the L^d Seafield, then Chancellor for
Scotland....

The first grand point debated by the Commissioners for Scotland amongst
themselves was whether they should propose to the English a Federal
union between the two nations, or an Incorporating union. The first was
most favoured by the people of Scotland, but all the Scots
Commissioners, to a Man, considered it ridiculous and impracticable, for
that in all the Federal unions there behoved to be a supreme power
lodged somewhere, and wherever this was lodged it henceforth became the
States General, or, in our way of speaking, the Parliament of Great
Britain, under the same royal power and authority as the two nations are
at present. And in things of the greatest consequence to the two
nations, as in Councils relating to peace and war and subsidies, it was
impossible that the Representatives or their suffrages in both nations
cou'd be equal, but must be regulated in proportion to the power and
riches of the several publick burdens or Taxations that cou'd affect
them; in a word, the Scots Commissioners saw that no Union cou'd subsist
between the two nations but an incorporating perpetual one. But after
all the trouble we gave ourselves to please the people of Scotland, we
knew at the time that it was but losing our labour, for the English
Commissioners were positively resolved to treat on no kind of union with
us but what was to be incorporating and perpetual....

The Queen came among us three several times, once at our first or
second meeting, to acquaint us of her intentions and ardent good wishes
for our success and unanimity in this great Transaction. At about a
month thereafter she came again to enquire of our success, and had most
of our Minutes read to her, and for the last time of what we had
done....

I was ... intrusted with another province by the Commissioners for
Scotland, which was to review the Calculations made for the Equivalent
to be paid to Scotland for bearing their share of the Debt of England,
which were afterwards to be considered as the Debts of Great Britain.
These calculations were chiefly made by Doctor Gregory, professor of
Mathematicks in the College of Oxford, and a certain great accomptant
and projector, one Patersone,[26] from Scotland, but bred in England
from his infancy....

One day I had occasion to observe the Calamities which attend human
nature even in the greatest dignities of Life. Her majesty was labouring
under a fit of the Gout