During the discussions on the Articles of Union Fletcher displayed the same courage, and the same defects of temper, as during the previous sessions of the Parliament. Sir David Hume, in his diary, frequently mentions the scenes in which the member for Haddingtonshire was the leader. For instance, on one occasion, when it was proposed that a sermon should be preached, on a ‘Fast Day,’ in the Parliament House, a proposal which was supported by some lay members of the Commission, or Standing Committee, of the Church of Scotland, ‘Salton having alleged that if he would tell what he knew, those of the Commission who were for that manner of the Fast would be ashamed to hold up their faces; he being challenged by several honourable members of the House, who were also members of the Commission, the business was with some struggle let fall.’ On the next day after this incident, Fletcher, in attacking the Commissioners on Union, said they had ‘betrayed their trust.’ He was called to order, but said he was ‘sorry he could not get softer words.’ Then it was moved that he should be sent to the bar; but at last he was persuaded to say he was sorry if he had offended any one, and the matter dropped. On another day Hume describes how, when he entered the Parliament House, he found an altercation going on, apparently over the Minutes of the last sitting. Fletcher said, ‘What my Lord Stair has said in reference to the Minutes is not true.’ To this Stair answered that he ‘desired the House to take notice of what Salton had said; otherwise he would be obliged to say what he had said was a lie.’ There was an hour’s ‘discourse’ about this; and then they were both called upon to ask pardon of the House. Fletcher at once apologised to the House, but ‘shifted, craving Stair’s pardon.’ Stair then said, ‘If what he had said offended the House, he craved pardon.’ The Chancellor next appealed to Fletcher. He said he ‘hoped Salton would acknowledge that he meant no reflection on my Lord Stair, but only to contradict the thing he had said, and if he had given him any offence he craved his pardon, which,’ Sir David goes on, ‘Salton assented to, and both of them gave their word of honour not to resent it without-doors.’ There were many scenes of this description during the last session of the Scottish Parliament. The passion with which the debates were conducted was extraordinary. It was sometimes difficult to hear a word of what was said. ‘Scandalous disorder,’ in the words of one member, challenges to fight on the floor of the House, shouting, interruptions, calls to order, Hamilton, whose voice was very loud, overbearing his opponents by sheer strength of lung, Fletcher springing to his feet, ready, at a moment’s notice, to draw his sword,--it was amidst all this clamour and noise that the Union was debated.