During this period, the affairs of Scotland were in a marked degree subordinate to those of England. The king, absorbed in continental wars and continental politics, paid little attention to his northern kingdom; he left it chiefly to the care of its state-officers, using as a medium of his own influence, William Carstares, a Presbyterian minister of extraordinary worth, sincerity, and prudence, who had gained his entire esteem and confidence, and who usually attended him wherever he was. A parliament which sat in May 1695, was chiefly occupied with the investigation of the Glencoe massacre, and with measures connected with the rising commercial enterprise of the country, including the formation of a native bank, and that of a company for trading with Africa and the Indies. The latter of these speculations was worked out in an expedition to Darien, and an attempted settlement there, which, through English mercantile jealousy, and the king’s indifference to Scottish interests, ended so unfortunately as greatly to incense the Scottish nation, and increase the party disaffected to the Revolution government. The misery hence arising was increased by a dearth from a succession of bad seasons. Nevertheless, this period will be found in our chronicle to have been remarkable for the establishment of manufactories of various kinds, and for various other industrial enterprises, shewing that the national energies were beginning to take a decidedly new direction. At the same time, instances of deplorable superstition, cruelty, and intolerance were sufficiently numerous to attest that the days of barbarism were not past.