Allan Ramsay. [A biography.] - National Library of Scotland

30
FAMOUS SCOTS
gradually overcame all difficulties, though he was reduced
to wholesale bribery of the Scottish peers to effect his
end. As Green puts it :
' The Scotch proposals of a
federative rather than a legislative Union were set aside
by his firmness : the commercial jealousies of the English
traders ^vere put by ; and the Act of Union, as finally
passed in 1707, provided that the two Kingdoms should be
united into one under the name of Great Britain, and that
the succession to the crown of this United Kingdom
should be ruled by the provisions of the English Act of
Settlement. The Scotch Church and the Scotch Law
were left untouched, but all rights of trade were thrown
open, and a uniform system of coinage adopted.'
Of all the negotiations for the consummation of the
Union, Ramsay, doubtless, was an interested spectator.
Patriotic to his heart's core, and sympathising as a
Jacobite with the chivalrous feeling of his nation for
the dynasty they had given to England, and which, after
only eighty-six years of alternate loyalty and revolt, the
Southrons had driven into exile, the keenly observant lad
would follow every detail in the closing chapter of Scot-
land's history as an independent nation, with a pathetic
and sorrowful interest. Undoubtedly, while yet an
apprentice, with a few months of his time unexpired, he
must have watched the last observance of that ancient
and picturesque spectacle, annually recurring, but now
to be abolished for ever—the ' Riding of the Parliament,'
or the procession of members to the opening of the
sittings in the old Parliament House. Perhaps he may
even have secretly gained admission to overhear the
fiery debates on the Union in that ultimate session of
the Scottish legislature. Certainly he must have been one