A law was
accordingly established dividing Scotland into five districts, in each
of which certain members of the Remonstrant clergy were empowered to
ordain ministers, as it were, to the exercise of their functions. At the
same time it was not the object of Cromwell to exalt one party at the
expense of the other so much as to strike a balance between the two; and
in doing this he was much served by the tact and good sense of James
Sharp, whose name now first begins to be heard in Scottish history. He
was on the side of the Resolutioners, but he so managed matters as to be
favourably regarded by the Government as a person likely to be of
service to them in the event of any open disruption between the two
bodies, without losing the confidence of his own party. The Court of
Session was the next to go, and in its place rose the Commission of
Justice, of which James Dalrymple, afterwards Lord Stair, the first
Scottish lawyer of his day, was the most conspicuous member. In 1654 the
Act for incorporating the Union between England and Scotland was passed
by the Commonwealth. With that Commonwealth disappeared the Union, but
the few years of its existence were fruitful of at least one great boon
to Scotland. In those years was established free-trade between the two
countries: a boon for Scotland which she never properly appreciated till
she lost it by the Navigation Act of the Restoration: an alleged
grievance to England which had its share in bringing that Restoration to
pass; for it was then, and for long after, a fixed principle in the
philosophy of English commerce that free-trade between the two
countries meant pillaging Englishmen to enrich Scotchmen.
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