The trouble had hardly been got rid of in Ireland by Carteret's judicious advice and the withdrawal of Wood's patent when a commotion that at one time threatened to be equally serious broke out in Scotland. English members of Parliament had been for many years complaining that Scotland was exempt from any taxation on malt. Up to that time no Government had attempted to take any steps towards establishing equality in this respect between the two countries. Walpole now strove to deal with the question. It was proposed in the House of Commons that instead of a malt duty in Scotland a duty of sixpence should be levied on every barrel of ale. Walpole at first was not inclined to deal with the difficulty in this way, but as the feeling of the House was very strongly in favor of making some attempt, he consented to adopt the principle suggested, but required that the duty should be threepence instead of sixpence. The moment it became known in Scotland that any tax on malt or ale was to be imposed, rioting began in the principal cities; the spirit of the national motto asserted itself--"nemo me impune lacessit." The ringleaders of various mobs were arrested and sent for trial, but the Scotch juries, following the recent example of the Irish, refused to convict. Brewers all over Scotland entered into a sort of league, by virtue of which they pledged themselves not to give any securities for the new duty and to cease brewing if the Government exacted it. Unluckily for Walpole, the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Duke of Roxburgh, was a great friend of Carteret's, {250} and had joined with Carteret in endeavoring to thwart Walpole in all his undertakings. The success of Walpole's policy in any instance was understood by Carteret and by Roxburgh to mean Walpole's supremacy over all other ministers. The Duke of Roxburgh therefore took advantage of the crisis in Scotland to injure the administration, and especially to injure Walpole. In a subtle and underhand way he contrived to favor and foment the disturbance. He took care that the orders of the Government should not be too quickly carried out, and he gave more than a tacit encouragement to the common rumor that the King in his heart was hostile to the new tax, that the tax was wholly an invention of Walpole's, and that resistance to such a measure would not be unwelcome to the Sovereign, and would lead to the dismissal of the minister. Walpole was not long in finding out the treachery of the Duke of Roxburgh. To adopt a homely phrase, he "took the bull by the horns" at once. Lord Townshend was in Hanover with the King, and Walpole wrote to Lord Townshend, giving him a full account of all that was going on in Scotland, and laying the chief blame for the continuance of the disturbance on the Duke of Roxburgh. "I beg leave to observe," wrote Walpole, "that the present administration is the first that was ever yet known to be answerable for the whole