Soveraignty of putting a Negative whensoever they judg it necessary on Parliamentary Bills it is the same in whosoever is King of these two Kingdoms in reference to England that it is to Scotland And whatsoever Limitations are conceived by the English to lie upon the Prerogative of our Monarchs as to their giving a Negative to Bills of Right and such as are of a National Vtility the Scots do plead the same Restrictions to be upon the Soveraign Power in reference to Bills claiming either the Confirmation of antient Legal Privileges or containing and making Provision of such greater or lesser National Benefits which without extream Prejudice to their publick and general Interest they cannot be without nor account themselves either Happy or Easy through the want of their passing into Laws So that Sir this being the Nature Frame and Constitution of the Government of Scotland and a true and just Account of the Jurisdiction Power and Authority of the Parliaments of that Kingdom I do not see why the Scots while they do nothing that interferes with their Allegiance to the King or that doth lie in the least repugnancy to the two Kingdoms remaining united under one Monarch or that importeth so much as Shadow of Hostility against England may not consult contrive and enact Laws for the promoting their own Good and Prosperity without regarding whether such Laws do either immediately or in the remote Consequences of them lessen and prove somewhat prejudicial to the Trade and Opulency of England Nor can the English justly complain of or
were to encounter with and particularly as to the Society that was erected to Trade to the East-Indies there was all the Wisdom and Goodness exercised towards it that might be subservient to the promoting of it for upon its first Incorporation Anno 1599. it had not only many Immunities granted unto it but was Incorporated into a Company with a Right and Authority vested in it of Trading to the Indies preclusive of all their Fellow-Subjects that were not of that Corporation For tho it be inconsistent both with the Wisdom and the Justice of the Government of England and also with the Rights and Liberties of the People to erect all Traders into every Place into Companies exclusive of other English Natives and Freemen to Traffick thither where the Trade may be effectually and advantageously carried on by single Dealers or by voluntary Associations seeing such incorporated Societies would be so many Monopolies which are Nusances in a Countrey where the Ends of Commerce may be otherwise compassed and obtained yet it hath always been the Prudence of the Government to devolve Trade unto such Places upon an Incorporated Company where it could neither be protected nor enlarged save by a Society trading and acting on a Joint Stock And as the Interest of the Kingdom with respect to the Quality of the Place where a Trade is to be managed must give rules for the Method and determine the way in which it is to be carried on so in that case where it would be to the Loss and Prejudice of the Kingdom to have a Trade laid open to whosoever will be dealing in it the Publick and National Benefit ought to be prefer'd to that of particular Persons And as we do know how the Trade of England to the East-Indies was in a manner wholly lost from the Kingdom during the Vsurpation of the Rump Parliament and of Oliver Cromwell by their putting it out of the Channel in which it had been managed by an Incorporated Society and leaving to every one that pleased to venture upon it So the Indulgence given of late Years to Interlopers has both had fatal Effects upon that Trade and has not much commended their care of the Nation who either allowed or connived at it For as single Traders will be easily tempted at so great a Distance to commit Depredations upon the Natives of those Countries and thereby provoke them as well to make Reprizals upon us as to renounce all friendly and amicable Commerce with us so no Dealers save in the way of an Incorporated Company trading upon a Joint-Stock can erect and maintain Forts establish Factories and raise and pay that armed Force in the Places they have chosen for their Residence and the Seat of their Traffick as will either discourage those Nations that rival us in Trade from supplanting them or the Natives upon every imagined Offence from insulting them To which I crave Liberty to add that every Nation or State in Europe which upon Motives of Interest have established a Society that might trade to the Indies have at the first Erection of such a Corporation granted vast Privileges unto it for its Encouragement of which the Dutch are a famous and instructive Example who tho they had acquired some beginnings of a Trade thither by the Industry of private and particular Dealers yet that wise People being sensible that it could neither be much enlarged nor long preserved in that Method of Trade they thereupon in the Year 1602 gave Establishment to a Company that might trade thither exclusive of all other of their own Subjects and for their Encouragement notwithstanding all the Necessities of the State at that time excused them from all Taxes and Impositions upon that Trade for the space of 21 Years and only obliged them in way of an acknowledgment of their Dependence upon the States General to pay in the whole within the Compass of the first ten Years the Sum of Five and twenty thousand Florins which amounted to little more than 2000 l. Sterling and was rather a Recognition of whom they held their right of Trading thither than a Burden upon that Traffick So that through the Privileges and Immunities which were granted into them then most whereof have been still continued to them since they are become the most opulent and powerful Trading Society of the World and the chief Pillar of the Dutch State and tho they be but in the quality of Subjects at Home they are great Soveraigns in the Indies and not only give Laws to many Easterr Princes but ingross from Europeans what parts of the Indian Traffick they please And if such Encouragements have been thought needful towards the giving a beginning and an increase to an East-India Trade when there were none or at least very few of those Difficulties and Dangers to be conflicted with from Rival Nations that are now unavoidably to be encountered and if such Immunities were sit to be granted at a Season when the Trade was not forestalled preoccupied nor previously possessed to any considerable Degree by other Europeans it is easy to imagine how indispensibly necessary it is for those that would now begin a Trade thither to give all the Encouragements to it that are under the Power and within the Circle of a Government and Nation to grant And experience in our Neighbouring Kingdoms may teach us how weak and ineffectual the Concession of the greatest Privileges is towards the establishing such a Trade to the Indies as may answer the Pains and Cost in endeavouring it and bringing it to turn to such an account as may bear proportion to the Expence as well as to the Industry and Hazards of attempting it after so wealthy and potent Nations as England and Holland have gotten antecedent Possession and will endeavour to ingross that Trade to the Exclusion of all others For not only all the large Privileges and Immunities granted by the King of Denmark and the Elector of Brandenburgh for the raising and promoting of an East-India Trade have proved insignificant in advancing the End and Design which they proposed at least not to such a Degree as may turn to their own Honour and the Profit of their respective Countries but even those vast Encouragements given by the great Monarch of France to raise the Genius and quicken the Industry of his People to the beginning and carrying on of an Indian Trade have proved little better than abortive So that instead of blaming the Scots for what we esteem extravagant Concessions in order to their founding a Trade to the East-Indies all those Indulgences may be rather look'd upon as means much below and disproportioned to what they are aiming at And they who will judg of things impartially will rather judg them to have been deficient than excessive in the Privileges they have granted for as some other besides those mentioned in the Act could not escape falling under their Thoughts and View so the granting them would have been Wise
whom they had subdued can any that are Masters of common Sense imagine and believe that a free unconquered and independent People will be contented to be depressed by a neighbouring Nation without seeking to relieve themselves in all the just and lawful Methods that lie within their Circle To which I might add that there are many and fatal Examples of the Discords that have arisen between Nations under the same Monarch when the one of them has endeavoured to ingross and monopolize either the foreign or the home Trade of that Soveraign's Dominions and to preclude the rest from having a due and equal Share in it witness the Revolt of Portugal from the Crown of Spain because the Castilians debarred them from all Share in their Trade to the West-Indies For that was the principal Reason tho there were likewise some others of a different kind why the Portuguise struck off the Government of the King of Spain and set up the Duke of Braganza to be their King Nay I might also subjoin how that it hath often come to pass that through a Nation 's precluding even foreign States and Kingdoms from a Share in Traffick to its own peculiar Plantations there hath been formed as it were an universal Conspiracy of all those Nations that have been thus shut out and debarred either for the wresting of that Trade from it or for making it unprofitable and useless to it The first whereof is verified in the Portuguise who are in a manner wholly beaten out of their vast East-India Trade through the Provocation they gave to other Nations by their striving to ingross it And as to the latter the Spaniards are now sunk under the Experience of it in relation to their Traffick to their own West-Indies whose Trade thither instead of continuing to be beneficial to them is turned and improved to their Prejudice by those whom they excluded from all Participation in it How much less then will free and independent Nations patiently endure that one or two Kingdoms or States should monopolize to themselves all the Trade to Africa India and America as likewise in effect to several Places of Europe Yea should the Scots tamely acquiesce in this all they would gain by their being under one and the same Monarch with the English would be to become involved in all the foreign Wars and Troubles in which the English may be at any time ingaged but to have little or no Share in the Blessings and Benefits of its Prosperity and Peace And seeing most of the Trade of Scotland lieth with neighbouring Nations and especially those which England hath oftnest Provocation to quarrel with and the Scots driving very little Traffick with Countries far remote it consequently follows that upon the Commencement of a War with those adjacent States and Kingdoms the Scots do become in a manner shut out from and deprived of all foreign Trade while in the mean time the English do continue to carry on a vast and Beneficial Trade to Turky Africk and the East-Indies as well as to and from their own American Plantations Of which as the Kingdom of Scotland has had oftner than once the woful Experience upon any Rupture that hath hapned between the Crown of England and the States of Holland with whom as most of the Scots Trade lieth both as to the Exportation of their Superfluities and the Importation of what they want and need so the most of their Traffick hath in those Cases been wholly interrupted and in a manner entirely ceased while at the same time the English have kept up a large and beneficial Trade to other places in which the Scots are by several English Acts of Parliament debarred and precluded from all dealing Yea the present War with France doth caeteris paribus more affect Scotland in point of Traffick than it doth England because as those Productions and Commodities which the Scots used to export thither must necessarily lie upon their hands through their having no other Place to which to carry them so they must be contented to want those French Goods which they were accustomed to bring home in Lieu and Exchange of their own while in the interim the English make a shift both to vend their Productions elsewhere and to supply themselves in other Places with what may answer those Commodities they used to import from France To which may be added that if Scotland remain not only under those Exclusions Limitations and Restrictions in matter of Trade to which it is stak'd down and consined by the Acts of the Parliament of England for the encouraging and encreasing of Shipping and Navigation and for the Encouragement of Trade and against the Importation of foreign Cattel but be withal discouraged envied depressed and counteracted when to prevent the Violation of and out of respect to those English Acts they apply themselves to a new Method and Course of Traffick and endeavour to settle themselves on another Basis and Bottom of Trade than they were formerly accustomed to I say if these be the Circumstances they must abide under the Scots instead of being Gainers are great Losers by the two Kingdoms coming to be united under one Soveraign In reference whereunto tho I could assign several Particulars wherein they are thereby come to be endamaged yet I shall only give an Instance in one namely that by their Incorporation with England under one and the same King their antient long and firm Alliance with France is entirely dissolved issued and come to a final Period Which as it had been many times of singular advantage both to France and Scotland so it was of great Profit as well as Honour to the Scots through the many signal Privileges arising from that Confederacy which the Scots in Contradistinction from all other Nations peculiarly enjoy'd but are now totally lost to them Upon which Sir it were not difficult to make those just and natural Reflections which would shew that the present Conduct of the Kingdom of England towards Scotland is not if we will take the Opinion of the Scots so temperate prudent and discreet as might be expected from a People that are so grateful generous and wise as the English have been always charactered to be But to prevent giving Offence I shall supersede and wave them all and satisfy my self in that I have by the bare mention of the last Particular started Matter worthy of the maturest Thoughts of those of the greatest Penetration either in our Senate or out of it And therefore I shall only on this Topick of Discourse further subjoin that upon the Terms on which the Scots stand with relation to all the beneficial Trade in which the English are concerned they are not only in as bad but in a worse Condition than the Subjects of any foreign Prince are because that as they of a foreign Kingdom or State may for and upon their being excluded from Trading into the English American Plantations c. make Reprizals upon