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No sooner were the Highland Roads and
Bridges in good progress, under such direction as afforded confidence of
the beneficial application of any funds entrusted to the same
management, than further improvement of Scotland in general, and of the
Highlands in particular, became an object of attention; and a Select
Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to investigate the state
of the funds arising from the forfeited estates in Scotland.
These estates were forfeited in consequence of the rebellion of 1745 in
favour of the Stewart family, and were inalienably annexed to the Crown
in the year 1752, the rents and profits thereof to be applied "for the
better civilizing and improving the Highlands of Scotland;" and the
rents were so applied until the year 1784, when the former Act of 1752
was repealed, and the estates re-granted to the heirs of the former
proprietors, on certain conditions, one of which was, that they should
pay (or rather re-pay) to the Crown the amount of family incumbrances,
which had been satisfied out of the rents between the years 1745 and
1784.
The sum so repaid exceeded £90,000, of which £15,000 was granted by the
disannexing Act of 1784, for completing a repository of records at
Edinburgh, and £50,000 was advanced for completing the Forth and Clyde
navigation. This last sum, having been repaid, was again lent in equal
moieties; £25,000 for the improvement of Leith Harbour; £ 25,000 to the
Crinan Canal Company.
Other sums of money, moderate in amount, had been expended, chiefly for
Highland purposes; and the Committee, finding that about £47,000 was
disposable by Parliament, did not fail to recommend the improvement of
fisheries, of agriculture, of harbours, of canals, and of sundry
miscellaneous objects. Such large intentions were not likely to be
realized from inadequate means, and in the sequel, £ 12,000 was given
for rebuilding the Court of Exchequer at Edinburgh (the Barons having
had the forfeited estates in their custody); £7,500 for the formation of
a harbour at Wick ; £8,000 in the form of a conditional annuity to the
Highland Society for agricultural improvement, and £2,000 for building a
lunatic asylum at Edinburgh. Thus about £30,000 of the available funds
was specially appropriated, and the actual residue, with the claims on
the Leith Harbour and Crinan Canal Companies, was transferred by Act of
Parliament, in the year 1806, to the Commissioners already appointed to
make Roads and Bridges in the Highlands.
Those Commissioners did not feel themselves enabled to undertake much,
upon receiving about £13,000 in ready money, with reasons why no more
could then be paid to them; and they resolved to direct their attention
to harbours, or (more properly speaking) to landing piers for ferries
and the fisheries. But at the end of the war, the city of Edinburgh
found it expedient to borrow money elsewhere, to pay off the entire
Leith Harbour debt, whereby the Commissioners were enabled to extend aid
to harbours of some importance. They had discovered the occasional
inconvenience of advancing money to contractors, to enable them to
commence roads or bridges; wherefore, to simplify their transactions in
the harbour grants of aid, they issued a moiety of the estimated expense
to the parties making application, leaving to them the care of engaging
sub-contractors, and thereby also making them responsible for any excess
of expense beyond the estimate.
The principal harbours improved in this manner were Peterhead, on which
upwards of £30,000 (one-half paid by the Commissioners) was thus
expended; on Banff Harbour, £16,000, in like manner; on Frazer-burgh
Harbour, about £11,000; at Fortrose, at Cullen, and at Kirkwall, about
£4,000 each; on the whole, about £110,000 was thus expended, by a
careful application of about £50,000, arising from the forfeited estate
funds, which at first authorized little hope of this degree of useful
application. The smaller objects of aid are best exhibited in a
statement of the expenditure of the entire fund, which was exhausted in
the year 1824.
The claim on the Crinan Canal Company for a debt of £25,000 was not
available; so far from it, that, to prevent the ruin of that water
communication (whereby the delay and danger of fishing-vessels in
sailing round the Mull of Cantyre was obviated), the Legislature was
induced to grant £19,400, in the year 1816, which sum was effectually
expended under my superintendence, in the year 1817, by Mr. John Gibb,
of Aberdeen, than whom, on this occasion and many others, I have never
known a more active, zealous or respectable contractor.
I have illustrated, by several Plates, the foregoing description of the
Caledonian Canal, of the Highland Roads, and of Bridges in Scotland; but
the objects were so various, and so numerous, that I must also be
permitted to refer generally to the Reports of the respective
Commissioners, especially to the Caledonian Canal Report of the year
1824, for a map of the Crinan Canal; and to the Highland Road Report of
1821, for plans and elevations of the largest Bridges on the Highland
roads (all reduced to a uniform scale, for the sake of comparison); and
for the landing piers, and the several Scottish harbour improvements, on
another Plate.
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