The offer of a free trade with England was treated as an insult.

"Our fathers," said one orator, "sold their King for southern gold; and we still lie under the reproach of that foul bargain.

Let it not be said of us that we have sold our God!" Sir John Lauder of Fountainhall, one of the Senators of the College of Justice, suggested the words, "the persons commonly called Roman Catholics." "Would you nickname His Majesty ?" exclaimed the Chancellor.

The answer drawn by the committee was carried; but a large and respectable minority voted against the proposed words as too courtly.

[140] It was remarked that the representatives of the towns were, almost to a man, against the government.