=62. Trial and Death of Captain Green.=--Just at this time an event happened which tended to increase the bad feeling between the two countries. An English ship, the _Worcester_, was driven by stress of weather into the _Firth of Forth_. It was seized by the Scots, because the _East India Company_ had some time before detained a Scotch ship. From the talk of some of the crew it was suspected that they had murdered the captain and crew of one of the _Darien_ vessels which was missing. On this charge _Captain Green_ of the _Worcester_, his mate and crew, were brought to trial before the High Court of Admiralty. On the evidence of a black slave they were found guilty and condemned, and Green, his mate, and one of the crew were hanged. It was afterwards found out that the crime for which they had suffered had never been committed. The missing ship had gone ashore on the island of _Madagascar_, where _Drummond_, the captain, was then living. Whatever wrongs the Scots had suffered, the English had now, after this unlawful deed, a very reasonable cause of complaint against them. =63. The Union.=--It was clear that, if the two kingdoms were to go on together in peace, it could only be by joining their Parliaments and their commercial interests into one. Commissioners from both sides were appointed to consider the best way of effecting this union. _Godolphin_, the _Treasurer of England_, and the _Duke of Queensberry_, the _Royal Commissioner in Scotland_, were its chief promoters. The Commissioners drew up a _Treaty of Union_, which was approved by the Parliaments of both countries. By the _Articles of Union_ the succession to both crowns was settled in the Protestant heirs of _Sophia_; and each country was secured in the possession of her national Church as then established. Scotland was to send sixteen Representative Peers, elected from the whole body of Peers, and forty-five members from the Commons, to the Parliament at Westminster, henceforth to be called the _Parliament of Great Britain_. It was further settled that one seal, with the arms of both kingdoms quartered upon it, should serve for both countries, that both should be subject to the same _Excise duties_ and _Customs_, and should have the same privileges of trade. The same coins, weights, and measures were to be used throughout the island. The law-courts of Scotland, the _Court of Justiciary_ and the _Court of Session_, were to remain unchanged, only there was now a right of appeal from the _Court of Session_, which had hitherto been supreme in all civil cases, to the _House of Lords_. In addition to the twenty-five Articles of Union, a special Act was passed for securing the liberty of the _Church of Scotland_ as it then stood in all time coming, and declaring that the Presbyterian should be the only Church government in Scotland. The first Parliament of Great Britain met October 23, 1707.