Some proposed that the overture should be burned; others moved that the earl might be sent prisoner to the castle; and a general dissatisfaction appeared in the whole assembly.

Not that the majority in parliament were averse to the succession in the house of Hanover; but they resolved to avoid a nomination without stipulating conditions; and they had already provided, in the act of security, that it should be high treason to own any person as king or queen after her majesty's decease, until he or she should take the coronation oath, and accept the terms of the claim of right, and such conditions as should be settled in this or any ensuing parliament.
HE IS IN DANGER OF HIS LIFE.
Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, a man of undaunted courage and inflexible integrity, who professed republican principles, and seemed designed by nature as a member of some Grecian commonwealth, after having observed that the nation would be enslaved should it submit, either willingly or by commission, to the successor of England, without such conditions of government as should secure them against the influence of an English ministry, offered the draft of an act, importing, that after the decease of her majesty, without heirs of her body, no person being successor to the English throne should succeed to the crown of Scotland but under the following limitations, which, together with the coronation oath and claim of right, they should swear to observe: namely, that all offices and places, civil and military, as well as pensions, should for the future be conferred by a parliament to be chosen at every Michaelmas head-court, to sit on the first day of November, and adjourn themselves from time to time till the ensuing Michaelmas; that they should choose their own president; that a committee of six-and-thirty members, chosen out of the whole parliament, without distinction of estates, should, during the intervals of parliament, be vested, under the king, with the administration of the government, act as his council, be accountable to parliament, and call it together on extraordinary occasions.

He proposed that the successor should be nominated by the majority; declaring for himself that he would rather concur in nominating the most rigid papist with those conditions, than the truest protestant without them.

The motion was seconded by many members; and though postponed for the present, in favour of an act of trade under the consideration of the house, it was afterwards resumed with great warmth.

In vain the lord-treasurer represented that no funds were as yet provided for the army, and moved for a reading of the act presented for that purpose; a certain member observed, that this was a very unseasonable juncture to propose a supply, when the house had so much to do for the security of the nation; he said they had very little encouragement to grant supplies when they found themselves frustrated of all their labour and expense for these several months; and when the whole kingdom saw that supplies served for no other use but to gratify the warice of some insatiable ministers.