Criticisms
The English and Scottish parliaments had evolved along different lines, and for example the former Parliament of Scotland was unicameral, not bicameral. Most of the pre-Union traditions of Westminster continued unchanged by becoming the Parliament of Great Britain.
Defoe drew upon his Scottish experience to write his Tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain, published in 1726, where he actually admitted that the increase of trade and population in Scotland, which he had predicted as a consequence of the Union, was "not the case, but rather the contrary."
Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, a vehement critic of the Union, said in An Account of a Conversation, that Scotland suffered "... the miserable and languishing condition of all places that depend upon a remote seat of government."
However by the time Samuel Johnson and James Boswell made their tour in 1773, recorded in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland Johnson noted that Scotland was: “a nation of which the commerce is hourly extending, and the wealth increasing”, and Glasgow in particular had become one of the greatest cities of Britain.
Read more about this topic: Acts Of Union 1707
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