124 Scottish Parliament and Sanquhar Representation. 



had broken their compact with the nation the nation was justified 

 in throwing off its allegiance. What was treason in 1680 and 

 in 1685 had become the Revolution Settlement of 1689. I have 

 already said that the members of Parliament were chosen by the 

 Magistrates and Town Council. To this procedure, however, the 

 election of 1689 was an exception, and Boswell was elected bv the 

 Avhole body of the inhabitants. The reason of this was that only 

 Episcopalians could be meml>ers of corporations in Scotland at 

 that time, and had the elections been left to the corporations the 

 men who would have been sent to Parliament would most pro- 

 bably have been Episcopalians favourable to the Stuarts. 

 William therefore devised the plan of having the members elected 

 by the whole lx)dy of the people so that the mind of the nation 

 might be more thoroughly known. The meeting held in March, 



1689, was called not a Parliament but a Convention since it had 

 been called by William of Orange, who was not yet King. The 

 Convention consisted of 42 Peers, 49 Members for Counties, and 

 50 Burgh representatives. This Convention declared that James 

 VII. was no longer King, and called on ^^'illiam and Mary to 

 become their sovereigns. 



The Parliament met again in June, 1689, when Boswell was 

 again present. He was again at the meeting of Parliament in 



1690, and continued to be the representative of the Burgh to his 

 death in 1692. He was one of the Boswells of Auchinleck, and 

 the fact that he is always described as " Mr John Boswell," being 

 the only member for Sanquhar who has the prefix Mr, leads one 

 to the supposition that he must ha\-e been a University graduate. 

 Though not a native of Sanquhar he appears to have possessed 

 some property in the Burgh and to have been a Burgess. He 

 represented the Burgh at the Convention of Royal Burghs in 1690 

 and in 1691, and there again he is the only representative with 

 " Maister " prefixed to his name. At that period no per.son was 

 allowed to represent a burgh in the Convention unless he were an 

 inhabitant of the Burgh, and in 1675 it was ordained that only 

 " Merchand traffiqueris " were to be allowed to sit. Sanquhar 

 had good reason to abide by the law in this matter, for in 1660 her 

 Commissioner was not allowed to take his seat because he was not 

 properly qualified. 



[In Brown's " History of Sanquhar," Appendix A, and in 

 Wilson's " Genealogies of Uppermost Nithsdale," page 188, there 



