Other disturbances began in a resolution of the House of Commons, at
the end of 1724, not to impose a Malt Tax equal to that of
England (this had been successfully resisted in 1713), but to levy an
additional sixpence on every barrel of ale, and to remove the bounties
on exported grain. At the Union Scotland had, for the time, been
exempted from the Malt Tax, specially devised to meet the expenses of
the French war of that date. Now, in 1724-1725, Scotland was up in
arms to resist the attempt “to rob a poor man of his beer.” But
Walpole could put force on the Scottish Members of Parliament,—“a
parcel of low people that could not subsist,” says Lockhart, “without
their board wages.” Walpole threatened to withdraw the ten guineas
hitherto paid weekly by Government to those legislators. He offered to
drop the sixpence on beer and put threepence on every bushel of malt, a
half of the English tax. On June 23, 1725, the tax was to be exacted.
The consequence was an attack on the military by the mob of Glasgow,
who wrecked the house of their Member in Parliament, Campbell of
Shawfield. Some of the assailants were shot: General Wade and the Lord
Advocate, Forbes of Culloden, marched a force on Glasgow, the
magistrates of the town were imprisoned but released on bail, while in
Edinburgh the master brewers, ordered by the Court of Session to raise
the price of their ale, struck for a week; some were imprisoned, others
were threatened or cajoled and deserted their Union. The one result
was that the chief of the Squadrone, the Duke of Roxburgh, lost his
Secretaryship for Scotland, and Argyll's brother, Islay, with the
resolute Forbes of Culloden, became practically the governors of the
country. The Secretaryship, indeed, was for a time abolished, but
Islay practically wielded the power that had so long been in the hands
of the Secretary as agent of the Court.