which, indeed, both his principles, which were so different from those of the men who effected it, and his intractable and unyielding temper, alike disqualified him, he came home in the train of his countrymen, who, by that great event were restored to their country and to their rightful possessions; and, according to the statement of the earl of Buchan,[1] made a noble appearance in the convention which met in Scotland after the revolution for settling the new government. Lockhart of Carnwath, who was no friend to the new government, nor of the principles upon which it was founded, takes no notice of this portion of the life of Fletcher, though he is large upon his speeches, and indeed every part of his conduct, when he afterwards became a violent oppositionist.
In the year 1692, when every effort to bring about a counter revolution was made, Fletcher, though strongly, and perhaps justly, disgusted with king William, renouncing every selfish principle, and anxious only to promote the welfare of the country, exerted himself to the utmost to preserve what had been already attained in the way of a free government, though it came far short of what he wished, and what he fondly, too fondly, hoped the nation had been ripe to bear. In all that regarded the public welfare, he was indeed indefatigable, and that without any appearance of interested motives. He was the first friend and patron of that extraordinary man, William Paterson, to whom the honour of the formation of the bank of England ought, in justice, to be ascribed, and who projected the Darien company, the most splendid idea of colonization that was ever attempted to be put in practice. "Paterson," says Sir John Dalrymple, "on his return to London, formed a friendship with Mr Fletcher, of Salton, whose mind was inflamed with the love of public good, and all of whose ideas to procure it had a sublimity in them. Fletcher disliked England, merely because he loved Scotland to excess, and there- fore the report common in Scotland is probably true, that he was the person who persuaded Paterson to trust the fate of his project to his own countrymen alone, and to let them have the sole benefit, glory, and danger in it, for in its danger Fletcher deemed some of its glory to consist Although Fletcher had nothing to hope for, and nothing to fear, because he had a good estate and no children, and though he was of the country party, yet, in all his schemes for the public good, he was in use to go as readily to the king's ministers, as to his own friends, being indifferent who had the honour of doing good, provided it was done. His house of Salton, in east Lothian, was near to that of the marquis of Tweeddale, then minister for Scotland, and they were often together. Fletcher brought Paterson down to Scotland with him, presented him to the marquis, and then, with that power which a vehement spirit always possesses over a diffident one, persuaded the statesman, by arguments of public good, and of the honour that would redound to his administration, to adopt the project. Lord Stair and Mr Johnston, the two secretaries of state, patronized those abilities in Paterson, which they possessed in themselves, and the lord advocate, Sir James Stewart, the same man who had adjusted the prince of Orange's declaration at the revolution, and whose son was married to a daughter of lord Stair, went naturally along with his connexions." From the above, it appears that Fletcher, next to the projector, Paterson, who was, like himself, an ardent lover of liberty, had the piincipal hand in forwarding the colonization of Darien, and to his ardent and expansive mind, we have no doubt, that the plan owed some, at least, of its excellencies, and also, perhaps, the greatest of its defects. "From this period," remarks lord Buchan, "till the meeting of the Union Parliament, Fletcher was uniform and indefatigable in his parliamentary conduct, continually attentive to the rights of the people, and jealous, as every friend of his
- ↑ Life of Fletcher of Salton.
