A party, consisting chiefly of Tories, endeavored, in 1706, to put an end to the war; and France was so much reduced in strength, as to concede all the objects for which the contest had been commenced. But the people were so strongly inspired with a desire of humiliating France, which in commerce and religion they considered their natural enemy, that some ambitious statesmen of a contrary line of politics were enabled to mar the design of a treaty. Among these was the Duke of Marlborough, who, being permitted to profit not only by his pay, but by perquisites attached to his command, wished the war to be protracted, merely that he might make his enormous wealth a little greater. It was in consequence of these unnecessary interferences with continental politics, urged chiefly by the people, and by a class of statesmen popular at the time, that the first large sums of the national debt were contracted.
Since their religious enthusiasm had been laid at rest by the Revolution Settlement, the Scottish people had been chiefly animated by a desire of participating in the commerce of England. The treatment of their expedition to Darien had now inspired them with a bitter feeling against their southern neighbors, and they resolved to show their power of counter-annoyance by holding up threats of dissenting from England in the matter of the succession. In 1703, their Parliament passed the famous _Act of Security_, by which it was ordained that the successor of her majesty in Scotland should not be the same with the individual adopted by the English Parliament, unless there should be a free communication of trade between the countries, and the affairs of Scotland thoroughly secured from English influence. Another act was at the same time passed for putting the nation under arms. The English ministers then saw that an incorporating union would be necessary to prevent the Pretender from gaining the Scottish crown, and to protect England from the attacks of a hostile nation. For this purpose they exerted themselves so effectually in the Scottish Parliament, as to obtain an act, enabling the queen to nominate commissioners for the arrangement of a union. The men appointed, thirty on each side, were, with hardly an exception, the friends of the court and of the Revolution Settlement; and the treaty accordingly was drawn up without difficulty.