T, Page 111. Prejudiced Views of Highland Character
The notions entertained by the inhabitants of the Low
country in this respect are very excusable, when it is considered that
they formed their opinions regarding the natives of the mountains on
information received from those who lived nearest the boundary, and who
were supposed to be best acquainted with them. This, however, was a very
doubtful source of intelligence; because, in the first place, the
borderers lived in a state of perpetual contention with their Lowland
neighbours, and had thus the worst propensities of their nature called
forth and exasperated; and, secondly, because their more powerful
neighbours had been, for ages, in the habit of taking deep revenge for
petty injuries. No one who knows any thing of human nature need be told,
that there exists a strong propensity in the minds of those who oppress
others by an undue exercise of power, to justify that proceeding to
themselves, by exaggerating every provocation given by the objects of
their hostility. Prejudice and party hatred are like streams, always
enlarging in their progress by petty additions. A man incapable of direct
falsehood, willingly and confidently repeats the tales of wonder told by
others; and these seldom lose in the recital. That "oppression,"
which, we are told from the highest authority, "makes a wise man mad," [Of
this we have too many instances among the peasantry in Ireland.] must have
produced a similar effect on a proud high-spirited people, who had not
even language in which to complain, and who would not have been listened
to if they had. "Lions are not painters," as the fable says, and
Highlanders are not writers of their own traditions; but if the tales of
wrong and injustice preserved in traditions were unfolded, they might then
"make justice and indignation start,'' &c.; but this blazon must not be.
It would be visiting the sins of the fathers on the children, who may
perhaps, even on this score, have enough of their own to answer for, when
they appear at their last account.
Since the above was written, a new edition of "Letters
from a Gentleman in the North" has been published by Mr Jamieson of
Edinburgh. This edition has been enlarged, by several tracts and articles
on the Highlanders, and the former state of the people. One of these is a
kind of statistical report of the state of the Highlands about the year
1747. This paper is a perfect specimen of the spirit of the times, and of
the jaundiced eye with which the Highlanders were viewed by their Lowland
neighbours, who held them in the greatest contempt for their Jacobite
principles, their heathenish belief in ghosts and fairies, their slothful
habits, fabulous traditions, poetry and songs. The author was educated
beyond the mountains, quite in opposition to the habits and principles of
the Highlanders; and at a period when the stream of ribaldry ran strongly
against them, and their true character was ill understood, it was
difficult to state it in proper colours: the commonly received opinions of
the times were, that their fidelity and ready obedience proceeded from a
base and servile disposition, and their idle habits from an aversion to
industry, when, in fact, they proceeded from want of employment or payment
for labour. Had the author given in to the grave discussions which were
not unfrequent at that period, on the propriety of exterminating the whole
race, it might have excited less surprise, than that this mode of
improving a people by extirpation and banishment should not only be
discussed in more enlightened times, but actually acted upon and enforced,
if not with the fury and violence with which those who call themselves the
friends of liberty in America treat their free, independent, but
unfortunate neighbours the Indians, the original possessors of their
country, at least by means sufficiently effectual.
