| The reciprocal ties which connected the chief
and his clan were almost indissoluble. In return for the kindness and paternal care
bestowed by the former on the latter, they yielded a ready submission to his authority,
and evinced a rare fidelity to his person, which no adversity could shake. Innumerable
instances of this devoted attachment might be given, but two will suffice. In the battle
of Inverkeithing, between the royalists and the troops of Oliver Cromwell, 500 of the
followers of the Laird of Maclean were left dead on the field. Sir Hector Maclean being
hard pressed by the enemy in the heat of the action, was successively covered form their
attacks by seven brothers, all of whom sacrificed their lives in his defence; and as one
fell another came up in succession to cover him, crying, "Another for Hector."
This phrase, says General Stewart, has continued ever since a proverb or watchword, when a
man encounters any sudden danger that requires instant succour. The other instance is that
of a servant of the late James Menzies of Culdares, who had been engaged in the rebellion
of 1715. Mr. Menzies was taken at Preston in Lancashire, was carried to London, where he
was tried and condemned, but afterwards reprieved. This act prevented him from turning out
in 1745: but to show his good wishes towards Prince Charles, he sent him a handsome
charger as a present, when advancing through England. The servant who led and delivered
the horse was taken prisoner and carried to Carlisle, where he was tried and condemned.
Every attempt was made, by threats of immediate execution, in case of refusal, and
promises of pardon, on giving information, to extort a discovery from him of the person
who sent the horse in vain. He knew, he said, what would be the consequence of a
disclosure, and that his own life was nothing in comparison with that which it would
endanger. Being hard pressed at the place of execution to inform on his master, he asked
those about him if they were really serious in supposing that he was such a villain as to
betray his master. He said, that if he did what they desired, and forgot his master and
his trust, he needed not return to his country, for Glenlyon would be no home or country
for him, as he would be despised and hunted out of the glen. This trusty servant's name
was John Macnaughton, a native of Glenlyon in Perthshire. The obedience and attachment of the Highlanders to their chiefs, and the
readiness they displayed, on all occasions, to adopt, when called upon, the quarrels of
their superiors, did not, however, make them forget their own independence. When a chief
was unfit for his situation, or had degraded his name and family, the clan proceeded to
depose him, and set up the next in succession, if deserving, to whom they transferred
their allegiance, as happened to two chiefs of the families of Macdonald of Clanronald and
Macdonell of Keppoch. The head of the family of Stewart of Garth, who, on account of his
ferocious disposition, was nick-named the "Fierce Wolf", was, about the year
1520, not only deposed, but confined for life, in a cell in the castle of Garth, which
was, therefore, long regarded by the people with a kind of superstitious terror. The clans
even sometimes interfered with the choice of the chiefs in changing their places of abode,
or in selecting a site for a new residence. The Earl of Seaforth was prevented by his clan
( the M'Kenzies) from demolishing Brahan castle, the principal seat of the family. In the
same way the laird of Glenorchy, ancestor of the Marquis of Breadalbane, having some time
previous to the year 1570, laid the foundation of a castle which he intended to build on a
hill on the side of Lochtay, was compelled, or induced, by his people, to change his plan
and build the castle of Balloch or Taymouth.
From what has been stated, it will be perceived that the
influence of a chief with his clan depended much on his personal qualities, of which
kindness and a condescension, which admitted of an easy familiarity, were necessary
traits. Captain Burt, the author of 'Letters from the North', thus alludes to the
familiarity which existed between a chief and his clan, and the affability and courtesy
with which they were accustomed to be treated: "And as the meanest among them
pretended to be his relations by consanguinity, they insisted on the privilege of taking
him by the hand whenever they met him. Concerning this last, I once saw a number of very
discontented countenances when a certain lord, one of the chiefs, endeavoured to evade
this ceremony. It was in the presence of an English gentleman, of high station, from whom
he would willingly have concealed the knowledge of such seeming familiarity with slaves of
wretched appearance; and thinking it, I suppose, a kind of contradiction to what he had
often boasted at other times, viz., his despotic power in his clan."
From the feeling of self-respect which the urbanity and
condescension of the chiefs naturally created in the minds of the people, arose that
honourable principle of fidelity to superiors and to their trust, which we have already
noticed, "and which," says General Stewart, "was so generally and so
forcibly imbibed, that the man who betrayed his trust was considered unworthy of the name
which he bore, or of the kindred to which he belonged."
From this principle flowed a marked detestation of
treachery, a vice of very rare occurrence among the Highlanders; and so tenacious were
they on that point, that the slightest suspicion of infidelity on the part of an
individual estranged him from the society of his clan, who shunned him as a person with
whom it was dangerous any longer to associate. The case of John Du Cameron, better known,
from his large size, by the name of Sergeant Mor, affords an example of this.6 This man
had been a sergeant in the French service, and returned to Scotland in the year 1745, when
he engaged in the rebellion. Having no fixed abode, and dreading the consequences of
having served in the French army, and of being afterwards engaged in the rebellion, he
formed a party of freebooters, and took up his residence among the mountains on the
borders of the counties of Perth, Inverness and Argyle, where he carried on a system of
spoliation by carrying off the cattle of those he called his enemies; if they did not
purchase his forbearance by the payment of Black mail. Cameron had long been in the habit
of sleeping in a barn on the farm of Dunan in Rannoch; having been betrayed by some
person, he was apprehended one night when asleep in the barn, in the year 1753, by a party
of Lieutenant ( after Sir Hector ) Munro's detachment. He was carried to Perth, and there
tried before the court of justiciary for the murder alluded to in the note, and various
acts of theft and cattle-stealing. Being found guilty, he was executed at Perth in 1753.
It was generally believed in the country that Cameron had been betrayed by the man in
whose barn he had taken shelter, and the circumstance of his renting a farm from
government, on the forfeited estate of Strowan, on advantageous terms, strengthened the
suspicion; but beyond this there was nothing to confirm the imputation. Yet this man was
ever after heartily despised, and having by various misfortunes lost all his property,
which obliged him to leave the country in great poverty, the people firmly believed that
his misfortunes were a just judgement upon him for violating the trust reposed in him by
an unsuspecting and unfortunate person.
Such were some of the leading characteristics of this
remarkable race of people, who preserved many of their national peculiarities till a
comparatively recent period. These, whoever, are now fast disappearing before the march of
modern improvement and civilization; and we are sorry to add that the vices which seem
almost inseparable from this new state of society have found their way into some parts of
the Highlands, and supplanted, to a certain extent, many of those shining virtues which
were once the glory of the Gael. |
