It is curious to remember that this admirable system of laws was the handiwork of the very men who were foremost in the business of suppressing the liberties of the nation. The period between the Restoration and the Revolution, every page of whose history is stained by crimes perpetrated under the sanction of the law, was the Augustan age of Scottish jurisprudence; and the rolls of the Scottish Parliament during these years are full of statutes, dealing with almost every department of the law, and containing provisions which conferred real benefits on all classes of the people. Apart, then, from those laws which were destructive of public liberty, the Scottish Parliament had done good work for Scotland even under the Stuarts. It was now free; and what Fletcher resented was not the Union with England, by which Scotland gained a great deal, but the destruction of the Scottish Parliament, which had become, not only the symbol of national independence, but a real instrument of self-government. It was evident that the wishes of the Scottish people could never prevail at Westminster, even in matters which concerned Scotland alone, against the prejudices or the ignorance of Englishmen, when Scotland was represented by only forty-five commoners and sixteen peers. But the Treaty had been ratified, and there was nothing more to be said. CHAPTER X Arrest of Fletcher--His Release--The Jacobite Prisoners of 1708--Death of Belhaven--Fletcher retires into Private Life--Conversations with Wodrow--His Death--Views of his Character. It is possible that Fletcher did not ride further than Saltoun; but if he did leave Scotland as soon as the Union was accomplished, he was back again in the spring of the following year. At that time the country was alarmed by the fleet which was fitted out at Dunkirk by the French, and which sailed, with the Chevalier de St. George on board, for the shores of Scotland. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended; and the Privy Council ordered the arrest of a number of suspected persons, among whom were the Duke of Gordon, the Marquis of Huntly, and no less than twenty other peers of Scotland. One of these was Belhaven. Many commoners, too, were taken up, such as Stirling of Keir, Cameron of Lochiel, Moray of Abercairney, Edmonstone of Newton, and other notorious Jacobites. But, strange to say, Fletcher was also arrested; on what grounds it is difficult to surmise, for it seems impossible to imagine that he could have been suspected of plotting for the return of the Stuarts.