as Anne, Queen of England. These statutes are only the ratification of one and the same instrument or treaty[1] drawn up by a commission composed of duly authorized representatives of the two kingdoms. At this time Scotland was as completely separated from England as was Hanover at a later date, or even more so. Her government, her laws, her system of taxes, her trade, were all in a sort of rivalry with England, and even the constitution of her official Church was in direct opposition to the Anglican Church. The two countries were only held together by the personal and dynastic union which threatened to come to an end at that very moment. Scotland had not, like England, passed an Act of Settlement which eventually called the Hanoverian branch to the throne, in case of Anne’s dying without issue; but reserved to herself by a special Act the right of settling the reversion to the throne, in a way different from that fixed by the English settlement.[2] This separation of the two nations, verging on hostility up to the last moment, was finally overcome by able statesmanship in 1707.
The Acts of 1800 are the two statutes 39 & 40 Geo. III. c. 67, and 40 Geo. III. c. 38. They did not pass without difficulty. Ireland, long treated as a conquered country, had shortly before contrived, under cover of the American War, to force the English Parliament into giving her almost entire independence. In 1782 it had
