The Patriot

by Nigel Tranter

  "It is because they have found that they have need of me -that is why! The English Treasury has been desperately mismanaged. My Bank of England likewise. Men who know nothing of finance have been in charge too long. And William's foreign wars have bled the Treasury white. Godolphin and Marlborough called me in, and I have put them on the right road again. I have advised and started a Sinking Fund for the conversion of the National Debt - which is now £18 million, no less! The Bank is deeply involved. So meantime they cannot do without me. And I can aid Scotland."

  "But only if Scotland agrees to this union!"

  "Yes -1 fear that is necessary. The Equivalent, as I am calling it, could be paid only if Scotland and England were united. The Treasury could nowise pay half a million pounds to a foreign country. You must see that? I have been given the task of compiling the financial terms for a Treaty of Union -and I promise you, we shall win back our Darien losses, or I resign."

  "But - good God, man, is this not just more and greater bribery? I came to you hot against £20,000 for buying a few Scots lords. Now you talk of twenty-five times that to buy the entire Scots nation! Its independence."

  "Nonsense, my good friend! The union is necessary, and will come, without any payment. Of that I have become assured. This money, the Equivalent, is something in addition which I can achieve, to help compensate for hurt done by the failure of my venture. It is no bribe, but a just recompense."

  "Aye." That was heavily said. "And meantime what of the Annandale?" The Annandale business was largely what had brought Andrew down to London at this juncture. It was the last of the Scots ships still in the company's hands; and putting into the Thames with a cargo of goods for sale, had been promptly seized by the English authorities and ship and cargo held, as having infringed the East India Company's trading privileges - much to the fury of the Scots.

  "I am doing my best, Andrew. But it will take time. It has to go before the Court of the Exchequer, and that is a slow process. But I have no doubts that all will be well in the end. Godolphin, Marlborough and company will see to that. They will not risk the union for the sake of one ship."

  Frustrated, helplessly Andrew shook his head, staring at Paterson. "How happy will be the Scots to hear me tell them that!" he exclaimed.

  "Tell them about the Equivalent, my friend ..."

  In his perplexed and anxious mood, as he rode northwards two days later, going over it all in his mind, Andrew decided that he could at least try to contrive some benefit out of his depressing London visit. Clearly the Scots people must be warned of what was being perpetrated against them, even by well-wishers. Somehow. He had to do what he could. Parliament was not sitting meantime and he could only speak to the few. But he could still write and print. His treatises and pamphlets had been very successful and even influential. He could write a warning and have it widely distributed. Indeed, he could use that discussion he had had, in Burnet's house, for the purpose. Use the views and attitudes of these English Members of Parliament to drive home his message. In the form of their discussion and arguments, it would be the more readable and telling. The two attitudes of the English exemplified by Whig and Tory - both demanding this union. He did not wish to pillory his old mentor, Burnet, however valuable to use as the dangerous pro-union Scot. Besides, he had contributed little to the discussion. Better to invent another to take his place — a prominent Scot who was known to be pro-union. But not on. already unpopular, like Stair or Seafield. Say George Mackenzie, Viscount Tarbat, recently promoted to be Earl of Cromartie. He would serve - typical of the sort of Scot who was steadily rising in the world by looking to London for preferment. That was it - Seymour. Musgrave and Cromartie urging union from their different viewpoints and himself indicating the dangers and fallacies. A pamphlet of this conversation, improved and added to where necessary. That should help to bring the menace of it all before folk in Scotland - at least the sort who would read pamphlets . . . He compiled it all in his head as he rode.

  But when Andrew arrived home, although his pamphlet project remained very much with him, it was pushed rather into the background by the implications of the situation he found awaiting him. Whilst he had been away there had been resounding developments. An English ship called the Worcester, two hundred tons and twenty guns, had put into the Forth on account of the weather and anchored off Leith. From the talk of her crew in Leith taverns, the notion spread abroad that this vessel was responsible for the fate of another of the Darien Company's ships, the Speedy Return, which had disappeared with all hands some time before in strange circumstances. According to the stories circulating, this Worcester, licensed privateer, had attacked the Speedy Return off the Malabar coast on a voyage to India, slain the crew and thrown the bodies overboard, stolen the cargo and sold the ship to slavers. In the present situation, with the Annandale held arrested in the Thames, the effect on Scots public opinion could be imagined, with clamour for justice to be done increasing.

  But there were some who had not waited for the ponderous processes of the law. One, Roderick Mackenzie, the new secretary of the Darien Company no less, decided that the company's interests demanded immediate action. He had gathered about a score of volunteers, gone down to Leith by night, rowed out to the Worcester in three small boats and clambered aboard. There they had taken possession of the vessel, with its master and crew, many of whom had been helpless with drink, thirty-six all told. Not content with this, they had sailed the ship across the Forth estuary to Burntisland in Fife, where presumably they felt more secure, and from there demanded forfeiture to the Company of ship and cargo, and trial of Captain Green and crew.

  The administration was much embarrassed, foreseeing dire trouble with London, and would have recovered the Worcester and promptly depatched her from Scottish waters; but the jubilation of the populace and the swelling demand for reprisals and even hangings, deterred them. They passed the problem to the Privy Council, weakly, who ordered the ancient High Court of Admiralty, an almost forgotten body, to look into the matter. This, with commendable celerity, met, decided that the Company had a case and remitted Captain Green and his mates and crew for trial forthwith, before the Privy Council.

  This was the situation when Andrew returned to Scotland; so that whilst the Court of Exchequer in London was dilatorily examining the case of the Scots Annandale, a committee of the Privy Council in Edinburgh was sitting much more expeditiously on the case of the English Worcester. Ministers in both capitals were much upset, and threats and commands volleyed back and forth. In Edinburgh streets mobs paraded, windows were smashed and the death of Green and his men demanded.

  Andrew was intrigued to find that two of his own Privy Councillor friends were on the hastily-empannelled committee of judges - Johnnie Belhaven and Cockburn of Ormiston, both of course prominent Darien supporters and therefore perhaps scarcely unbiassed. At any rate, it did not take them long to hear the evidence, almost entirely depositions of the Worcester's crew who had turned Queen's Evidence, and which produced a dire list of piracies, mrders and sinkings -although whether the Speedy Return was actually one of the victims remained in doubt owing to conflicting accounts. However, there was ample evidence to convict of multiple murders, and the Privy Councillors had no difficulty in appeasing angry public opinion by hanging Green and his two mates whilst letting the rest of the crew go.

  Queensberry, Seafield and the other ministers were in a state of alarm. This sort of thing could play havoc with Scots-English relations and might even sink the union talks.

  Andrew, from what he had learned in the South, thought otherwise. But he discerned something important from the incident - however much he doubted the legal niceties of it all. That was that the people were tougher, stronger, than their so-called leaders; that the common folk could be lions or wolves, perhaps - where their betters were mice; and that it would therefore be profitable to bend his attentions more upon the commonality than upon the nobility and gentry, in what was clearly going to be a fight to save Scotland's
independence.

  Pamphlets were all very well, but they would scarcely be read by the folk in the streets. He must think of something to mobilise the mob.

  22

  So, deliberately, Andrew Fletcher changed tactics and began to try to address himself more to the people. He did not cease in his efforts to warn and convince his own kind and class. He published his pamphlets, including the one entitled An Account of a Conversation concerning a Right Regulation of Government for the Common Good of Mankind, which had a distinct success. All sought to bring home the dangers, for the lesser partner, of any political union, but especially of an incorporating union such as the English seemed to be contemplating. But he also engaged himself in a campaign of public speech-making and tavern oratory - which he did not enjoy but which enabled his views to reach many of the ordinary folk and made him much talked about and well-known amongst the populace at large, particularly of course, in the East of Scotland. Also, arising out of these meetings, he went on, after much heart-burning and frustration, to found and nurture two popularly-based organisations, not so much of members of the Estates but of the people at large. One he named the Scottish Home Rule Party and the other, to try to bring in the younger people who were going to be needed in the struggle hereafter, the Young Scotland Party. He admittedly found these last efforts difficult and heavy going; it was a new conception for Scotland, this of political participation and party-membership for other than the ruling classes, and folk were reluctant to join, however vociferous in their attitudes and their broad convictions. And, unfortunately, amongst those who were prepared to take active part, were apt to be all too many undesirables, extremists, agitators, irresponsibles and trouble-makers, to give all a bad name. Andrew found it all an uphill and less-than-rewarding, indeed often a distasteful task; but persevered the more as he perceived the pressure from the South on the Scottish leadership ever building up.

  And then, in the spring of 1705, erupted a development which, although vehemently emphasising the need for Andrew's efforts, at the same time cut them short. The English Parliament passed an extraordinary Act, Queen Anne herself present at its final stages, which, by its very title, threw down the gauntlet - An Act for the Effectual Security of the Kingdom of England from the Apparent Dangers that may arise from Several Acts passed by the Parliament of Scotland. Which title was reduced in common usage to The Alien Act. The terms of this Act were sufficiently explicit.

  A union of the Parliaments was demanded. Commissioners to treat for such union were to be appointed - and on the nomination of the Queen, in both countries. And unless, by the following Christmas, the Scots Parliament had agreed to settle the succession to the throne in the same way as it had already been settled by England, namely upon the Electress Sophia of Hanover or her son George, then a state of hostility would exist between the two realms. In consequence, all natives of Scotland in England, Ireland or any of the colonies, would be treated as aliens, including those presently serving in the armed forces; all Scottish goods and commerce, such as coals, linen, cattle and the like, would be excluded from entering England, and no English goods or arms to enter Scotland; the towns of Berwick, Carlisle and Newcastle would be fortified and garrisoned and regular regiments sent to line the Border, with the northern militia mustered and put on a war-footing.

  It made a rough wooing towards a marriage of convenience.

  Scotland was thrown into an uproar, needless to say, and the Queen's ministers into panic. A Convention of the Estates was called for as soon as possible, forty days' notice being obligatory.

  Meanwhile the nation seethed, crowds demonstrated in the streets, meetings were held behind closed doors and members of the administration were pelted with filth and stones if they allowed themselves to be seen in public. Andrew devoted most of his time to lobbying fellow-members of the Estates, in the interests of votes, leaving the populace meantime, as fairly reliable in their reactions, more so than their legislators.

  Talking to these, he began to hear of a new grouping within the Country Party, and amongst its most prominent members. At first he dismissed this as mere political gossip. But as the stories persisted he commenced to take it seriously, especially when he heard that the group had even been given a name, and a strange one - the Squadrone Volante. When it was alleged that amongst those forming this group were none other than his former colleagues, almost his pupils, Roxburghe, Rothes, Montrose and Selkirk, even Tweeddale and Marchmont being suggested as adhering, he became intrigued, even a little anxious. For if all these were colloguing in some new association, yet he himself had not been approached, it must be for some purpose of which it was felt he would not approve. And it began to occur to him that these lords might well have been avoiding him recently.

  So he sought out Marchmont who, as an old friend, he felt owed him an explanation. And from him he learned that there was good reason for excluding himself from the Squadrone

  Volante's ranks - for they had come to the conclusion that union with England was inevitable and decided that, since it would be pointless to oppose it fruitlessly, it was better to make the best of it, which they had agreed meant fighting for a federal instead of an incorporating union such as the English appeared to want. A federal parliament dealing with matters of mutual concern, the crown, foreign policy, the armed forces, the colonies and the like with national legislatures still handling domestic matters, laws, trade and commerce and so on, would leave Scotland reasonably free and independent in her own affairs and still to a large extent mistress of her destiny, whilst allowing the benefits of the English connection, they believed. But they had feared that Andrew would not see it that way, dead-set against union as he was. So . . .

  Grimly Andrew agreed that they were right in that respect, at least.

  He was much upset and perturbed. His first inclination was see it all as little less than treachery. Further consideration, however, convinced him that all these friends of his could not be traitors; they must believe sincerely in what they had decided, since it was against all their former professions. Nevertheless he could not find it in him to absolve them thus of weakness, even of moral cowardice, even though they might call their change of front realism. For they were wrong, wrong - of that he had no least doubt. Was it arrogance, then, on his part, to be so sure? Or merely stubbornness ? No - for he could do nothing else. To know the right and resile from it - that was something he could not do. Moreover, their attitude was fated to failure, he was certain, selling the pass before the battle was joined. The English would see it only as the first step toward surrender. They were strong, whatever else, and would understand only strength used against them. A weak meeting of them halfway would gain nothing.

  Andrew failed to convince any of his former colleagues to change back. He knew, as probably did they, that things would never be quite the same between them again. Only Johnnie Belhaven, of his intimates, remained staunch.

  His apprehensions increased a few evenings later when, at Saltoun, Margaret rather doubtfully intimated that a Mr. Campbell had come to see him, and thereafter ushered in the curiously-built and so impressive young man who, despite nondescript Lowland dress, could be none other than Rob Roy MacGregor. Surprised, naturally, he greeted him warily.

  The other gave no impression of wariness, all courteous bonhomie and smiles, expressing pleasure at the honour of meeting Mr. Fletcher again and his admiration for the fine house of Saltoun Hall and its wide and fertile lands.

  It took a little while, in all this spate of Highland flourish and Latin tags, to reach the object of the visit. When at length it began to emerge, Andrew could scarcely believe his ears. It seemed that the MacGregor had come to try to convert him to Jacobitism, or at least to involve him in co-operation with that cause.

  The strange thing was how reasonable the visitor made his representations sound, how persuasive towards such an improbable alignment - and how well-informed he was. When he could get a word in, it was this that Andrew commented upon first.
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  "You are very knowledgeable about our Lowland affairs, Mr. MacGregor - I beg your pardon, Captain MacGregor. I would scarcely have expected it."

  "Och, we are no so ignorant, north of the Line, Mr. Fletcher, see you. I have my sources of information, whatever. In the cattle trade."

  "Then the cattle trade must be an interesting one, in the Highlands, sir! Hereabout at markets, we do not seem to discuss much more than the price of beef, the cost of hay and the honesty of dealers. Matters of state and politics hardly come into it."

  "Perhaps you're after going to the wrong markets, Mr. Fletcher! Or buy and sell beasts for the wrong folk. I, now, sell cattle for such as my lords Duke of Atholl, Marquis of Montrose, Earl of Breadalbane and even the Duke of Gordon. Indeed it is on Duke Atholl's business that I am here, just."

  "Ah. But the Duke is in London, I think?"

  "But his Duchess is not, sir. She is in his house in Edinburgh."

  "And this concerns me, Captain?"

  "It could, Mr. Fletcher. Och, I think it could, yes. You see, there is a plot to bring down the Duke - and more than the Duke. It is to split the cause against this union and to damage the Jacobites as well. Och, a right clever conspiracy, as you might say. Fas est ab bostibus doceri!"

  Andrew searched the other's ruddy features. "Go on," he said.

  "Yes, then. This is why I think that you and your friends should be after fighting on the same side as the Jacobites in this warfare - since we both would damn this of union. When it comes to the bit in your Parliament you are going to be needing every vote you can raise."

  "Perhaps, sir. But it is a big jump to suggest that I come to terms with the Jacobites. I am a Protestant and will not contemplate Romish rule again."

  "My goodness, Mr. Fletcher - am I not after being as good a Protestant as you are, whatever? This talk of the Stewart's bringing back the Roman Church to power is but a device of our enemies. My lord Breadalbane is no Catholic. Nor is the Earl of Mar. Nor, for that matter, is the Duke . . ."