The Scottish Parliament was to meet upon the 3rd October, and the Government wished to keep the Articles of Union secret until then. No copies of the Treaty were allowed to pass into circulation. A proclamation forbidding the making of wagers upon the subject was strictly enforced, and a strong effort was made to prevent the publication of writings about the Union. But it was, of course, impossible to stop the discussion of so momentous a question; all the more, as many persons were in possession of the main outlines of the Treaty. The Whigs had already made up their minds that the Articles would be ratified by the Estates; and even the most violent members of the Jacobite and Country Parties saw that the general feeling of Scotland was now favourable to the Union, a fact which Lockhart explains by saying that false accounts of the Articles were given by the Scottish Commissioners on their return from England. ‘We have,’ Halifax writes, ‘all the reason to promise ourselves success in an Union with Scotland. All the letters from that country give us great hopes that it will be accepted by their Parliament.’[16] [16] Halifax to the Elector of Hanover, 23rd August 1706. In the discussions which now took place, the community seems to have been divided into three classes: those who were distinctly in favour of an Union, those who were distinctly opposed to it, and those who were in favour of an Union, provided the separate Parliament of Scotland was allowed to remain. If Fletcher was the author of a pamphlet which has been attributed to him, entitled, _The State of the Controversy betwixt United and Separate Parliaments_, he must be reckoned as amongst the last class; and, indeed, he seldom expressed any opinion which was not consistent with supporting a federal Union. But it is very doubtful whether he wrote this pamphlet. He was, however, supposed to be writing, while the Commission was sitting at Westminster, in favour of a dissolution, on the ground that the question could only be lawfully settled by a Parliament elected for that purpose by the constituencies.[17] But, though the press was busy printing pamphlets on the subject of the Union, the time for such discussions was past, and everything depended on what was done on the floor of the Parliament House. [17] Baillie to Roxburghe, 19th April 1706, in the Jerviswoode Correspondence. The full title of the pamphlet to which I have alluded is: ‘State of the Controversy betwixt United and Separate Parliaments, whether these Interests which are to be united by the present Treaty, and the Interests which, by the same Treaty, are to remain separate and distinct, are most properly and safely lodged under the Guardianship of a United Parliament, or under that of Separate Parliaments. Printed in the year 1706.’