On the following day, when Rothes moved the second reading of his measure, Fletcher again tried to bring forward his favourite subject, which led Stair to say that the honourable member was resolved to do by his Limitations as the ape did by her young, grasp them so tight that she stifled them. Fletcher lost his temper, and called out that the noble lord had, in the days of King James, stretched the prerogative till it nearly cracked, when he penned the declaration of arbitrary power. This was a very palpable hit, but the Chancellor rose and stopped the altercation by moving that the House should proceed to business; and on a vote being taken whether the Estates, or the Sovereign with the consent of the Estates, should appoint Privy Councillors, Judges, and other officers, it carried in favour of the Estates by twenty-three, in spite of the opposition of the Government. Nothing, however, came of these wild expedients for limiting the power of the Crown. The Estates passed Acts for triennial Parliaments, for giving to Parliament the power of appointing officers of the Crown, and for securing the presence of Scottish ambassadors at the making of all treaties, but to these enactments the royal assent was refused. The proposals for improving the trade of the country took the form of a number of measures, only a few of which received the royal assent. The general purpose of these measures was Protection to home trade and manufactures, and retaliation on England for passing the Alien Act. Of these the royal assent was given to an Act forbidding the importation of English, Irish, and foreign butter and cheese, to an Act for assisting the fisheries of Scotland, to an Act for encouraging the exportation of beef and pork, and to another declaring Scottish linen and woollen manufactures free of duty at exportation. In addition to these there was a statute, which was considered the most important of all, for appointing a Council of Trade for Scotland.