They said that the interests of Scotland had too long been sacrificed to those of the French nation, who, whenever they found themselves reduced to difficulties, called for the assistance of their allies; but were ready to abandon them as soon as they found their advantage in making peace with England: that where a small state entered into so close a confederacy with a greater, it must always expect this treatment, as a consequence of the unequal alliance; but there were peculiar circumstances in the situation of the kingdoms, which, in the present case, rendered it inevitable: that France was so distant, and so divided from them by sea, that she scarcely could, by any means, and never could in time, send succors to the Scots, sufficient to protect them against ravages from the neighboring kingdom: that nature had, in a manner, formed an alliance between the two British nations; having enclosed them in the same island; given them the same manners, language, laws, and form of government; and prepared every thing for an intimate union between them: and that, if national antipathies were abolished, which would soon be the effect of peace, these two kingdoms, secured by the ocean and by their domestic force, could set at defiance all foreign enemies, and remain forever safe and unmolested. The partisans of the French alliance, on the other hand, said, that the very reasons which were urged in favor of a league with England, the vicinity of the kingdom and its superior force, were the real causes why a sincere and durable confederacy could never be formed with that hostile nation: that among neighboring states occasions of quarrel were frequent, and the more powerful would be sure to seize every frivolous pretence for oppressing the weaker, and reducing it to subjection: that as the near neighborhood of France and England had kindled a war almost perpetual between them, it was the interest of the Scots, if they wished to maintain their independence, to preserve their league with the former kingdom, which balanced the force of the latter: that if they deserted that old and salutary alliance on which their importance in Europe chiefly depended, their ancient enemies, stimulated both by interest and by passion, would soon invade them with superior force, and bereave them of all their liberties: or if they delayed the attack, the insidious peace, by making the Scots forget the use of arms, would only prepare the way for a slavery more certain and more irretrievable.[*] * Buchanan, lib. xiv.