too many factions
and the recently completed Union with Scotland (1707) offered what
appeared to be a far simpler expedient. The Act of Union provided for
the election of sixteen Scottish peers who would represent all of the
Scottish nobility in the House of Lords.[3] If he could ensure that all
sixteen of these peers were Tory, Harley would be certain of a large
block of loyal votes in the upper house, or, at worst, he would have to
arrange for the creation of only a few new peers to neutralize the
Whigs' strength. To John Campbell, the second Duke of Argyll, Harley
assigned the task of orchestrating a Tory sweep in this election.

The Duke of Argyll sat in the House of Lords as the Earl of Greenwich
(an English title), not as one of the elected peers, and, as such, he
was not elegible to stand as a candidate or to vote in this election.
Argyll had supported the Whig Junto and held the rank of Lieutenant
General under Marlborough in France, but in 1710 (seeing the direction
the political tide was taking) he abandoned his support of Godolphin's
Ministry. So that, "by the time the [Sacheverell] Trial was finished,
it was known that the great chief of the Campbells and of the Scottish
Whigs had gone into opposition to the Government [of Godolphin] in
league with Harley, although he voted for the Doctor's condemnation...."[4]

Argyll and the sixteen representative peers (if they were all Tories),
together with the votes of those peers who were dependant upon
Government subsidies would give the new Ministry of Harley enough votes
in the upper house for almost any eventuality--even the impeachment of
Marlborough. It is possible to speculate that this was the
plum--command of the British armies in Europe--that induced Argyll's
change from Whig to Tory in 1710. Argyll's jealousy and resentment of
his commander had been a well known bit of gossip for some time, and it
is very possible that Argyll saw a new Government as his chance to
steal a march on Marlborough. Although Harley's Ministry did give the
Order of the Garter to Argyll on 20 December 1710, he was never
promoted over Marlborough, but that was not due to any lack of success
in assuring a Tory victory in the election of the peers. Argyll's
heavy-handed management of that election is the subject of Defoe's
_Atalantis Major_.

By birth and education Daniel Defoe was a member of the mercantile
middle class. He was a Dissenter and his political and economic
sympathies