This chap (Beastie) sums up the situation well
"The vote in the Scottish Parliament to accept the Act of Union and vote themselves out of existence was basically rigged. MP's who were against it were given the wrong date and time for the vote so that when the vote came round they were not in attendance. Ok, so today this would not have stood, but back then every possible method to get a vote carried was acceptable. Scottish MP's were bribed (one in particular received cash roughly equivalent to two million pounds today.) There was also coercion; several members had lands in England that they were threatened with losing if they didn't vote for the union. There were also restrictive trade practices with Scottish merchants being refused access to English markets and foreign merchants being prevented from transporting goods to Scotland through England without the payment of punitive taxes. Similarly foreign vessels heading for Scotland were intercepted and prevented from doing so. There were also English troops stationed just south of the border as an unspoken threat; sign the Act or be invaded.
Scotland was not in debt. Impoverished, yes, due to that stupid Company of Scotland expedition to Darien that was badly planned, badly carried out and doomed to failure, but the country which already carried national debt was not Scotland. It was England. Read your history, David, I think that's quite clear. Scotland was basically coerced into the union at a time when very weak, and this weakness was made worse by restrictive trade practices initiated by London preventing any real recovery.
And then, of course, you have the fact that when the decision was announced there were anti union riots in several towns across Scotland but of course that was back in the day when the nobility (a contradiction there if ever there was one) called the shots and the people had no voice at all. "
https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/questio...7125840AAlM1UN