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• A Discourse of Government With Relation to Militia’s
• Two Discourses Concerning the Affairs of Scotland; Written In the Year 1698.
• The First Discourse
• The Second Discourse Concerning the Affairs of Scotland; Written In the Year 1698
• Speeches By a Member of the Parliament Which Began At Edinburgh the 6th of May, 1703
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• An Account of a Conversation Concerning a Right Regulation of Governments For the Common Good of Mankind In a Letter to the Marquiss of Montrose , the Earls of Rothes, Roxburg and Haddington , From London the First of December, 1703.

VI

My Lord Chancellor

That there should be limitations on a successor, in order to take away our dependence on the court of England, if both nations should have the same king, no man here seems to oppose. And I think very few will be of opinion that such limitations should be deferred till the meeting of the nation’s representatives upon the decease of her Majesty. For if the successor be not named before that time, everyone will be so earnest to promote the pretensions of the person he most affects, that new conditions will be altogether forgotten. So that those who are only in appearance for these limitations, and in reality against them, endeavour for their last refuge to mislead well-meaning men, by telling them, that it is not advisable to put them into the act of security, as well for fear of losing all, as because they will be more conveniently placed in a separate act. My lord Chancellor, I would fain know if anything can be more proper in an act which appoints the naming and manner of admitting a successor, than the conditions on which we agree to receive him. I would know, if the deferring of anything, at a time when naturally it should take place, be not to put a slur upon it, and an endeavour to defeat it. And if the limitations in question are pre tended to be such a burden in the act, as to hazard the loss of the whole, can we expect to obtain them when separated from the act? Is there any common sense in this? Let us not deceive ourselves, and imagine that the act of 1696 does not expire immediately after the Queen and heirs of her body; for in all that act, the heirs and successors of his late Majesty King William are always restrained and specified by these express words, ‘according to the declaration of the estates, dated the 11th of April 1689.’ So that unless we make a due provision by some new law, a dissolution of the government will ensue immediately upon the death of her Majesty, failing heirs of her body. Such an act therefore being of absolute and indispensable necessity, I am of opinion, that the limitations ought to be inserted therein as the only proper place for them, and surest way to obtain them: and that whoever would separate them, does not so much desire we should obtain the act, as that we should lose the limitations.