ABSTRACT
THE UNION OF 1707 led at once to discontent. Some of this should have been foreseen. The feeling whipped up in Scotland against it would not go down quickly, especially since it was supported by an unusual and powerful partnership of Jacobitism and the Kirk. Of course there was a last-minute attempt to profit by entry into the new customs union: indignant English merchants were soon insisting on measures against undercutting by Scots, who had imported large quantities of French wine before the adoption of English duties for sale on the English markets. The extension to Scotland of the English customs and excise services involved a lot of uncomfortable adjustment, and should have involved a higher level of official probity, but did not. The raised level of duties was a Scottish grievance, and Scottish customs frauds an English one. More serious were the deliberate acts of provocation from an English-dominated Parliament. Just when goodwill and tranquility were needed to enable the Scots to discover and get used to new channels of power and influence, English politics made them unattainable. The political hegemony which had sustained Marlborough’s campaigns began to disintegrate and, in the rising party strife, Scottish affairs became a gambit.
