THREE:Serious differences between Great Britain and the United States of America occupied the attention of both Governments during the years 1841 and 1842, and were brought to a satisfactory[492] termination by the Ashburton Treaty, referred to in the Royal Speech at the opening of Parliament in 1843. The questions at issue, which were keenly debated on both sides, related to the right of search, the Canadian boundary, and the McLeod affair. The Government of Great Britain regarding the slave-trade as an enormous evil and a scandal to the civilised world, entered into arrangements with other nations for its suppression. For that purpose treaties were concluded, securing to each of the contracting parties the mutual right of search under certain limitations. The United States Government declined to be a party to these treaties, and refused to have their vessels searched or interfered with in time of peace upon the high seas under any pretence whatever. Notwithstanding these treaties, however, and the costly measures which Great Britain had recourse to for suppressing the nefarious traffic in human beings, the slave trade was carried on even by some of the nations that had agreed to the treaties; and in order to do this more effectually, they adopted the flag of the United States. For the purpose of preventing this abuse, Great Britain claimed the right of search or of visitation to ascertain the national character of the vessels navigating the African seas, and detaining their papers to see if they were legally provided with documents entitling them to the protection of any country, and especially of the country whose flag they might have hoisted at the time. Lord Palmerston, as Foreign Secretary, argued that while his Government did not claim the right to search American merchantmen in times of peace, a merchantman could not exempt itself from search by merely hoisting a piece of bunting with the United States emblems and colours upon it. It should be shown by the papers that the vessel was entitled to bear the flagthat she was United States property, and navigated according to law. Mr. Stevenson, the American Minister, protested strongly against this doctrine, denying that there was any ground of public right or justice in the claim put forth, since the right of search was, according to the law of nations, a strictly belligerent right. If other nations sought to cover their infamous traffic by the fraudulent use of the American flag, the Government of the United States was not responsible; and in any case it was for that Government to take such steps as might be required to protect its flag from abuse.The Act of 1712 restored lay patronage, and then the strife began, but not between the people and the lay pastors, but between the clergy and the lay patrons. There grew up two parties in the General Assembly, styled the moderates, and the more advanced, or popular party. The moderates were those who were ready to concede to the demands of Government and lay patronage under a gentle protest; the more popular party, as it was called, was for transferring the right of presentation to the presbytery. The Act of William III., in 1690, gave the original and exclusive nomination to the heritors, land-owners, and elders. The person nominated was to be proposed to the congregation, who might approve or disapprove. But to what did this right amount? The congregation could not absolutely reject; and if they disapproved, the right passed on to the presbytery, whose decision was final. By this arrangement, either the landowners and elders remained the presenters,[168] or, after a vain show of conferring the choice upon the people, the appointment fell to the clergy, or presbytery. From 1690 to 1712, Sir Henry Moncrieff says, "there does not appear the least vestige of a doctrine, so much contended for at a later period, of a divine right in the people individually or collectively, to elect the parish minister." This opinion was fully maintained by the law of William III., in 1690, and confirmed by that of Anne, in 1712. Sir Henry Moncrieff, in confirmation of this doctrine that the people never had a right to elect their ministers in the Scottish Church, quotes the "First Book of Discipline," of 1567, which placed the election of pastors in the people at large; but this error, he says, was rectified by the "Second Book of Discipline," in 1581. By this book the congregation could only consentthe presbyters must finally determine. This contains the law of the Church of Scotland, and the great schism which took place in the Scottish Church, in 1843known as the Disruptionarose merely from the resistance to lay patronage, but with the intention of transferring that patronage to the clergy, not the people.
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