These conditions, for proposing which he would have been sent to the gallows in the days of the Stuarts, and to Botany Bay in the days of Mr. Pitt, Fletcher pressed upon the Estates as essential for the protection of Scotland against England. ‘If,’ he said, ‘our Kings lived among us, it would not be strange to find these limitations rejected. It is not the prerogative of a King of Scotland I would diminish, but the prerogative of English Ministers over this nation. These conditions of Government being either such as our ancestors enjoyed, or principally directed to cut off our dependence on an English Court, and not to take place during the life of the Queen, he who refuses his consent to them, whatever he may be by birth, cannot sure be a Scotsman by affection. This will be a true test to distinguish, not Whig from Tory, Presbyterian from Episcopal, Hanover from Saint Germains, nor yet a courtier from a man out of place, but a proper test to distinguish a friend from an enemy to his country.’ But the Scottish Parliament, in spite of all its high-strung patriotism, was not prepared to accept so republican a scheme as this; and by a majority of twenty-six votes it was decided that the Laird of Saltoun’s Limitations should not form a part of the ‘Act of Security’ which the Estates were now engaged in framing. The basis of this famous statute was a measure introduced by the Lord Privy Seal, providing that the Estates should meet within twenty days after the death of Anne, and proceed to name a Protestant successor to the throne of Scotland. But to this simple measure a number of clauses were added, until it grew into that elaborate Act which was the pivot on which Scottish history turned until the Union. Rothes proposed a clause which embodied the principle of one of Fletcher’s Limitations: That war and peace were to be made only by consent of Parliament. Queensberry said that he was ready to consent to anything which was for the good of the country, and which ‘the Queen had under her view when she left London.’ This proposal, he said, she had never heard of. On this Fletcher declared that it was now evident, as he had often thought, that in Scottish affairs the Crown was under the influence of English councillors. At these words some members were so ill-advised as to interrupt him, and even to suggest that he should be censured. This led to a scene. ‘What!’ exclaimed Hamilton, ‘is this the liberty of Parliament?’ There were shouts of ‘privilege’ from all parts of the House; and several members rose at the same time to demand that the member should be allowed, without interruption, to explain his words.