The
moral of the whole story was that only through the corporate union of
the two countries could trade jealousies and the danger of rival schemes
of colonization be avoided.
In the reign of Charles II the Scots, who felt keenly the loss of the
freedom of trade which they had enjoyed under Cromwell, had themselves
broached the question of union, and William had brought it forward at
the beginning of his reign. It was, however, reserved for his successor
to see it carried. In March, 1702, the king died. The death of "William
II", as his title ran in the kingdom of Scotland, was received with a
feeling amounting almost to satisfaction. The first English Parliament
of Queen Anne agreed to the appointment of commissioners to discuss
terms of union, and the Estates of Scotland chose representatives to
meet them. But the English refused to give freedom of trade, and so the
negotiations broke down. In reply, the Scottish Parliament removed the
restrictions on the import of wines from France, with which country
England was now at war. In the summer of 1703 the Scots passed an Act of
Security, which invested the Parliament with the power of the crown in
case of the queen's dying without heirs, and entrusted to it the choice
of a Protestant sovereign "from the royal line". It refused to such king
or queen, if also sovereign of England, the power of declaring war or
making peace without the consent of Parliament, and it enacted that the
union of the crowns should determine after the queen's death unless
Scotland was admitted to equal trade and navigation privileges with
England.
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