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The state of commercial and
regular government, to which we are accustomed in England, has been so
long established, that it requires some effort of imagination, to form a
distinct idea of the situation of things under the feudal system. We must
look back to a distant period of time, the manners and customs of which
have gradually disappeared, with the causes which gave rise to them, and
have left few traces of their existence. This has also been the case, to a
great degree, in the Low Country of Scotland; but the progress of society
in the Highlands has been very different. It must not be forgotten, that
little more than half a century has passed, since that part of the kingdom
was in a state similar to that of England before the Norman conquest. When
we look back to the condition of the Highlands before the year 1745, the
differences which will exist between that and the Highlands before the
year 1745, the differences which still exist between that the other parts
of the kingdom are easily accounted for. There is much more reason to be
surprised at the progress that has been made by the inhabitants in these
sixty years, than that they should not have accomplished to its full to
its full extent the change, which in other parts has been the work of many
centuries. The feudal system has been abolished; but the customs that
arose out of it are not forgotten. An act of parliament, supported by
military force, could destroy the one; time only can eradicate the other:
and in every peculiarity of the Highlanders, we may trace the remnants of
this former state of the country, or the effects of its rapid change.
Though the conquests of
Cromwell, and the issue of the rebellion of 1715, gave a check to the
independence of the Highland chieftains, yet it is well known that, till
after the year 1745, it was never completely overthrown. Before that
period, the authority of law was too feeble to afford protection. The
instructions to the execution of any legal warrant were such, that it was
only for objects of great public concern that an extraordinary effort was
sometimes made to overcome them. In any ordinary case of private injury,
an individual could have little expectation of redress, unless he could
avenge his own cause; and the only hope of safety from any attack was in
meeting force by force.
In this state of things, every person above the common
rank depended for his safety and his consequence on the number and
attachment of his servants and dependants: without people ready to defend
him, he could not expect to sleep in safety, to. preserve his house from
pillage, or his family from mur der;
he must have submitted to the insolence of every neighbouring robber,
unless he had maintained a numerous train of followers to go with. him
into the field, and to fight his battles. To this essential object every
inferior consideration was sacrificed; and the principal advantage, of
landed property consisted in the means it afforded to the proprietor of
multiplying his dependants. By allowing his tenants to possess
their farms at low rents, he secured
their services whenever required, and, by the power of removing any one
who was refractory, maintained, over them the authority of a monarch. The
sacrifice of pecuniary interest was of very inferior importance, and was
not a matter of choice; for any proprietor, who should have acted on
contrary principles, losing the attachment of. his people, would have been
left a prey to the violence of. his neighbours.
The Highland gentlemen
appear to have been so anxious on this subject, that they never ventured
to raise their rents, however much the circumstances of any case might
make it reasonable: the tenant in fact paid his rent not so much in money
as in military services; and this explains the extraordinary difference
between the apparent value of land in the Highlands, in former times, and
at present. The small rentals of the estates forfeited by the rebels of
1745 have often been remarked with surprise, and have been contrasted with
the great value of the same lands at present; but were the’ rent of these
estates at their utmost actual value to be all laid out in employing
labourers, at the rates now current in the north of Scotland, the number
of men to whom they would furnish wages and maintenance would not be very
different from that of the clans who came out from in the
rebellion.
The value of landed
property was, in these times be reckoned, not by the rent it produced, but
by the men whom it could send into the field. It is mentioned indeed of
one of the chieftains, that being questioned by a
stranger as
to the rent of his estate, he answered, that it could raise 500 men.
Under these circumstances,
it was natural that every proprietor should wish to reduce his farms into
as small portions as possible: and this inclination was fully seconded by
the disposition of the people. The state of the country left a father no
other means of providing for a numerous family, than by dividing his farm
among them; and. where. two families could be placed on the land that, was
previously occupied by one, the proprietor acquired a new tenant, and a
new soldier. From the operation of these principles, the land seems, in a
great majority of cases, to have been divided, into possessions barely
sufficient for a scanty subsistence to the occupiers.
It was indeed usual for the
head of a clan, possessing extensive territories, occasionally to grant
more considerable farms to the younger branches of his family; but this
circumstance had little effect on the general mode of agricu1turai
management. The tacksmen (as the holders of such large farms were
termed) were considered nearly in the same light as proprietors, and acted
on the same principles. They were the officers who, under the chief,
commanded in the military expeditions of the clan. This was their.
employment; and neither their own dispositions, nor the situation of the
country, inclined them to engage in the drudgery of agriculture, any
further. than to supply the necessaries of life for their own families. A
part of their land was usually sufficient for this purpose; and the
remainder was let off, in small portions, to cotters,
who differed
but little from the small occupiers who held
their lands immediately from the chief, excepting that, in lieu of rent,
they were bound to a certain amount of labour for the advantage of their
immediate superior. The more of these people any gentleman could collect
around his habitation, with the greater facility
could he carry on the work
of his
own farm;—the greater too was
his personal safety. Besides this, the tacksmen, holding their lands from
the chief at a mere quit-rent, were naturally solicitous to merit his
favour, by the number of their immediate dependants whom they could bring
to join his standard; and they had in fact no other means of employing to
advantage the superfluity of their land, than by joining in the general
system of the country, and multiplying the ultimate occupiers of the land.
These circumstances
produced a state of manners, from which it is easy still to trace the most
striking peculiarities of the Highlanders. The greatest part of the
country was fit only for pasturage, and the small portions of arable land
which fell to the share of any family, could occupy but little of their
time. On two or three occasions in the course of the year, the labours of
the field required a momentary exertion, to prepare the soil, or to secure
the crop: but no regular and continued industry was requisite for
providing the simple necessaries of life, to which their forefathers had
been accustomed, and beyond which their ambition did not extend. The
periods of labour were short;
and they could devote the intermediate time to indolence, or to amusement,
unless when their assistance was required for the defence of their chief
and of their families, or for attacking some neighbouring clan. Prowess on
these occasions was the most valuable quality they could possess, and that
on which their pride was founded; warlike achievements engrossed their
thoughts; and the amusements of their leisure hours generally consisted of
active exercises, or displays of strength and agility, calculated to
enhance their estimation as warriors.
This style of life,
favourable as it was to the acquisition of all those qualities of mind and
body which are requisite to form a good soldier, was
no less adverse to habits of industry. If,
indeed, the natural disposition of the Highlanders to industry had been
ever so great, their situation would have allowed it but little scope.
Their lands afforded few objects of commerce: the only article of which
they ever had any considerable superfluity was cattle, and, from the
turbulent state of the country, these could not be brought to market
without the utmost difficulty. The desire of accumulating was checked by
the: insecurity of property: nor indeed are those who acquire it by the
sword much in the habit of hoarding with care; what may next day be
replaced by the plunder of an enemy, they are disposed to lavish with
careless profusion. Thus among the ancient Highlanders, the same men, who
made a glory of pillage and rapine, carried the sentiments of hospitality
and generosity to a romantic excess.
The meanest of the
Highlanders was impressed with these sentiments; but, while he reckoned it
disgraceful to shut his door against the stranger, or to withhold from him
any thing which his house contained, he considered it as equally
unpardonable, if he was refused, by another, any thing of which he was in
want. From the chieftains in particular, the most unbounded generosity was
expected; and the necessity, which they were under, of conciliating the
attachment of their people, led them to follow the same conduct, whatever
might be their natural disposition.
The authority of the chief, however great, was
not of that absolute kind which has sometimes been imagined, and could not
be maintained without an unremitted attention to all the arts of
popularity. Condescending manners were necessary in every individual, of
whatever rank; the meanest expected to be treated as a gentleman, and
almost as an equal. nor was this all. The intimate conexion of the chief
with his people, their daily intercourse, the daily dependance. they had
on each other for immediate safety, the dangers which they shared, were
all naturally calculated to produce a great degree of mutual sympathy and
affection. If there were any of the higher ranks who did not really feel
such sentiments, prudence prevented them from allowing this to appear; and
the devoted attachment of their followers is described in terms of
astonishment by contemporary writers.
Yet this attachment was an effect easily deducible from
the general principles of human nature. Among the poor in civilized
countries, there is, perhaps, no circumstance more severely felt, than the
neglect they meet with from persons of superior rank, and which appears to
stigmatize them, as of an inferior species: when any one attends to their
distresses, they are often more soothed by the concern which they perceive
they excite, than by any direct advantage that may result. When a person
of rank treats his inferiors with cordiality, and shows an interest in
their welfare, it is seldom that, in any country, this behaviour is not
repaid by gratitude and affection. This was particularly to be expected
among the Highlanders, a people naturally of acute feelings, habituated to
sentiments of a romantic and poetical cast: in them the condescending
manners and kindness of their chiefs, excited an attachment bordering on
enthusiasm. |
