In the meantime the Government were waiting an opportunity for again bringing forward the question of the Union; and at last, on the 24th of August, Mar’s resolution on the subject was discussed. Fletcher moved, a few days later, an address to the throne, complaining of the way in which Scotland had been treated by the English Parliament, which he declared to be ‘injurious to the honour and interest of this nation.’ Though this address was not adopted, Hamilton pressed upon the House a resolution binding the Estates to resist any Union which would change the fundamental laws of the Scottish constitution. At this point the Country Party appear to have agreed to the principle of an Union; but they were resolved that the Scottish Parliament, the outward sign and instrument of an independent national existence, must not be abolished. Gradually the Act for a Treaty of Union took shape; but, when the Government were congratulating themselves on having weathered the storm, Fletcher moved to amend the Act by inserting a clause to provide that the Commissioners for Union should not meet until the ‘Alien Clause’ of the recent English Act was repealed. He and his friends, both Jacobites and members of the Old Country Party, probably believed that England would refuse to treat on such terms, and that, therefore, the Union, which he now saw was threatening the independence of Scotland, would collapse. It was likely that the Government would be defeated if Fletcher’s amendment was openly opposed, and the dexterous hand of Queensberry is seen in the way in which the difficulty was met. The Government professed to agree with the object of the amendment, but proposed that, instead of adding it to the Union Act, the House should, as soon as that Act was passed, proceed to consider whether the question of the Alien Clause should form the subject of a resolution of the Estates or of a separate Act of Parliament. Fletcher agreed to this, and his motion stands on the rolls of the Scottish Parliament in these terms: ‘Then agreed and ordered, _nemine contradicente_, that the Commissioners to be named by Her Majesty for the Kingdom of Scotland shall not commence the Treaty of Union until the clause in the English Act declaring the subjects of Scotland aliens be rescinded.’ The Scottish Ministers, in transmitting this resolution to London, carefully explained that they had found it necessary, if the Union was to go on, to comply with the wish of the Estates that some resentment should be expressed against England.[14] [14] Halifax to Godolphin, 4th Sept. 1705. Add. MSS. 28,055.