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It might seem to impartial observers rather Utopian to hope and expect some regeneration of the political world of Great Britain from the return of an intelligent country gentleman of independent and original principles, for a few obscure Scottish burghs, to be one of an assembly of six hundred and fifty-eight legislators, but it is from such Utopianism, felt, not in one instance, but in many, that the atmosphere of politics, both in Great Britain and in Australia, can be cleared and purified.
A great internal change took place and was accomplished during this period. The free burghs which flourished in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, gave place to tyrannies, illegal for the most part in their origin, and maintained by force. In the absence of dynastic right, violence and craft were instruments by means of which the despots founded and preserved their power.
The inhabitants of cities and burghs, considered as single individuals, had no power to defend themselves; but by entering into a league of mutual defence with their neighbours, they were capable of making no contemptible resistance.
The functions of highwayman and magistrate were combined in one individual. By degrees, the class of freemen, artisans, traders, and the like, becoming the more numerous, built stronger and better houses outside the castle gates of the "land's master" or the burghs of the more powerful nobles. The superiors, anxious to increase their own importance, favored the progress of the little boroughs.
Hind and Panther 1687, deprived of offices and pensions at Revolution 1688, pub. translations including "Virgil" 1697, St. Cecilia's Day and Alexander's Feast c. 1697, and Fables 1700, when he d. Sir W. Scott's ed. with Life 1808, re-edited in 18 vols. by Prof. Miscellaneous writer, was M.P. for the Elgin Burghs, and Lieut.-Governor of Madras. He pub.
The triple town of Anstruther Wester, Anstruther Easter, and Cellardyke, all three Royal Burghs or two Royal Burghs and a less distinguished suburb, I forget which lies continuously along the seaside, and boasts of either two or three separate parish churches, and either two or three separate harbours. My business lay in the two Anstruthers.
This gave occasion to that great width in our streets, and those of other royal burghs, which is so remarkable; the same being so built to give room and stance for the cattle. But in those days the streets were not paved at the sides, but only in the middle, or, as it was called, the crown of the causey; which was raised and backed upward, to let the rain-water run off into the gutters.
With the design, therefore, of softening Captain Cuttwater's heart, Alaric in his letter had spoken about great changes that were coming, of the necessity that there was of his stirring himself, of the great pecuniary results to be expected from a small present expenditure; and ended by declaring that the money was to be used in forwarding the election of his friend Scott for the Tillietudlem district burghs.
Uniting in his own person the blood of the O'Conors, de Lacys, and de Burghs, his authority was great from the beginning in Meath and Connaught.
It is not necessary to follow in detail the conflict of the Lombard burghs with Frederick, so enthusiastically described by their historian, Sismondi, It is enough for our present purpose to remember that in the course of that contention both leagues made common cause against the Emperor, drew the Pope Alexander III. into their quarrel, and at last in 1183, after the victory of Legnano had convinced Frederick of his weakness, extorted by the Peace of Constance privileges whereby their autonomy was amply guaranteed and recognized.
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