xxiv PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 



kingdoms: and that Ihe fhould look upon it as a 

 particular happinefs, if this great work, which 

 had been ib often attempted without fuccefs, 

 could be brought to perfe&ion in her reign. When 

 the commons formed thernfelves into a committee 

 of the whole houfe, to deliberate on the articles, 

 and the Scottifh act of ratification, the tory party, 

 which was very weak in that aflembly, began to 

 flart objections, particularly from the oppofition 

 made by the Scottiih nation to the treaty. 



Sir John Packington difapproved of this incor- 

 porating union, which he likened to a marriage 

 with a woman againfl her confent.. He faid it was 

 an union carried on by corruption and bribery 

 within doors : by force and violence without : That 

 the promoters of it had bafely betrayed their truft, 

 in giving up their independent conflitution ; and he 

 would leave it to the judgment of the houfe, to 

 confider, whether or no men of luch principles were 

 fit to be admitted into their houfe of reprefentatives. 



Soon after, the debates concerning the union 

 began in the houfe of lords, the queen being pre- 

 fent, when lord Haveriham, in a premeditated ha- 

 rangue, faid the queftion was, whether two nations, 

 independent in their fovereignties, that had their 

 diftinct laws and interefts, their different forms of wor- 

 fhip, church government, and order, fhould be united 

 into one kingdom. He fuppofed it an union made up 

 of fo many mifmatched pieces , of fuch jarring in- 

 congruous ingredients, that fhould it ever take effect, 

 it would carry the necefiary confequences of aftanding 

 power and force, to keep them from fallingafunder, and 

 breaking in pieces every moment. He took notice, 

 that above a hundred Scottifli peers, and as many com- 

 moners, were excluded from fitting and voting in par- 

 liament, though they had as much right of inheri- 

 tance to fit there, as any Fnglifh peer had of fit- 

 ting in the parliament of England. He affirmed 

 that the union was contrary to the fenfe of the 

 Scottifh nation ; That the murmurs of the people 



had 



