ledged; and the eyes of Scottish patriotism turn with the greater exultation to his triumphs, from the contrast which their splendour affords to the barren and humiliating annals of the subsequent reigns. But the important CONSEQUENCES of his victories are not sufficiently appreciated. While all admit the purity of the motives by which he was actuated, there are many who lament the consequences of his success, and perceive in it the source of those continued hostilities between England and Scotland which have brought such incalculable calamities upon both countries, and from which the latter has only within half a century begun to recover. Better would it have been, it is said, for the prosperity of this country, if, like Wales, she had passed at once under the dominion of the English government, and received, five centuries ago, the present of that liberty which she so entirely lost during her struggles for national independence, and which nothing but her subsequent union with a free people

has enabled her to obtain.

There is something, we think, a priori, improbable in this supposition, that, from the assertion of her independence under Robert Bruce, Scotland has received any injury. The instinct to maintain the national independence, and resist aggression from foreign powers, is so universally implanted among mankind, that it may well be doubted whether an obedience to its impulse is likely in any case to produce injurious effects. In fact, subjugation by a foreign power is it self a greater calamity than any benefits with which it is accompanied can ever compensate; because, in the very act of receiving them by force, there is implied an entire dereliction of all that is valuable in political blessings, -a security that they will remain permanent. There is no example, perhaps, to be found in the history of mankind, of political freedom being either effectually conferred by a sovereign in gift, or communicated by the force of foreign arms; but as liberty is the greatest blessing which man can enjoy, so it seems to be the law of nature that it should be the reward of intrepidity and energy alone; and that it is by the labour of his hands, and the sweat of his brow, that he is

to earn his freedom as well as his subsistence.

Least of all are such advantages to be anticipated from the conquest of a free people. That the dominion of free states over conquered countries is always more tyrannical than that of any other form of government, has been observed ever since the birth of liberty in the Grecian states, by all who have been so unfortunate as to be subjected to their rule. If we except the Roman republic, whose wise and beneficent policy is so entirely at variance with every thing else which we observe in human affairs, that we are almost disposed to impute it to a special interposition of divine providence, there is no free state in ancient or modern times, whose government towards the countries whom it subdued has not been of the most oppressive description. We are accustomed to speak of the maternal government of free governments, but towards their subject provinces, it is generally the cruel tyranny of the stepmother, who oppresses her acquired children to favour her own offspring.

Nor is it difficult to perceive the reason why a popular government is naturally inclined, in the general case, to severity towards its dependencies. A single monarch looks to the revenue alone of the countries whom he has subdued, and as it necessarily rises with the prosperity which they enjoy, his obvious interest is to pursue the measures best calculated to secure it. But in republics, or in those free governments where the popular voice exercises a decided control, the leading men of the state themselves look to the property of the subject country as the means of their individual exaltation. Confiscations accordingly are multiplied, with a view to gratify the people or nobles of the victorious country with grants of the confiscated lands. Hatred and animosity are thus engendered between the ruling government and their subject provinces; and this, in its time, gives rise to new confiscations, by which the breach between the higher and lower orders is rendered irreparable. Whoever is acquainted with the history of the dominion which the Athenian and Syracusan populace held over their subject cities; with the government of Genoa, Venice, and Florence, in me

dern times; or with the sanguinary rule which England exercised over Ireland during the three centuries which followed her subjugation, will know that this statement is not overcharged.

On principle, therefore, and judging by the experience of past times, there is no room to doubt, that Bruce, in opposing the conquest of Scotland by the English arms, was doing what the real interest of his country required; and that how incalculable soever may be the blessings which she has since received by an union, on equal terms, with her southern neighbour, the result would have been very <lifferent had she entered into that government on the footing of involuntary subjugation. In fact, it is not difficult to perceive what would have been the policy which England would have pursued towards this country, had she prevailed in the contest for the Scottish throne; and it is by following out the consequences of such an event, and tracing its probable in fluence on the condition of our population at this day, that we can alone appreciate the immense obligations we owe to our forefathers, who fought and died on the field of Bannockburn.

Had the English, then, prevailed in the war with Robert Bruce, and finally succeeded in establishing their long wished-for dominion in this country, it cannot be doubted, that their first measure would have been to dispossess a large portion of the nobles who had so obstinately maintained the war against them, and substitute their own barons in their room. The pretended rebellion of Scotland against the legitimate authority of Edward, would have furnished a plausible pretext for such a proceeding, while policy would of course have suggested it as the most efficacious means, both of restraining the turbulent and hostile spirit of the natives, and of gratifying the great barons by whose force they had been subdued. In fact, many such confiscations and grants of the lands to English nobles actually took place, during the time that Edward I. maintained his authority within the Scottish territory.

The consequences of such a measure are very obvious. The dispossessed proprietors ould have nourished the most violent and inveterate animosity against their oppressors;

and the tenantry on their estates, attached by feudal and clanish affection to their ancient masters, would have joined in any scheme for their restoration. The seeds of continual discord and hatred would thus have been sown between the lower orders and the existing proprietors of the soil. On the other hand, the great English barons, to whom the confiscated lands were assigned, would naturally prefer the society of their own country, and the security of their native castles, to the unproductive soil and barbarous tribes on their northern estates. They would in consequence have relinquished these estates to factors or agents, and, without ever thinking of residing among a people by whom they were detested, have sought only to increase, by rigorous exactions, the revenue which they could derive from their labour.

In progress of time, however, the natural fervour of the Scottish people, their hereditary animosities against England, the exertions of the dispossessed proprietors, and the oppression of the English authorities, would have occasioned a revolt in Scotland. They would naturally have chosen for such an undertaking the moment when the English forces were engaged in the wars of France, and when the entire desertion of the northern frontier promised successful rapine to their arms. In such circumstances, it is not to be doubted that they would have been unable to withstand the seeds of resistance to the English arms, which the French emissaries would have sedulously spread through the country. And if the authority of England was again re-established, new and more extensive confiscations would of course have followed; the English nobles would have been gratified by grants of the most considerable estates on the north of the Tweed, and the bonds of military subjection would have been tightened on the unfortunate people who were subdued.

The continuance of the wars between France and England, by presenting favourable opportunities to the Scotch to revolt, combined with the temptation which the remoteness of their situation and the strength of their country afforded, would have induced continual civil wars between the peasantry and their foreign masters, until the resources of the coun

try were entirely exhausted, and the people sunk in hopeless submission under the power that oppressed them. But, in the progress of these wars, an evil of a far greater and more permanent description would naturally arise, than either the loss of lives or the devastation of property which they occasioned. In the course of the protracted contest, the LANDED PROPERTY OF THE COUNTRY WOULD ENTIRELY HAVE CHANGED MASTERS; and in place of being possessed by natives of the country permanently settled on their estates, and attached by habit and common interest to the labourers of the ground, it would have come into the hands of foreign noblemen, forced upon the country by military power, hated by the natives, residing always on their English estates, and regarding the people of Scotland as barbarians, whom it was alike impolitic to approach, and necessary to curb by despotic power.

But while such would be the feelings and policy of the English proprietors, the stewards whom they appointed to manage their Scotch estates, at a distance from home, and surrounded by a fierce and hostile population, would have felt the necessity of some assistance, to enable them to maintain their authority, or turn to any account the estates that were committed to their care. Unable to procure military assistance, to enforce the submission of every district, or collect the rents of every property, they would of necessity have looked to some method of conciliating the people of the country; and such a method would naturally suggest itself in the attachment which the people bore to the families of original landlords, and the consequent means which they possessed of swaying their refractory dispositions. These unhappy men, on the other hand, despairing of the recovery of their whole estates, would be glad of an opportunity of regaining any part of them, and eagerly embrace any proposal by which such a compromise might be effected. The sense of mutual dependence, in short, would have led to an arrangement, by which the estates of the English nobles were to be subset to the Scottish proprietors for a fixed yearly rent, and they would take upon themselves the task to which they alone were competent, of recovering the rents from the actual cultivators of the soil.

As the numbers of the people increased, however, and the value of the immense farms which had been thus granted to the descendants of their original proprietors was enhanced, the task of collecting rents over so extensive a district would have become too great for any individual, and the increased wealth which he had acquired from the growth of his tenantry, would have led him to dislike the personal labour with which it would be attended. These great tenants, in consequence, would have subset their vast possessions to an inferior set of occupiers, who might each superintend the collection of the rents within his own farm, and have an opportunity of acquiring a personal acquaintance with the labourers by whom it was to be cultivated. As the number of the people increased, the same process would be repeated by the different tenants on their respective farms; and thus there would have sprung up universally in Scotland a class of MIDDLE MEN between the proprietor and the actual cultivator of the soil.

While these changes went on, the condition of the people, oppressed by a series of successive masters, each of whom required to live by their labour, and wholly debarred from obtaining any legal redress for their grievances, would have gradually sunk. Struggling with a barren soil, and a host of insatiable oppressors, they could never have acquired any ideas of comfort, or indulged in any hopes of rising in the world. They would, in consequence, have adopted that species of food which promised to afford the greatest nourishment for a family from the smallest space of ground; and from the universality of this cause, the POTATOE would have become the staple food of the country.

The landed proprietors, on the other hand, who are the natural protectors, and ought always to be the best encouragers of the people on their estates, would have shrunk from the idea of leaving their English possessions, where they were surrounded by an affectionate and comfortable tenant

ry, where riches and plenty sprung from the natural fertility of the soil, and where power and security were derived from their equal law, to settle in a northern climate, amongst a people by whom they were abhorred, and where law was unable to restrain the

licentiousness, or reform the barbarity of the inhabitants.-They would in consequence have universally become ABSENTEE PROPRIETORS; and not only denied to the Scottish people the incalculable advantages of a resident body of landed gentlemen; but, by their influence in Parliament, and their animosity towards their northern tenantry, prevented any legislative measure being pursued for their relief.

In such circumstances, it seems hardly conceivable that arts or manufactures should have made any progress in this country. But, if in spite of the obstacles which the unfavourable climate, and unhappy political circumstances of the country presented, manufactures should have begun to spring up amongst us, they would speedily have been checked by the commercial jealousy of their more powerful southern rivals. Bills would have been brought into parliament, as was actually done in regard to a neighbouring island, proceeding on the preamble," that it is expedient that the Scottish manufactures should be discouraged;" and the prohibition of sending their goods into the richer market of England, whither the whole wealth of the country were already drawn, would have annihilated the infant efforts of manufacturing industry.

Nor would the Reformation, which, as matters stand, has been of such essential service to this country, have been, on the hypothesis which we are pursuing, a lesser source of suffering, or a greater bar to the improvement of the people. From being embraced by their English landlords, the Reformed Religion would have been hateful to the peasants of Scotland; the Catholic priests would have sought refuge among them, from the persecution to which they were exposed in their native seats; and both would have been strengthened in their hatred to those persons to whom their common misfortune was owing. Religious hatred would thus have combined with all the previous circumstances of irritation, to increase the rancour between the proprietors of the soil, and the labouring classes in this country; and from the circumstance of the latter adhering to the proscribed religion, they would have been rendered yet more incapable of procuring a redress for their grievances in a legisla

tive form.

Had the English, therefore, sueceeded in subduing Scotland in the time of Robert Bruce, and in maintaining their authority from that period, we think it not going too far to assert, that the people of this country would have been now in the lowest state of political degradation: that religious discussion and civil rancour would have mutually exasperated the higher and lower orders against each other; that the landed proprietors would have been permanently settled in the victorious country; that every where a class of middlemen would have been established to grind and ruin the labours of the poor; that manufactures would have been extinguished, and the country covered with a numerous and indigent population, idle in their habits, ignorant in their ideas, ferocious in their manners, professing a religion which held them in bondage, and clinging to prejudices from which their ruin must ensue.

Is it said, that this is mere conjecture, and that nothing in the history of English government warrants us in concluding, that such would have been the consequence of the establishment of their dominion in this country? Alas! it is not conjecture. The history of IRELAND affords too melancholy a confirmation of the truth of the positions which we have advanced, and of the reality of the deduction which we have pursued. In that deduction we have not reasoned on hypothesis or conjecture. Every step which we have hinted at, has there been taken; every consequence which we have suggested, has there ensued. Those acquainted with the history of that unhappy country, or who have studied its present condition, will recognize in the conjectural history which we have sketched, of what would have followed the annexation of this country to England in the time of Edward II., the real history of what HAS FOLLOWED its subjugation in the time of Henry II., and perceive in the causes which we have pointed out, as what would have operated upon our people, the real causes of the misery and wretchedness in which its population is involved.

Nor is the example of the peaceful submission of Wales to the dominion of England, any authority against this view of the subject. Wales is so in considerable in comparison to Eng