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As we have said already, the Highlanders,
chiefs and people, were so confounded, and prostrated by the cruel
proceedings and stringent measures which followed Culloden, that it was
some time ere they could realise the new position of affairs. Little
alteration appears to have, for some years, been effected in the
relationship subsisting between people and chiefs, the latter being now
simply landlords. The gentlemen and common people of the clans continued
to regard their chief in the same light as they did previous to the
abolition of the jurisdictions, for they did not consider that their
obedience to the head of the clan was in the least dependent upon any
legislative enactments. They still considered it their duty to do what
they could to support their chief, and were still as ready as ever to make
any sacrifice for his sake. At the same time, their notions of the chief’s
duty to his people remained unaltered; he, they thought, was bound as much
as ever to see to it that they did not want, to share with them the land
which belonged to the chief not so much as a proprietor, but as the head
and representative of his people. The gentlemen, especially, of the clan,
the tacksmen or large farmers, most firmly and sincerely believed that
they had as much right to a share of the lands as the chief himself, their
relation; he was as much bound to provide for them as a father is bound to
make provision for his children. There is no doubt also that many of the
chiefs themselves, especially the older ones, held the same belief on this
matter as their subordinates, so that in many instances it was not till
the old laird had passed away, and a new one had filled his place, that
the full effect of the measures already described began to be felt. Of
course, many of the chiefs and gentlemen who had taken part in the
rebellion had been compelled to leave the country in order to save their
lives, and many of the estates had been forfeited to government, which
entrusted the management of them to commissioners. It was probably these
estates upon which changes began to be first effected.
All the accounts we have of
the Highlands from travellers and others down to the end of the 18th
century, show the country in a state of commotion and confusion, resulting
from the changes consequent on the rebellion, the breaking up of old
relationships, and the gradual encroachment of lowland civilisation,
lowland modes of life, and lowland methods of agriculture. Up to the end
of the century, the positive changes do not appear to have been great or
extensive, they seem more to have been of a tentative experimental kind,
attempts to find out the most suitable or profitable way of working under
the new regime. The result of these experiments of this unsettling of
many-century-old customs and ideas, and of the consequent shifting and
disturbing of the people, was for a long time much discontent and misery.
The progress of change, both with regard to place and in respect of the
nature of the innovations, was gradual, beginning, as a rule, with those
districts of the Highlands which bordered on the lowlands, and proceeding
in a direction somewhat north-west. It was these border districts which
got first settled down and assimilated in all respects to the lowlands,
and, although in some instances the commotion was felt in the Western
Islands and Highlands a few years after 1746, yet these localities, as a
rule, were longest in adjusting themselves to the new state of things;
indeed, in many western districts, the commotion has not yet subsided, and
consequently misery and discontent still frequently prevail. In the same
way it was only little by little that changes were effected, first one old
custom giving way and then another, their places being filled by others
which had prevailed in the lowlands for many years before. Indeed, we
think the progress made by the Highlands during the last century has been
much greater than that of the lowlands during the same period; for when,
in the case of the Highlands, the march of progress commenced, they were
in many respects centuries behind the rest of the country, whereas at the
present day, with the exception of some outlying districts above
mentioned, they are in almost every respect as far forward and as eager to
advance farther as the most progressive districts of the south. This is no
doubt owing to the extra pressure which was brought to bear upon them in
the shape of the measures which followed Culloden, without which they no
doubt must have progressed, but at a much slower rate. Perhaps this is the
reason why certain outlying districts have lagged behind and are still in
a state of unsettlement and discontent, the people, and often time lairds,
refusing to acknowledge and give way to the necessity for change, but even
yet attempting to live and act in accordance with the old-fashioned
clannish mode of managing men and land.
The unsettled state of the
Highlands, and the fact that many Highlanders were leaving the country,
attracted attention so early as about 1750. For in 1752, a pamphlet was
published by a Mr John Campbell, pretending to give "A Full and
Particular Description of the Highlands," and propounding a scheme
which, in the author’s estimation, would "prove effectual in
bringing in the most disaffected among them." There is little said in
this book of the actual condition of the Highlanders at that time, only a
few details as to their manners, funeral-customs, marriages, &c., and
a lamentation, ever since repeated, that so many should be compelled to
leave their native land and settle among foreigners. The author does not
mention emigration to America; what he chiefly deplores is the fact that
so many Highlanders, from the unkindness of their superiors at home,
should have taken service in various capacities, civil and military, in
other European countries, frequently fighting in foreign armies against
their fellow-countrymen. However, from the general tone of his remarks, it
may be gathered that he refers mainly to those who were compelled to leave
the country on account of the part they took in the late rebellion, and
not on account of any alterations which had yet taken place in the
internal affairs of the Highlands. Still it is plainly to be inferred that
already much misery and discontent prevailed in the country.
Pennant made his two tours
in Scotland in the years 1769 and 1772. His travels in the Highlands were
confined mainly to the Western Islands and the districts on the west
coast, and his account is little else than a tale of famine and
wretchedness from beginning to end. What little agriculture there was, was
as bad as ever, the country rarely producing enough of grain to supply the
inhabitants, and in many places he fears "the isles annually
experience a temporary famine." In the island of Islay a thousand
pounds worth of meal was annually imported, and at the time of Pennant’s
visit "a famine threatened." Indeed, the normal state of the
Western Highlands at least appears for long to have been one bordering on
famine, or what would have been considered so in any less wretched
country; and periodically many seem to have died from absolute want of
food.
Here is a sad picture of
misery; Pennant is speaking more particularly of Skye, but his remarks
might have been applied to most of the Western Islands. "The poor are
left to Providence’s care; they prowl like other animals along the
shores to pick up limpets and other shell-fish, the casual repasts of
hundreds during part of the year in these unhappy islands. Hundreds thus
annually drag through the season a wretched life; and numbers, unknown, in
all parts of the Western Highlands, fall beneath the pressure, some of
hunger, more of the putrid fever, the epidemic of the coasts, originating
from unwholesome food, the dire effects’ of necessity."’ No
change for the better to record in agriculture, the farms still
overstocked with horses, black cattle and men, the fishing still all but
neglected, hovels wretched as ever, and clothes as tattered and scanty—nothing
in short to be seen but want and wretchedness, with apparently no
inclination in the people to better their condition. Johnson, who visited
the Western Islands in the autumn of 1773, has a very similar report to
make. Everything seemed to be in a state of transition; old relationships
were being broken up, and a spirit of general discontent and feeling of
insecurity were abroad. As to the poor condition of the people generally,
Johnson essentially confirms the statements of Pennant, although he hints
that they did by no means appear to be unhappy, or able to realise their
wretched condition.
At the time of Pennant’s and Johnson’s
visits to the Highlands, the new leaven of change had fairly begun to
work. Already had depopulation and emigration begun, and to some extent
sheep-farming on a large scale had been introduced.
Emigration from the Highlands to America
seems to have fairly commenced shortly after 1760, as, in a pamphlet
published in 1784, it is stated that between the years 1763 and 1775 above
20,000 Highlanders left their homes to settle on the other side of the
Atlantic. The first apparently to suffer from the altered state of things
in the Highlands, the decreasing value of men and the increasing value of
money, were the tacksmen, or large farmers, the relations of the old
chief, who had held their farms from generation to generation, who
regarded themselves as having about as much right to the land as the
lairds, and who had hitherto been but little troubled about rent. After a
time, when the chiefs, now merely lairds, began to realize their new
position and to feel the necessity of making their land yield them as
large an income as possible, they very naturally sought to get a higher
rent for the farms let to these tacksmen, who, in most cases, were the
only immediate holders of land from the proprietor. These tacksmen, in
many cases, appear to have resented this procedure as they would a
personal injury from their dearest friends. It was not that the addition
to the rents was excessive, or that the rents were already high as the
land could bear, for generally the addition seem to have been trifling,
and it is well known that the proprietors received nothing like the rents
their lands should have yielded under a proper system of management. What
seems to have hurt these gentlemen was the idea that the laird, the father
of his people, should ever think of anything so mercenary as rent, or
should ever by any exercise of his authority indicate that he had it in
his power to give or let his farms to the highest bidders. It was bad
enough, they thought, that an alien government should interfere with their
old ways of doing; but that their chiefs, the heads of their race, for
whom they were ready to lay down their lives and the lives of all over
whom they had any power, should turn against them, was more than they
could bear. The consequence was that many of them, especially in the west,
threw up their farms, no doubt thinking that the lairds would at once ask
them to remain on the old terms. This, however, was but seldom done, and
the consequence was that many of these tacksmen emigrated to America,
taking with them, no doubt, servants and sub-tenants, and enticing out
more by the glowing accounts they sent home of their good fortune in that
far-off land.
In some cases, the farms thus vacated were let to other tacksmen or large
tenants, but in most instances, the new system was introduced of letting
the land directly to what were formerly the sub-tenants, those who had
held the land immediately from the ousted tacksmen. A number of these
sub-tenants would take a large farm among them, sub-dividing it as they
chose, and each becoming liable for his proportion of the rent. The farms
thus let were generally cultivated on the run-rig system, the pasture
being common to all the tenants alike.
That certain advantages followed these changes there is no doubt. Every
account we have of the Highlands during the earlier part of the 18th
century, agrees in the fact that the Highlands were over-peopled and
over-stocked, that it was impossible for the land to yield sufficient to
support the men and beasts who lived upon it. Hence, this drafting off of
a considerable portion of the population have that which remained
breathing-room; fewer people were left to support, and it is to be
supposed that the condition of these would be improved. Moreover, they
would probably have their farms at a cheaper rent than under the old
system, when the demands of both tacksmen and laird had to be satisfied,
the former of course having let the land at a much higher rate than that
at which they held it from their superior. Now, it was possible enough for
the laird to get a higher rent than before, and at the same time the
people might have their farms at a lower rent than they had previously
given to the tacksmen. There would also be fewer oppressive services
demanded of these small tenants than under the old system, for now they
had only the laird to satisfy, whereas previously they had both him and
the tacksman. There would still, of course, be services required by the
laird from these tenants, still would part of the rent be paid in kind,
still would they be thirled to particular mills, and have to submit to
many similar exactions, of the oppressiveness of which, however, it was
long before they became conscious; but, on the whole, the condition of
those districts from which emigrations took place must to have some extent
have been the better for the consequent thinning of the population. Still
no alteration appears to have taken place in the mode of farming, the
nature of tenures, mode of paying rent, houses, clothes, food of the
people. In some parts of the Highlands and islands, no alteration whatever
appears to have been made on the old system; the tacksmen were allowed to
remain undisturbed, and the people lived and held land as formerly. But
even in those districts from which emigrations were largely made, little,
or no improvement seems to have been the consequence, if we may trust the
reports of those who saw how things stood with their own eyes. Pennant,
Johnson, Buchanan, Newte, the Old Statistical Account, all agree that but
little improvement was noticeable from 1745 down till near the end of the
18th century.
One reason why emigration made so little difference in the way of
improvement on the condition in the way of improvement on the condition of
those who remained in the country was, that no check was put upon the
overstocking of the farms with men and animals. In spite of emigration,
the population in many districts increased instead of diminished. A common
practice among those tenants who conjointly held a large farm was for a
father, on the marriage of a son or daughter, to divide his share of the
farm with the young couple, who either lived in the old man's house or
built a but for themselves and tried to make a living out of the share of
the pendicle allotted to them. To such an extent was this practice
carried, that often a portion of land of a few acres, originally let to
and sufficient to maintain one family, might in a few years be divided
among six or eight families, and which, even if cultivated in the best
manner possible, would not support its occupants for more than two or
three month a year. On account of this ruinous practice, Skye, which in
1750 had 15,000 inhabitants, most of whom were in a condition of misery
and want, in 1857, in spite of large and repeated emigrations, had a
population of about 23,000. This custom was common in many Highland
(chiefly western) districts down to the late 19th century, and was
fruitful of many consequences - of frequent famines, the constant
impoverishing of the soil, the over-stocking of pasture-land, and
continual wretchedness.
In some cases, the farms vacated by the old tacksmen, instead of being let
to the old sub-tenant, were let to whatever stranger would give the
highest offer. On farms so let, the condition of the sub-tenants who were
continued on the old footing, appears often to have been miserable in the
extreme. These newcomer tacksmen or middlemen cared nothing either for
chiefs or people; they paid their rent and were determined to squeeze from
those under them as large a return as possible for their outlay. In
confirmation of these statements, and to show the sad conditions of many
parts of the Highlands in their state of transition, we quote the
following passage from Buchanan's Travels in the Hebrides, referring to
about 1780. Even allowing for exaggeration, although there is no reason to
believe the writer goes beyond the truth, the picture is almost incredibly
deplorable:
"At present they are obliged to be much more submissive to their
tacksmen than ever they were in former times to their lairds of lords.
There is a great difference between that mild treatment which is shown to
sub-tenants and even scallags, by the old lessees, descended of ancient
and honorable families, and the outrageous rapacity of those necessitous
strangers who have obtained leases from absent proprietors, who treat the
natives as if they were a conquered and inferior race of mortals. In
short, they treat them like beasts of burden; and in all respects like
slaves attached to the soil, as they cannot obtain new habitations, on
account of the combinations already mentioned, and are entirely at the
mercy of the laird or tacksman. Formerly, the personal service of the
tenant did not usually exceed eight or ten days in the year. There lives
at present at Scalpa, in the Isle of Harris, a tacksman of a large
district, who instead of six days work paid by the sub-tenants to his
predecessor in the lease, has raised the predial service, called in that
and in other parts of Scotland, manerial bondage, to fifty-two days in the
year at once; besides many other services to be performed at different
though regular and stated times; as tanning leather for brogues, making
heather ropes for thatch, digging and drying peats for fuel; one pannier
of peat charcoal to be carried to the smith; so many days for gathering
and shearing sheep and lambs; for ferrying cattle from island to island,
and other distant places, and several days for going on distant errands;
as many pounds of wool to be spun into yarn. And over and above all this,
they must lend their aid upon any unforeseen occurrence whenever they are
called on. The constant service of two months at once is performed at the
proper season in the making of kelp. On the whole, this gentleman's
sub-tenants may be computed to devote to his service full three days in
the week. But this is not all: they have to pay besides yearly a certain
number of cocks, hens, butter, and cheese, called Caorigh-Febbin, the
Wife's Portion! This, it must be owned, is one of the most severe and
rigorous tacksmen descended from the old inhabitants, in all the Western
Hebrides: but the situation of his sub-tenants of those places in general,
and the exact counterpart of such enormous oppression is to be found at
Luskintire".
Another cause of emigration and of depopulation generally, was the
introduction of sheep on a large scale, involving the junction into one of
several small farms, each of which might before have been occupied by a
number of tenants. Those subjects of the introduction of sheep, engrossing
of farms, and consequent depopulation have occupied, and still to some
extend do occupy, the attention of all those who take an interest in the
Highlands, and of social economists in general. Various opinions have been
passed on the matters in question, some advocating the retention of the
people at all costs, while others declare that the greatest part of the
Highlands is fit only for pasture, and it would be sheer madness, and
shutting our eyes willfully to the sad lessons of experience, to stock a
land with people that is fit only to sustain sheep, and which at its very
best contains more specks of arable ground, which, even when cultivated to
the utmost, can yield but a poor and unprofitable return.
Whatever opinion may be passed upon the general question, there can be no
doubt that at first the introduction of sheep was fruitful of misery and
discontent to those who had to vacate their old home and leave their
native glens to find shelter they knew not well where. Many of those thus
displaced by sheep and by one or two lowland shepherds, emigrated like the
discontented tacksmen to America, those who remained looking with ill-will
and an evil eye on the lowland intruders. Although often the intruder came
from the South country, and brought his sheep and his shepherds with him,
still this was not always the case; for many of the old tacksmen and even
sub-tenants, after they saw how immensely more profitable the new system
was over the old, wisely took a lesson in time, and following the example
of the new lowland tenant, tool large farms and stocked them with sheep
and cattle, and reduced the arable land to a minimum. But, generally
speaking, in cases where farm formerly subdivided among a number of
tenants were converted into sheep farms, the smaller tenant had to quit
and find a means of living elsewhere. The landlords in general attempted
to prevent the ousted tenants from leaving the country by setting apart
some particular spot either by the sea-shore or on waste land which had
never been touched by plough, on which they might build houses and have an
acre or two of land for their support. Those who were removed to the coast
were encouraged to prosecute the fishing along with their agricultural
labors, while those who were settled on waste land were stimulated to
bring it into a state of cultivation. It was mainly by a number of such
ousted Highlanders that the great and arduous undertaking was accomplished
of bringing into a state of cultivation Kincardine Moss, in Perthshire. At
the time the task was undertaken, about 1767, it was one of stupendous
magnitude; but so successfully was it carried out, that in a few years
upwards of 2000 acres of fine clay-soil, which for centuries had been
covered to the depth of seven feet with heath and decayed vegetable
matter, were bearing luxuriant crops of all kinds. In a similar way, many
spots throughout the Highlands, formerly yielding nothing but heath and
moss, were, by the exertions of those who were deprived of their farms,
brought into a state of cultivation. Those who occupied ground of this
kind were known as mailers, and, as a rule, they paid no rent for the
first few years, after which they generally paid the proprietor a shilling
or two per acre, which was gradually increased as the land improved and
its cultivation extended. For the first season or two the proprietor
usually either lent or presented them with seed and implements. In the
parish of Urray, in the south-east of Ross-shire, about the year 1790,
there were 248 families of this kind, most of whom had settled there
within the previous forty years. Still the greater number of these, both
tacksmen and sub-tenants, who were deprived of their farms, either on
account of the raising of the rents or because of their conversion into
large sheep-walks, emigrated to America. The old Statistical Account of
North Uist says that between the years 1771 and 1775, a space of only four
years, several thousands emigrated from the Western Highlands and Islands
alone. At first few of the islands appear to have been put under sheep;
where any alteration on the state of things took place at all, it was
generally in the way of raising rents, thus causing the tacksmen to leave,
who were succeeded either by strangers who leased the farms, or by the old
sub-tenants, among whom the lands were divided, and who held immediately
from the laird. It was long, however, as have already indicated, before
the innovations took thorough hold upon the Hebrides, as even down almost
to the present time many of the old proprietors, either from attachment to
their people, or from a love of feudal show, struggle to keep up the old
system, leaving the tacksmen undisturbed, and doing all they can to
maintain and keep on their property a large number of sub-tenants and
cottars. Almost invariably, those proprietors who thus obstinately refused
to succumb to the changes going on around them, suffered for their unwise
conduct. Many of them impoverished their families for generations, and
many of the estates were disposed of for behoof of their creditors, and
they themselves had to sink to the level of landless gentlemen, and seek
their living in commerce or elsewhere.
Gradually, however, most of the proprietors, especially those whose
estates were on the mainland Highlands, yielded, in general no doubt
willingly, to change, raised their rents, abolished small tenancies, and
gave their lands up to the sheep farmers. The temptation was, no doubt,
often very great, on account of the large rents offered by the lowland
grazers. One proprietor in Argyleshire, who had some miles of pasture let
to a number of small tenants for a few shillings yearly, on being offered
by a lowlander who saw the place £300 a year, could not resist, but,
however ruefully, cleared it of his old tenants, and gave it up to the
money-making lowlander. It was this engrossing of farms and the turning of
immense tracks of country into sheep-walks, part of which was formerly
cultivated and inhabited by hundreds of people, that was the great
grievance of the Highlanders during the latter part of the last century.
Not that it could aggravate their wretchedness to any great extent, for
that was bad enough already even before 1745; it seem to have been rather
the fact that their formerly much-loved chiefs should treat them worse
than they could strangers, prefer a big income to a large band of faithful
followers, and eject those who believed themselves to have as great a
right to the occupancy of the land as the chief themselves. "The
great and growing grievance of the Highlands is not the letting of the
land to tacksmen, but the making of so many sheep-walks, which sweep off
both tacksmen and sub-tenants all in a body". The tacksmen especially
felt naturally cut to the quick by what they deemed the selfish and unjust
policy of the chiefs. These tacksmen and their ancestors in most cases had
occupied their farms for many generations; their birth was as good and
their genealogy as old as those of the chief himself, to whom they were
all blood relations, and to whom they were attached with the most unshaken
loyalty. True, they had no writing, no document, no paltry
"sheep-skin", as they called it, to show as a proof that they
had as much right to their farms as the laird himself. But what of that?
Who would ever have thought that their chiefs would turn against them, and
try to wrest from them that which had been gifted by a former chief to
their fathers, who would have bitten out their tongue before they would
ask a bond? The gift, they thought, was none the less real because there
was no written proof of it. These parchments were quite a modern
innovation, not even then universally acknowledged among the Highlanders,
to whom the only satisfactory proof of proprietorship and chiefship was
possession from time immemorial. Occasionally a chief, who could produce
no title-deed to his estate, was by law deprived of it, and his place
filled by another. But the clan would have none of this; they invariably
turned their backs upon the intruder, and acknowledged only the ousted
chief as their head and the real proprietor, whom they were bound to
support, and whom they frequently did support, by paying to him the rents
which were legally due to the other. In some cases, it would seem, the
original granters of the land to the tacksmen conveyed it to them by a
regular title-deed, by which, of course, they became proprietors. And we
think there can be no doubt, that originally when a chief bestowed a share
of his property upon his son or other near relation, he intended that the
latter should keep it for himself and his descendants; he was not regarded
merely as a tenant who had to pay a yearly rent, but as a sub-proprietor,
who, from a sense of love and duty would contribute what he could to
support the chief of his race and clan. In many cases, we say, this was
the light in which chief, tacksmen, and people regarded these farms
tenanted by the gentlemen of the clan; and it only seems to have been
after the value of men decreased and of property increased, that most of
the lairds began to look at the matter in a more commercial, legal, and
less romantic light. According to Newte - and what he says is supported to
a considerable extent by facts - "in the southern parts of
Argyleshire, in Perthshire, Aberdeenshire, Moray and Ross, grants of land
were made in writing, while in Inverness-shire, Sutherland-shire, the
northern parts of Argylshire, and the Western Islands, the old mode was
continued of verbal or emblematical transference. In Ross-shire,
particularly, it would appear that letters and the use of letters in civil
affairs had been early introduced and widely spread; for property is more
equally divided in that country than in most other counties in Scotland,
and than in any other of the Highlands. Agreeably to these observation, it
is from the great estates on the northern and western side of Scotland
that the descendants of the original tacksmen of the land, with their
families, have been obliged to migrate by the positive and unrelenting
demands of rent beyond what it was in their power to give, and, indeed, in
violation of those conditions that were understood and observed between
the original granter and original tenant and their posterity for
centuries". These statements are exceedingly plausible, and we
believe to a certain extent true; but it is unnecessary here to enter upon
the discussion of the question. What we have to do with is the
unquestionable fact that the Highland proprietors did in many instances
take advantage of the legal power, which they undoubtedly possessed, to do
with their land as they pleased, and, regardless of the feelings of the
old tacksmen and sub-tenants, let it to the highest bidders. The
consequence was that these tacksmen, who to a certain extent were
demoralized and knew not how to use the land to best advantage, had to
leave the homes of their ancestors; and many of the small farmers and
cottars, in the face of the new system of large sheep-farms, becoming
cumberers of the ground, were swept from the face of the country, and
either located in little lots by the sea-side, where they became useful as
fishers and kelp-burners, or settled on some waste moor, which they
occupied themselves in reclaiming from its native barrenness, or, as was
frequently the case, followed the tacksmen and sought a home in the far
west, where many of them became lairds in their own right.
These then are the great results of the measures which followed the
rebellion of 1745-6, and the consequent breaking up of the old clan system
- extensive sheep-framing, accompanied with a great rise in the rent of
land, depopulation and emigration. as to the legality of the proceedings
of the proprietors, there can be no doubt; as little doubt is there than
the immediate consequence to many of the Highlanders was great suffering,
accompanied by much bitterness and discontent. As to the morality or
justice of the laird's conduct, various opinions have been, and no doubt
for long will be, expressed. One side maintains that it was the duty of
these chiefs upon whom the people depended, whom they revered, and for
whom they were ready to die, at all events, to see to it that their people
were provided for, and that ultimately it would have been for the interest
of the proprietors and the country at large to do everything to prevent
from emigrating in such numbers as they did, such a splendid race of men,
for whose services to the country no money equivalent could be found. It
is maintained that the system of large farms is pernicious in every
respect, and that only by the system of moderate sized farms can a country
be made the best of, an adequate rural population be kept up, and
self-respect and a high moral tone be nourished and spread throughout the
land. Those who adopt this side of the question pooh-pooh the common
maxims of political economy, and declare that laws whose immediate
consequences are wide-spread suffering, and the unpeopling of a country,
cannot be founded on any valid basis; that proprietors hold their lands
only in trust, and it is therefore their duty not merely to consider their
own narrow interest, but also to consult the welfare and consult the
feelings of their people. In short, it is maintained by this party, that
the Highland lairds, in acting as they did, showed themselves to be
unjust, selfish, heartless, unpatriotic, mercenary, and blind to their own
true interests and those of their country.
On the other hand, it is maintained that what occurred in the Highlands
subsequent to 1745 was a step in the right direction, and that, it was
only a pity that the innovations had no been more thorough and systematic.
For long previous to 1745, it is asserted the Highlands were much
over-peopled, and the people, as a consequence of the vicious system under
which they had lived for generations, were incurably lazy, and could be
roused from this sad lethargy only by some such radical measures as were
adopted. The whole system of Highland life and manners and habits were
almost barbarous, the method of farming was thoroughly pernicious and
unproductive, the stock of cattle worthless and excessive, and so badly
managed that about one half perished every winter. On account of the
excessive population, the land was by far too much subdivided, the
majority of so-called farmers occupying farms of so small a size that they
could furnish the necessaries of life for no more than six months, and
consequently the people were continually on the verge of starvation. The
Highlands, it is said, are almost totally unsuited for agriculture, and
fit only for pasturage, and that consequently this subdivision into small
farms could be nothing else than pernicious; that the only method by which
the land could be made the most of was that or large sheep-farms, and that
the proprietors while no doubt studying their own interest, adopted the
wisest policy when they let out their land on this system. In short, it is
maintained by the advocates of innovation, the whole body of the
Highlanders were thoroughly demoralized, their number was greater by far
than the land could support even if managed to the best advantage, and was
increasingly every year; the whole system of renting land, of tenure, and
of farming was ruinous to the people and the land, and that nothing but a
radical change could cure the many evils with which the country was
afflicted.
There has been much rather bitter discussion between the advocates of the
two sides of the Highland question; often more recrimination and calling
of names then telling argument. This question, we think, is no exception
to the general rule which governs most disputed matters; there is truth,
we believe, on both sides. We fear the facts already adduced in this part
comprise many of the assertions made by the advocates of change. As to the
wretched social condition of the Highlanders, for long before and after
1745, there can be no doubt, if we can place any reliance on the evidence
of contemporaries, and we have already said enough to show that the common
system of farming, if worthy of the name, was ruinous and inefficient;
while their small lean cattle were so badly managed that about one half
died yearly. That the population was very much greater than the land, even
if used to the best advantage, could support, is testified to by every
candid writer from the Gartmore paper down almost to the present day. The
author of the Gartmore paper, written about 1747, estimated that the
population of the Highlands at that time amounted to about 230,000;
"but", he says, "according to the present economy of the
Highlands, there is not business for more than one half of that number of
people... The other half, then, must be idle and beggars while in the
country". "The
produce of the crops," says Pennant, "very rarely are in any
degree proportioned to the wants of the inhabitants; golden seasons have
happened, when they have had superfluity, but the years of famine are as
ten to one." It is probable, from a comparison with the statistics of
Dr Webster, taken in 1755, that the estimate of the author of the Gartmore
paper was not far from being correct; indeed, if anything, it must have
been under the mark, as in 1755 the population of the Highlands and
Islands amounted, according to Webster, to about 290,000, which, in 1795,
had increased to 325,566, in spite of the many thousands who had
emigrated. This great increase in the population during the latter part of
the 18th century is amply confirmed by the writers of the Statistical
Accounts of the various Highland parishes, and none had better
opportunities of knowing the real state of matters than they. The great
majority of these writers likewise assert that the population was far too
large in proportion to the produce of the land and means of employment,
and that some such outlet as emigration was absolutely necessary. Those
who condem emigration and depopulation, generally do so for some merely
sentimental reason, and seldom seek to show that it is quite possible to
maintain the large population without disastrous results. It is a pity,
they say, that the Highlander, possessing so many noble qualities, and so
strongly attached to his native soil, should be compelled to seek a home
in a foreign land, and bestow upon it the services which might be
profitably employed by his mother country. By permitting, they say, these
loyal and brave Highlanders to leave the country, Britain is throwing away
some of the finest recruiting material in the world, for—and it is quite
true—the Highland soldier has not his match for bravery, moral
character, and patriotism.
These statements are no
doubt true; it certainly is a pity that an inoffensive, brave, and moral
people should be compelled to leave their native land, and devote to the
cultivation of a foreign soil those energies which might be used to the
benefit of their own country. It would also be very bad policy in
government to lose the chance of filling up the ranks of the army with
some of the best men obtainable anywhere. But then, if there was nothing
for the people to do in the country, if their condition was one of chronic
famine, as was undoubtedly the case with the Highlanders, if the whole
productions of the country were insufficient even to keep them in bare
life, if every few years the country had to contribute thousands of pounds
to keep these people alive, if, in short, the majority of them were little
else than miserable beggars, an encumbrance on the progress of their
country, a continual source of sadness to all feeling men, gradually
becoming more and more demoralised by the increasingly wretched condition
in which they lived, and by the ever-recurring necessity of bestowing upon
them charity to keep them alive,—if such were the case, the advocates
for a thinning of the population urge, whom would it profit to keep such a
rabble of half-starved creatures huddled together in a corner of the
country, reaping for themselves nothing but misery and degradation, and
worse than useless to everybody else. Moreover, as to the military
argument, it is an almost universal statement made by the writers of the
Old Statistical Account (about 1790), that, at that time, in almost all
the Highland parishes it was scarcely possible to get a single recruit, so
great was the aversion of the people both to a naval and military life.
Besides, though the whole of the surplus population bad been willing to
volunteer into the army, of what value would it have been if the country
had no use for them; and surely it would be very questionable policy to
keep thousands of men in idleness on the bare chance that they might be
required as soldiers.
The sentimental and
military arguments are no doubt very touching and very convincing to men
in whom impulse and imagination predominate over reason and clearness of
vision, and are fitting subjects for a certain kind of poetry, which has
made much of them; but they cannot for one moment stand the test of facts,
and become selfishly cruel, impracticable, and disastrous, when contrasted
with the teachings of genuine humanity and the best interests of the
Highlanders. On this subject, the writer of the Old Statistical Account of
the Parish of Lochgoilhead makes some remarks so sensible, and so much to
the point, that we are tempted to quote them here. "It is
frequent," he says, "with people who wish well to their country,
to inveigh against the practice of turning several small farms into one
extensive braziner and dispossessing the former tenants. If the strength
of a country depends upon the number of its inhabitants, it appears a
pernicious measure to drive away the people by depriving them of their
possessions. This complaint is very just with regard to some places in
Scotland; for it must be greatly against the interest of the nation to
turn rich arable land, which is capable at the same time of supporting a
number of people, and of producing much grain, into pasture ground. But
the complaint does not seem to apply to this country. The strength of a
nation cannot surely consist in the number of idle people which it
maintains; that the inhabitants of this part of the country were formerly
sunk in indolence, and contributed very little to the wealth, or to the
support of the state, cannot be denied. The produce of this parish, since
sheep have become the principal commodity, is at least double the
intrinsic value of what it was formerly, so that half the number of hands
produce more than double the quantity of provisions, for the support of
our large towns, and the supply of our tradesmen and manufacturers; and
the system by which land returns the most valuable produce, and in the
greatest abundance, seems to be the most beneficial for the country at
large. Still, however, if the people who are dispossessed of this land
emigrated into other nations, the present system might be justly
condemned, as diminishing the strength of the country. But this is far
from being the case; of the great number of people who have been deprived
of their farms in this parish, for thirty years past, few or none have
settled out of the kingdom; they generally went to sea, or to the populous
towns upon the Clyde. In these places, they have an easy opportunity,
which they generally embrace, of training up their children to useful and
profitable employments, and of rendering them valuable members of society.
So that the former inhabitants of this country have been taken from .a
situation in which they contributed nothing to the wealth, and very little
to the support of the state, to a situation in which their labour is of
the greatest public utility. Nor has the present system contributed to
make the condition of the inhabitants of the country worse than it was
before; on the contrary, the change is greatly in their favour. The
partiality in favour of former times, and the attachment to the place of
their nativity, which is natural to old people, together with the
indolence in which they indulged themselves in this country, mislead them
in drawing a comparison between their past and their present situation.
But indolence was almost the only comfort which they enjoyed. There was
scarcely any variety of wretchedness with which they were not obliged to
struggle, or rather to which they were not obliged to submit. They often
felt what it was to want food; the scanty crops which they raised were
consumed by their cattle in winter and spring; for a great part of the
year they lived wholly on milk, and even that in the end of spring and
beginning of winter was very scarce. To such extremity were they
frequently reduced, that they were obliged to bleed their cattle in order
to subsist for some time upon the blood; and even the inhabitants of the
glens and valleys repaired in crowds to the shore, at the distance of
three or four miles, to pick up the scanty provision which the shell-fish
afforded them. They were miserably ill clothed, and the huts in which they
lived were dirty and mean beyond expression. How different from their
present situation? They now enjoy the necessaries, and many of the
comforts of life in abundance: even those who are supported by the charity
of the parish feel no real want. Much of the wretchedness which formerly
prevailed in this and in other parishes in the Highlands, was owing to the
indolence of the people, and to their want of management; but a country
which is neither adapted for agriculture nor for rearing black cattle, can
never maintain any great number of people comfortably."
No doubt the very men who
deplore what they call the depopulation of the Highlands would advocate
the advisability of emigration in the case of the unemployed surplus
population of any other part of the country. If their arguments against
the emigration of the Highlanders to another country, and in favour of
their being retained in their own district were logically carried out, to
what absurd and disastrous consequences would they lead? Supposing that
all the people who have emigrated from this country to America, Australia,
and elsewhere, had been kept at home, where would this country have been?
There would scarcely have been standing room for the population, the great
majority of whom must have been in a state of indescribable misery. The
country would have been ruined. The same arguments might also be used
against the emigration of the natives of other countries, many of whom are
no doubt as attached to their native soil as the Highlanders; and if the
principle had been rigidly carried out, what direful consequences to the
world at large would have been the result. In fact, there would have been
little else but universal barbarism. It seems to be admitted by all
thoughtful men that the best outlet for a redundant or idle population is
emigration; it is beneficial to the mother country, beneficial to the
emigrants, and beneficial to the new country in which they take up their
abode. Only thus can the earth be subdued, and made the most of.
Why then should there be
any lamentation over the Highlanders leaving their country more than over
any other class of respectable willing men? Anything more hopelessly
wretched than their position at various times from 1745 down to the
present day it would be impossible to imagine. If one, however, trusted
the descriptions of some poets and sentimentalists, a happier or more
comfortably situated people than the Highlanders at one time were could
not be found on the face of the globe. They were always clean, and tidy,
and well dressed, lived in model cottages, surrounded by model gardens,
had always abundance of plain wholesome food and drink, were exuberant in
their hospitality, doated on their chiefs, carefully cultivated their
lands and tended their flocks, but had plenty of time to dance and sing,
and narrate round the cheerful winter hearth the legends of their people,
and above all, feared God and honoured the king. Now, these statements
have no foundation in fact, at least within the historical period; but
generally the writers on this side of the question refer generally to the
period previous to 1745, and often, in some cases, to a time subsequent to
that. Every writer who pretends to record facts, the result of
observation, and not to draw imaginary Arcadian pictures, concurs in
describing the country as being sunk in the lowest state of wretchedness.
The description we have already given of the condition of the people
before 1745, applies with intensified force to the greater part of the
Highlands for long after that year. Instead of improving, and often there
were favourable opportunities for improvement, the people seemed to be
retrograding, getting more and more demoralised, more and more miserable,
more and more numerous, and more and more famine-struck. In proof of what
we say, we refer to all the writers on and travellers in the Highlands of
last century, to Pennant, Boswell, Johnson, Newte, Buchanan, and
especially the Old Statistical Account. To let the reader judge for
himself as to the value of the statements we make as to the condition of
the Highlands during the latter part of last century, we quote below a
longish extract from a pamphlet written by one who had visited and
enquired into the state of the Highlands about the year 1780 It is written
by one who deplores the extensive emigration which was going on, but yet
who, we are inclined to believe, has slightly exaggerated the misery of
the Highlanders in order to make the sin of absentee chiefs, who engross
farms, and raise enormously the rents, as great as possible. Still, when
compared with the statements made by other contemporary authorities, the
exaggeration seems by no means great, and making allowances, the picture
presented is a mocking, weird contrast to the fancies of the
sentimentalist. That such a woeful state of things required radical and
uncompromising measures of relief, no one can possibly deny. Yet this same
writer laments most pitiably that 20,000 of these wretched people had to
leave their wretched homes and famine-struck condition, and the oppression
of their lairds, for lands and houses of their own in a fairer and more
fertile land, where. independence and affluence were at the command of all
who cared to bend their backs to labour. What good purpose, divine or
human, could be served by keeping an increasing population in a land that
cannot produce enough to keep the life in one-half of its people? Nothing
but misery, and degrad4ion, and oppression here; happiness, advancement,
riches, and freedom on the other side of the water. Is there more than one
conclusion?
["Upon the whole, the
situation of these people, inhabitants of Britain! is such as no language
can describe, nor fancy conceive. If, with great labour and fatigue, the
farmer raises a slender crop of oats and barley, the autumnal rains often
baffle his utmost efforts, and frustrate all his expectations; and instead
of being able to pay an exorbitant rent, he sees his family in danger of
perishing during the ensuing winter, when he is precluded from any
possibility of assistance elsewhere.
"Nor are his cattle in
a better situation; in summer they pick up a scanty support amongst the
morasses or heathy mountains; but in winter, when the grounds are covered
with snow, and when the naked wilds afford neither shelter nor
subsistence, the few cows, small, lean, and ready to drop down through
want of pasture, are brought into the hut where the family resides, and
frequently share with them the small stock of meal which had been
purchased, or raised, for the family only ; while the cattle thus
sustained, are bled occasionally, to afford nourishment for the children
after it bath been boiled or made into cakes.
"The sheep being left
upon the open heaths, seek to shelter themselves from the inclemency of
the weather amongst the hollows upon the lee-side of the mountains, and
here they are frequently buried under the snow for several weeks together,
and in severe seasons during two months or upwards. They eat their own and
each other’s wool, and hold out wonderfully under cold and hunger; but
even in moderate winters, a considerable number are generally found dead
after the snow hath disappeared, and in rigorous seasons few or none are
left alive.
"Meanwhile the
steward, hard pressed by letters from Almack’s or Newrnarket, demands
the rent in a tone which makes no great allowance for unpropitious
seasons, the death of cattle, and other accidental misfortunes ;
disguising the feelings of his own breast— his Honour’s wants must at
any rate be supplied, the bills must he duly negotiated.
"Such is the state of
farming, if it maybe so called, throughout the interior parts of the
Highlands; but as that country hath an extensive coast, and many islands,
it may be supposed that the inhabitants of those shores enjoy all the
benefits of their maritime situation. This, however, is not the case;
those gifts of nature, which in any other commercial kingdom would have
been rendered subservient to the most valuable purposes, are in Scotland
lost, or nearly so, to the poor natives and the public. The only
difference, therefore, between the inhabitants of the interior parts and
those of the more distant coasts, consists in this, that the latter, with
the labours of the field, have to encounter alternately the dangers of the
ocean and all the fatigues of navigation.
"To the distressing
circumstances at home, as stated above, new difficulties and toils await
the devoted farmer when abroad. He leaves his family in October,
accompanied by his sons, brothers, and frequently an aged parent, and
embarks on board a small open boat, in quest of the herring fishery, with
no other provision than oatmeal, potatoes. and fresh water ; no other
bedding than heath, twigs, or straw, the covering, if any, an old sail.
Thus provided, he searches from bay to bay, through turbulent seas,
frequently for several weeks together, before the shoals of herrings are
discovered. The glad tidings serve to vary, but not to diminish his
fatigues. Unremitting nightly labour (the time when the herrings are
taken), pinching cold winds, heavy seas, uninhabited shores covered with
snow, or deluged with rains, contribute towards filling up the measure of
his distresses ; while to men of such exquisite feelings as the
Highlanders generally possess, the scene which awaits him at home does it
most effectually.
"Having disposed of
his capture to the Busses, he returns in January through a long
navigation, frequently admidst unceasing hurricanes, not to a comfortable
home and a cheerful family, but to a hut composed of turf, without
windows, doors, or chimney, environed with snow, and almost hid from the
eye by its astonishing depth. Upon entering this solitary mansion, he
generally finds a part of his family, sometimes the whole, lying upon
heath or straw, languishing through want or epidemical disease; while the
few surviving cows, which possess the other end of the cottage, instead of
furnishing further supplies of milk or blood, demand his immediate
attention to keep them in existence.
"The season now
approaches when he is again to delve and labour the ground, on the same
slender prospect of a plentiful crop or a dry harvest. The cattle which
have survived the famine of the winter, are turned out to the mountains;
and, having put his domestic affairs into the best situation which a train
of accumulated misfortunes admits of, he resumes the oar, either in quest
of the herring or the white fishery. If successful in the latter, he sets
out in his open boat upon a voyage (taking the Hebrides and the opposite
coast at a medium distance) of 200 miles, to vend his cargo of dried cod,
hug, &c., at Greenock or Glasgow. The produce, which seldom exceeds
twelve or fifteen pounds, is laid out, in conjunction with his companions,
upon meal and fishing tackle; and he returns through the same tedious
navigation.
"The autumn calls his attention again
to the field; the usual round of disappointment, fatigue, and distress
awaits him; thus dragging throngs a wretched existence in the hope of soon
arriving in that country where the weary shall be at rest. "—A
View of the Highlands, &c., pp. 8—7.]
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