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Deposited by the
Linonian and Brothers Library
1908

SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.

SCOTLAND

AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS

BY THE

DUKE OF ARGYLL

VOLUME SECOND

CAWDOR CAHTLE

EDINBUEGH: DAVID DOUGLAS
MDCCCLXXXVII

CONTENTS OF VOL. IL

CHAPTER I.
PAGE
THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP, . . 1

CHAPTER II.
BEFORE THE DAWN, . 61
CHAPTER HI
THE BURST OF INDUSTRY, . 144
CHAPTER IV.
THE FRUITS OF MIND, 229
APPENDIX, . 323

ILLUSTRATIONS.
Cawdok Castle (after a sketch by George Reid, E™S,A.). VigneUe
"QuEENAiG" (Range OF Mountains, Sutherland), . 112
"SOULVEIS" (Suthekland), 132
Ben More, Mull (Volcanic Mountain), , ^64
Loch Maree (Ross-shire), ^6
VOL. II. A 2

CHAPTER I.
THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP.
There is a theory very prevalent in the popular
literature of Scotland that the last Jacobite Rebel
lion, which arose in July 1745 and was quelled on
the Moor of Culloden in April 1746, marks the
date of a great change in the landed tenures of the
Highlands. The notion is, that before that date
the old native population of the country lived in
some condition of Arcadian bliss, founded on the
relation between Celtic Clansmen and their Chiefs,
whilst subsequent to that date their position became
soon changed, and lowered into the modern relation
between Tenant and Landlord, or between Owners
and Occupiers of the soil.
The facts and documents which have been already
dealt with in these pages, prove that this theory is
a dream built up out of two separate delusions.
One of these delusions is in respect to the true
nature of the change which was involved in the
passage from Celtic dues and services to rents
fixed by contract or agreement. The other delu
sion is in respect to the causes of that change, —

2 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
to the areas of country over which it passed, — and
to the dates at which it became established. As
regards the nature of that change, the theory
not only mistakes but reverses the facts, whilst
as regards the districts it affected, and the
times of its arising, the popular idea is not less
erroneous. Systematic hardship and oppression was insepar
able from the condition of the native population
under the unlimited exactions of Celtic Feudalism.
The change from those exactions to definite and stipu
lated rents, lasting for definite and stipulated times,
was not a change for the worse, but a change immea
surably for the better. On the other hand, the last
Jacobite Rebellion — " The Forty-Five," as it is still
called in Scotland — marks no epoch in the history
and progress of that change, which is to be compared
in importance with other epochs of much older date.
The Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 catches the super
ficial eye merely because it happens to have been
the last occasion on which the Clans were mar
shalled in open war against the Government. But
wars and rebellions of this kind were quite separate
from those standing and permanent evils of the
Clan system which afiected most powerfully the
condition of the people. Open wars against the
Government — occurring almost always at distant
intervals, and never of long duration, — had no other
effect than some local devastations, and the loss of
a few hundred fives. It was the perennial feuds
between Clan and Clan, or rather between Chief

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 3
and Chief, — it was the numerous, nameless, and
desolating usages of daily life under the full-blown
system of Celtic Feudalism, that kept down the
people, and prevented the possibility of any advance
in industry or in wealth. The change from this
system to the system of definite agricultural rents
dates, in. the Eastern and in the Middle Lowlands
of Scotland, from the foundation of the Monarchy,
— ^from the first introduction of Law, and from the
first settlement of the races out of whose amalgama
tion Scotland grew. The history of its progress is
the history of our civilisation. In the Border High
lands the great epoch of its accomplishment is that
of the Union of the Crowns. In the Western
Highlands and the Hebrides the most memorable
date is 1609, only a few years later, when the Celtic
usages were condemned as the root of the misery
and barbarism which confessedly prevailed, and
when the fundamental demands of peace and of law
were recorded in the " Statutes of lona." From
that date all over the Western Highlands it made
somewhat slow, but, on the whole, steady and con
tinuous progress, in proportion as the rebellious
Clans were broken up, and those Chiefs became firmly
established who were loyal to the Government.
Their interest and inclination alike induced them
to merge their lawless character as Chiefs, in their
lawful character as the protectors and promoters of
peaceful industry, in. virtue of being great Owners
and improvers of the soil.
The distances of History are foreshortened to us

4 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
like the distances of Space. We forget the long
intervals of time that really separate events which,
in perspective, seem now close together. Thus
to us looking back it seems as if almost the whole
time between the Union of the Crowns and the
second Jacobite Rebellion in 1745 was a time full of
wars. And so it was — but with long intervals be
tween those wars, during which the silent processes
of change and of advance had time to lay dowoi and
to consolidate the growing structures of Society.
Thirty-six years elapsed between the accession of
James i. and the first shedding of blood in the great
Civil Wars of his son's reign, in 1639. During the
whole of that interval progress was being made in
the civiKsation of the Highlands. The worst period
of those wars for that portion of the country, was
the period occupied by the brilliant but savage and
unscrupulous campaign of Montrose, and this only
lasted about eighteen months, from April 1644,
when he erected his standard at Dumfries, to Sep
tember 1645, when he was finally defeated by
General Leslie at Philiphaugh. It is a memorable
fact, too, that in this campaign the original nucleus
of the army of Montrose was not composed of Scoto-
Celts, but of the Irish Celts, whom he recruited
through the Macdonalds of Antrim, — whom he joined
only after a journey in disguise in the heart of the
Highlands, — and without whose help he does not
appear to have had, or to have hoped for, any pro
spect of success. They were employed to ravage
the western portions of Argyllshire upon their way.

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 5
The courage, resource, and agUity of Montrose, with
the enjoyments of violence and plunder which were
held out to all his followers, did at last rouse the
passions and attract the cupidity of some Northern
Clans, so that before his defeat his army is said to
have accumulated to the number of 6000 men. But
their dispersion, as usual, was complete ; and when,
after an interval of six years, Montrose made his last
and fatal attempt in 1650, he again made it trusting
to a body of German mercenaries whom he landed
in the North. But the Highlanders did not flock
to his standard, and it was a Chief of the purest
Celtic blood — Macleod of Assynt, — who surrendered
him, or in Jacobite language, "betrayed" him to the
Government. Again, after this rebellion there was a long inter
val of repose in the Highlands, and during part of it,
under the rule of the great Protector, for seven or
eight years, from 1650 to 1658, an important stride
was made towards the final settlement and civilisa
tion of the country. The master eye and the master
hand of Cromwell saw and touched the root-evil of
the Clans ; and he made his dealings with it so
conspicuous that they have caught the eye even of
compilers who, with no special knowledge of this
subject, write School Primers upon the History of the
time. Thus we are told in one of these, with some
looseness of expression, but with substantial truth,
that " in order to improve the state of the people,
all feudal dues were taken away. A fixed rent in
money was substituted for aU the services and

6 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
restrictions to which the land had been hitherto
liable."^ The Restoration in 1660 restored everything
that was corrupt and bad wherever its power
reached, and we have seen the wicked purpose with
which its appeal to Celtic Feudalism was made in
1677. But the work of the "Highland Host"
lasted only for a few months, and no raiding expe
dition of this kind could affect the permanent causes
which were steadily at work aU over the Highlands
ever since the Clans had ceased to fight among them
selves. The Rebellion which was raised in 1685
by my own unfortunate ancestor, the ninth Earl
of Argyll, attempting, in concert with the Duke of
Monmouth in England, to anticipate by a few years
the Great Revolution which was at hand, was a
Rebellion suppressed in a few weeks. He brought no
bands of Irish Celts to ravage his native coimtry.
He brought no Dutch or German mercenaries to fight
the battles of Scottish freedom. He achieved no
immediate success to attract plundering Caterans
always ready to flock to those who promised booty.
He represented a Cause and not a Person. The
Cause was one which Highlanders had never valued.
His own lands had already become largely occupied
by peaceful Farmers, whilst only a remainder of the
Subtenants belonged to the old idle and fighting
classes. Celtic Feudalism therefore completely
failed him. He did not appeal either to the rude,
1 I quote from the History of Scotland, by Margaret Macarthur — an
excellent Book of its class, belonging to the series edited by Edward
A. Freeman, D.C.L.

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 7
or to the sentimental, incitements which alone had
ever moved it. He was joined by a mere handful —
about 1800 men— and nothing came of his attempt
except the sacrifice of his own life, and the ravage
of his own estates. Yet he spoke in the light of
prophecy when in his last hours he said, " I have a
strong impression on my spirit that deliverance will
come very suddenly."^
Three years later, the great Revolution of 1688,
which was peaceably accomplished elsewhere, in
volved once more that appeal to the Clans — with
as tisual an Irish contingent — which was raised by
John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee.
In 1689, at KiUiecrankie, the Highlanders showed
what they could do in fighting. But the death
of their leader was, as usual, fatal to them, for
mere fighting is only one part of the art of war.
This rising again was speedily suppressed, but for
several years a great part of the Highlands con
tinued in a troubled state — tdl in 1692, the Govern
ment insisted on the formal submission of every
suspected Chief. In that year the massacre of the
Macdonalds of Glencoe cast indelible disgrace on the
Government of King William. But the execration
with which this deed was denounced when its real
nature came to be understood, is a satisfactory indi
cation of the change which had been long in progress.
Such a revival, imitation, and even exaggeration by
a civilised Government, of the worst features of Celtic
intertribal treachery and murder, revolted the public
1 Macaulay's History of Enr/land, vol. i. p. 563-4.
VOL. II. B

8 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
conscience, and the feeling it excited brings out as
nothing else could do, how fast and far Society had
advanced from the typical Epoch of the Clans. It
is remarkable, however, that this atrocious murder
was perpetrated and defended, not as a mere act of
vengeance against men who were rebels, but as a
sentence of execution against men who were irre
claimable marauders. And this, beyond all doubt,
they actually were. Macaulay has expended all the
resources of his eloquence in explaining how impos
sible it was that they could be anything else, living
as they did in Glencoe. " All the science and
industry of a peaceful age," he says, " can extract
nothing valuable from that wilderness : but in' an
age of violence and rapiae the wilderness itself was
valued on account of the shelter which it afforded
to the plunderer and the plunder. Nothing could
be more natural than that the Clan to which this
rugged desert belonged should have been noted for
predatory habits. For, among the Highlanders,
generally, to rob was thought at least as honourable
an employment as to cultivate the soil ; and of all
the Highlanders the Macdonalds of Glencoe had the
least productive soil, and the most convenient and
seciire den of robbers."-^ This great crime, which
has justly entailed upon its perpetrators the severest
judgment of posterity, was due to the combination
of two of the strongest incitements which existed
at the time, first, the indignation of a civilised
Government against men who, in the midst of a
1 Macaulay's History of England, vol. iv. p. 192.

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 9
peaceful society, lived avowedly and notoriously a
life of plunder ; and secondly, the fierce and vin
dictive passions of a neighbouring Clan, to whose
hands the punishment was committed, and whose
lands and houses had been ravaged and destroyed
by the unhappy victims. The massacre of Glencoe
is therefore to be regarded as one of the last, and
one of the most signal examples of the old evils
which we have traced from the days of the Wolf of
Badenoch, in the power of Celtic Feudalism to rouse
ferocious passions — ^in the cruel and treacherous
deeds which men comparatively civilised and enlight
ened could persuade themselves to defend and even
to adopt when they came into contact with it.
Another interval of twenty -three years separates
the massacre of Glencoe from the first Jacobite rising
of the Eighteenth Century, in 1715. This rising
was so short, and so easily suppressed, that its effects
were altogether evanescent, and can hardly have
interrupted in the smallest degree the gradual and
steady processes of change which were happily
bringing to an end the terrible abuses and miseries
of the Clans. The Rebellion was suppressed within
Five Months. There were the usual incidents — the
treachery of Chiefs — the gallantry of their Highland
followers. The Earl of Mar attended a Levee of
George i. on the day before he left London to raise
the standard of the Pretender in the valley of the
Dee. In their invasion of England, where, as is
well known, they penetrated as far as Preston, they
were miserably led. On the other hand, at the

10 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
Battle of SheriflPmuir, the Clans fought with their
accustomed courage, and won quite half of the
honours of the day. But for more than a single
battle the military power of Celtic Feudalism
was nearly gone. Their surrender in England at
Preston, and their dispersion in Scotland, after
SheriflPmuir, mark the low point to which it had
already fallen.
Again, we have another long interval, from the
Rebellion of 1715 to that of " The Forty-Five," an
interval of no less than thirty years — or, as it is
usually reckoned, a whole generation. This is one
of those many intervals between conspicuous events,
over which the eye of the historian often passes
with a careless and unobservant glance, seeing
nothing that catches his attention, or at least nothing
of a large class of facts which, nevertheless, are of
far higher interest and importance than the cycle of
rebellions. Now it is in respect to this interval of
time — an interval during which a whole generation
was born and rose to manhood, before the last of
our civil wars — before " The Forty-Five " — that I
am in possession of documents which singularly
illustrate the continuity of Scottish history, and
the identity of the processes of change through
which our civilisation had been steadily advancing
over the whole Kingdom from the days of Malcolm
Canmore. Having now indicated the period to which these
documents refer, and its importance in an historical
point of view, I must add a few words in explana-

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 1 1
tion of the men whose evidence they contain. The
management of great Baronial Estates in those
days was an object of ambition among men of the
highest position in society. It was an employment
which had all the dignity, and variety of interest,
and extent of power, which belonged to the govern
ment of a Province. Smaller Proprietors of land of
the oldest families, Clansmen nearly related to their
Chief, and men of high public positions, even on the
Bench and at the Bar, were among the number of
those who imdertook such duties, and who devoted
to them all the knowledge and culture of their day.
Such was the character and position of the two men
whose narratives and reports I am about to cite.
Nor is it less important to observe the position of
the districts respecting which their evidence is sup
plied. We have seen how long and how late the
worst evils of Celtic Feudalism lingered in those
Western Isles of Scotland, which had always been
most inaccessible to the central government, and
amongst which savage intertribal wars had for many
generations kept the people in poverty, and the
Kingdom in frequent uneasiness and alarm. We
have seen, nevertheless, from the Conferences of
lona, held in 1609, that all these habits and customs
were confessed and acknowledged by the Chiefs
themselves to be barbarous and illegal, and that
reversion to the system of regular rents and of
tenures known to the law, was the admitted remedy,
and the promised reform. We have seen that in
Kintyre the system of agricultural Leases and

1 2 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
generally all the relations of Landlord and Tenant
came naturally into full operation the moment
that district was freed from the Clan Donnel,
the last representatives of the old Lords of the
Isles, and of a family which for centuries had
upheld and handed down the picturesque but
savage customs and traditions of the Clans. We
have seen, too, that the tenure by Lease which
had been enjoyed for centuries, even in the
Hebrides, by the blood-relations of the Chiefs, was
now in that district extended to those poorer men
who constituted the great bulk of the population,
but who formerly were only Subtenants, without
any tenure except that which arose out of the neces
sity of having men who could render "services."
These services never were exclusively military.
The spade-plough^ was more constantly needed than
the sword or the pike. They included every kind of
labour, and every kind of exaction by which the
prodvice of labour could be made to support the
power, or minister to the rude but lavish and waste
ful expenditure of the Chiefs. This great process of
the emergence of law and order from under the over
lying burden of Celtic violence and confusion, is a
process which we have thus seen in its earliest results,
but which hitherto we have not seen in the details
and methods of its operation. Yet it is these details
which are the most interesting facts of all in the
history of civilisation — the steps by which so great
1 The "casoroim," the ancient implement of Celtic agriculture— a
heavy spade driven by the foot. The word means " crooked foot."

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 13
a reform was made— the action of those who were
agents in it — the exact condition of things with which
they had to deal — and the nature of the powers
which were the instruments of their work.
All this is precisely the information supplied to
us by papers connected with the management of
certain estates w^hich fell into the possession of the
Clan Campbell, along with or soon after the acquisi
tion of Kintyre. These estates were purely Hebri-
dean — lying in the Islands of Mull and of lona, and
in the adjoining peninsula of Morven, with one of
the outer Islands, Tyree, which had from the most
ancient times been closely connected with lona. All
these lands had for centuries been dominated by
the Clan Maclean, whose brave but fierce and law
less Chiefs now sleep in numbers beneath the
sheltering stones, and the rude knightly effigies of
the Reilig Oran.' In 1732, about half-way between
the two Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745, Camp
bell of Stonefield, Sheriff" of the County, was sent to
examine and report on their condition. From that
Report we learn that these lands were universally
held in Lease by gentlemen who were themselves
either members of the Clan Campbell, or in some
cases were Macleans, or by others who, according to
the common habit of the Celts, had submitted to
the new Chief who was also the new Proprietor.
Under these gentlemen came the families of the
' This is the Celtic name of probably the oldest place of burial still
used in the British Islands — that surrounding the walls of St. Gran's
Chapel, near the Cathedral of lona. It dates from the Columbau age,
the 7th century. " Oran " was one of C'olumba's followers.

14 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
native population, who were called Tenants, but
who were only Subtenants, holding at the will of the
Leaseholders or Tacksmen, and complaining bitterly
of the oppressions under which they laboured. It
was the first business of the Sheriff" to inquire into
the truth of these complaints ; and though he indi
cates that they were exaggerated, yet, in the most
practical of all ways, he supports them by suggest
ing the only remedy. The old Celtic exactions
levied by the Chiefs and Chieftains upon their Sub
tenants, rested and could only rest upon the
ultimate power of removal. The Subtenants were
not protected in respect to rent or services by any
definite covenant or bargain, nor were they pro
tected in respect to tenure by holding for any
definite time. Very often the Tacksmen had brought
them in upon the lands when these Tacksmen them
selves obtained their Lease, just as we have seen
that this was the actual case when the De Hays
took a farm from the Abbot of Scone in 1312.
Moreover, as in that case so in many others, there
was an express stipulation in the Lease that the
Tacksman should remove these men when he himself
removed. In all cases of " Tacks " during aU the
intervening centuries the Leaseholding Clansman
and Tenant held the complete power of the Owner
over all his Subtenants, unless this power was re
strained by the terms of his own Lease on behalf of the
Proprietor. But any such restriction does not appear
to have been common, and in the Western Isles, where
the powers of Celtic Feudalism had been widest and

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 15
most unchecked, it was probably unknown. There
the dependence of the Subtenant upon the Tacks
man, who alone represented the power and position
of the Proprietary Chief and the authority of the
Clan, was complete and absolute. The proper
remedy then was clear, — now that men were giving
up the life and the habits of the Clans, and were be
ginning to look steadily to the improvement of the
country, and to the increase of its value, founded
upon the increased produce of settled industry.
The remedy was to give to the Subtenants the
same kind and degree of security which had long
been given to the relatives of the Chief — that is, the
security of a Covenant or Lease. This accordingly
was the policy recommended by SheriflP Campbell.
The Leases of certain Tacksmen were about to expire.
He advised that they should not be renewed except
upon new conditions. Their Subtenants should
have the same kind of protection which they them
selves enjoyed. The rents and services of these
men should be fixed and definite, and their tenure
should, in like manner, be of a specified duration.
Nay more, the larger Tenants should be bound in
their Leases to cause better houses to be built for
the smaller class of holders, where these men con
tinued to be Subtenants at all. Many of them,
however, were to be lifted out of this category alto
gether. They were to have Leases directly from the
Proprietor, and to become themselves " Tacksmen,"
with the full status and security of that class.
It is important to observe that this proposed re-

16 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
form rested entirely on the possession and on the exer
cise of the fullest powers of Ownership on the part of
the Proprietor. Moreover, it rested on these powers
as exercised over the very pick of those who repre
sented and indeed constituted the Clan. It was
the old class of Tacksmen, who held whatever rights
belonged by Celtic usages to the blood and personal
following of the Chief. Yet, we see here that when
these Leases came to an end, the Proprietor of the
lands they held could tell them that unless they
agreed to entirely new conditions, they must make
way for other men. This was the only power of
enforcement which the Proprietor could hold or
could exert in modifying, reforming, or extirpating
the oppressive usages which had become estabhshed
among the Celts. Nor was this power of removing
Clansmen from Farms at the end of their Leases a
power which was used as a threat only, without
being actually exerted. It was iised, as we see,
from the Report of SheriflP Campbell, in a great
number of cases where the lands were re-let directly
to the old Subtenants, or to new men who were
more likely than their predecessors to work the new
system with intelligence and fidelity. Although
this Report was written thirteen years before "The
Forty-Five," which is popularly supposed to repre
sent an epoch of change in tenures, and although it
goes back to a previous condition of things which
implies an unbroken history of many centuries,
there is not even a hint or an expression which
implies that any doubt existed in the minds of any

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 17
of the various classes concerned, that the Proprietor
was exercising any other powers than those which
were not only known to the law but were also
familiar to the people.
And as this power was the only engine which
could be used to redeem the poorer classes from the
oppression of others, so also was it the only engine
which could be used to redeem them from the con
sequences of their own ignorant and barbarous
customs. Just as the prohibition and abandonment
of some usages, traditional among them, w^as im
posed upon the Tacksmen under the penalty of
removal, so the prohibition and abandonment of
other usages, as old and as firmly established, was
imposed upon the class of Subtenants — under the
same penalty of having to leave the estate if they
were unwilling to accept the new conditions. In
both cases, equally, the first steps towards a civilised
condition, and towards agricultural improvement,
were taken, and could only be taken, on the strength
of the fullest powers and rights of Ownership. No
thing short of those powers could have overcome
the desperate tenacity of the people in resisting
every change and clinging to habits which, originally
bad, had gone from bad to worse through that great
law which determines the development of corruption.
It is proved by the whole tenor of SheriflP Camp
bell's Report that the domestic economy of the
people in this part of Scotland had remained worse
than stationary for more than a thousand years.
Although they lived in a country where rock and

18 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
stone was abundant, and in general easily accessible
— although a whole Island ^ of the finest limestone
lay oflP both Mull and Morven, and was separated
from them only by a narrow strait — although the
people had before their eyes for more than six
hundred years the rough but massive and splendid
masonry of the Cathedral of lona and of St. Oran's
Chapel, — yet they continued to live in hovels com
posed of nothing more solid than turf lined, and
perhaps propped on the inside, by wattled branches
of birch, oak, and hazel. These were the lineal
descendants of the houses, dating from prehistoric
times, which sheltered Columba and his brethren
in the Sixth Century, and on which it seems that
no step of advance had been made near the middle
of the Eighteenth, or during an interval of about
eleven hundred years. The rapid decay of such
structures, the constant necessity of removal, was
leading to the destruction of the scanty and shaggy
brushwoods which alone represented the ancient
Caledonian forests. This, however, was by no
means the worst feature of the case. Huts of turf
and wattled twigs may be quite as warm and com
fortable as many of the hovels which in Ireland and
in some of the Hebrides are now always built of
loose stones without cement.
But in a much more important and vital matter,
namely, the husbandry of the people, there is clear
evidence of a ruinous decline. It is impossible
to read the details given in Adamnan's Life of
' The Island of Lismore.

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 19
Columba of the agricultural operations of his
Monks in lona, and to compare them with the
facts given in SheriflP Campbell's Report, without
seeing that there had been a terrible and a truly
barbarous decline. It had become the universal
custom of the people to cut their corn crops of
oats, or an inferior barley, high above the ground.
The considerable portion of straw which remained
attached to the ear was then destroyed by fire, the
ear itself being much wasted in the process. This
was the only process by which they knew how to
get at the grain free from husks, the half-roasted
grain falling out during the combustion, and being
afterwards roughly ground by the hand between
two stones, a primitive form of Mill, called Querns,
which has survived to our own day in some of the
remoter Hebrides. The remaining straw which had
been left upon the ground, instead of being used for
the food of cattle, or for manure, was used for thatch
— the whole of this valuable product being thus
practically lost — because fern and heath, which was
in " great plenty" all over the country, would have
made better thatch, and was useless for other pur
poses. All these barbarous and wasteful usages had
been the natural and inevitable result of the inse
cure life which all classes had led in these countries
under the system of the Clans. Men will not even
think of building substantial houses, nor barns with
threshing-floors, nor mills, when such erections,
together wdth their owners, were constantly exposed
to destruction by fire and sword. It was a positive

20 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
advantage, under such conditions, to have no build
ings except such as could be raised in a couple of
days out of materials delved with the spade and cut
by the hatchet. As usual, men being such creatures
of habit, very soon lost all sense of the want of
better things. In 1 723 the gradual settlement of the
country had so far proceeded that one or two of the
Tacksmen had built Corn Mills. But the people
persisted in using the old Querns. So it was with
everything. No improvement could gain even a
momentary footing, except when imposed upon the
people by the authority of those from whom alone
their tenure came. Accordingly throughout SheriflP
Campbell's Report every proposal he makes is
founded on the unquestioned right of the Owner of
an estate to let it to whomsoever he liked, and on
whatever terms he could get Tenants to accept pos
session. Moreover, we see that this power was used
not only sometimes and in a few cases, but system
atically over large areas of land. It involved very
often no less than the old immemorial work of
" planting" the country with selected men.
In making this selection political ends were in
separably blended with economic considerations.
The Clans of the mainland had been longer in
contact with the advancing civihsation of the
Low Country. They were both the most loyal
men and the men best acquainted with such im
proved methods of agriculture as were knowm
in that day. Accordingly when a Clansman secured
a Lease of some large tract of land in the Western

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 21
Islands, it was often his first care to plant it
with Campbells, or others of his own dependants
brought from the mainland of Argyllshire. Thus
the SheriflP reports of three well-known such tracts
in the Island of Mull, that having been formerly let
on Lease to gentlemen of the name of Campbell,
these Tacksmen " had gone a good length to plant
there several districts with people of the same name,
or their friends, and that it must be acknowledged
the Tenants were beginning to manage those lands
better than the rest of the country." In marked
contrast with this result, he reported in respect to
another district, that it had been let to one of the
old Clan of M'Lean, and that he, in true Celtic
fashion, " kept a swarm of poor people of his own
name around him who had neither the skill nor the
substance (capital) to manage the land to any pur
pose." The "keeping" of those people on the farm
is not ascribed by the SheriflP to any difficulty in
removing them arising out of Tenure, but expressly
to the " lenity " of the Tacksman. The truth pro
bably was that he followed the traditions of his
class, which encouraged a crowd of dependants, who
performed for the Tacksmen all the services they
required, and were content themselves with a bare
subsistence. This, with occasional plenty, could
generally be obtained in former times by plunder,
and in 1728 it was only beginning to be felt by
these poor people that even a bare subsistence
could not be secured when plunder had been
stopped, and before industry had begun.

22 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
There is no indication, however, in the Sheriflp's
Report that he saw or even thought of any excess
of population over the resources of the country. On
the contrary, one of the stipulations he recommends
for the new Leases was that the Tenant should be
bound to bring into the country, and plant a certain
number of men as Subtenants, who should cultivate
what was then practically waste. These men, thus
introduced and planted by the power and care of the
Proprietors, together with those other Subtenants
to whom he gave Leases, and redeemed from the
exactions of the larger Tacksmen, are the progeni
tors of the men now known as " Crofters." They
have been mythically represented as a native popu
lation inheriting for centuries a certain fixity of
tenure, independent of the Owoier, whereas the his
torical fact is that the process by which they were
" planted" is in many cases, as we shall see further
on, later even than 1737 by more than half a
century. There is, moreover, another part of the Sheriff's
Report which shows the unquestioned power then
exercised by the Landlord in the disposal of his pro
perty. This part relates to the question of rents.
It was no easy question under the circumstances of
the case. The money rents previously paid by the
Subtenants to the Tacksmen were ascertained by an
examination on oath. The services exacted, too, as
well as any fines or feudal dues, were found out as
nearly as possible by the same method. But as it
was one great object to put an end to Services, and

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 23
to all dues or exactions merely arbitrary, the diflfi-
culty remained as to the additional rent which the
commutation of these Services would be fairly worth.
All these points resolved themselves at last into the
value of the produce of land under the existing con
ditions of agriculture, btit taking into account such
of the new conditions as would tell at once on the
profit of the Tenant. But here again the SheriflP
w^as met with the diflSculty that he was accustomed
to consider land values only on the mainland, and
did not know enough of the local circumstances
to estimate such values in the Islands. This pro
blem could only be solved by taking the values set
upon the land by the people themselves. In other
words, it could only be solved by putting the lands
up to local competition. As soon as the people were
assiired that they would be protected by Leases
and by the authority of the Proprietor, from the
resentment and vengeance of their old masters, the
Tacksmen, it was found that they came forward
and offered freely for their small possessions.
Here we have an example — not of conduct being
governed by abstract theories, but — of an abstract
principle emerging out of the practical necessities
of conduct, and seeking expression in a " rugged
maxim hewn from life." The worthy SheriflP was not
thinking of any science of Political Economy when
he said that until the Subtenants could be persuaded
to oflPer frankly " he could have no tolerable informa
tion of the value of the country, since it is by the
competition of tenants that the value of land can be
VOL. II. c

24 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
known." Political Economy, as a science, had not
risen above the horizon in Scotland in 1732, Adam
Smith was then a weakly, but a studious and
absent little boy, nine years of age, doing his les
sons in the grammar-school of Kirkcaldy, and forty-
four years were yet to elapse before the epoch of
his immortal Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations.
The Sheriff's aphorism on the only method of
ascertaining values was nothing more than the half-
conscious expression of a general rule drawn directly
from observation and experience. None the less is
this sentence an emphatic, because an unconscious,
testimony to the doctrine and the practice of the
time : and none the less was the conduct of the
people in those Insular Estates a testimony equally
emphatic to their own recognition of the practice,
not as an oppression but as a privilege. It impMed
of course that the Owner of the Estate had the
right of freely disposing of his lands, as an in
separable part of the right of Ownership. It
impHed also that they themselves had no other
right of tenure than that of agreement, and
that faihng such agreement they were liable to
removal. But no doubt or question as to either
of these facts had ever entered their heads.
Nothing in their own past history or traditions
could have raised it. Some of them probably knew
that tiieir fathers had moved from the lands of one
Chief who could not protect them, to the lands of
another who could. Others of them perhaps knew
that their progenitors had at no very distant date

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 25
enlisted under the Chief of the Macleans as
soldiers enlist under a famous Captain, and had
been allowed to settle on his lands as his " men
and retainers. Others again, doubtless, had them
selves been removed at the end of a Lease from
the farm of one Tacksman Tenant to the farm of
another. All of them knew by daily experience
that upon these Tenants they themselves were
absolutely dependent, and could and would be
removed if they failed in dues or services. Lastly,
they aU knew that those who were above them — the
Tacksmen, their masters, and often their oppressors
—who were the very aristocracy of the Clan, — them
selves held their lands by no independent right, but
by Leases terminating at certain dates, and freely
granted by the Proprietor. It was not a loss, but
an immense gain to them to be raised from tenancy-
at-will to tenancy under Lease. For the first time
in their history they were free to bargain for their
farms. For the first time they could be sure that
nothing would be exacted from them beyond the
terms of that bargain, and that their removal could
not take place except for breach of covenant, or
until the expiry of a certain time. Accordingly the
SheriflP reported that when they were fully assured
of protection they came in and oflPered for these
new and great advantages a considerable augmen
tation of rent.
We have here the clearest evidence of the per
fect continuity of law and of practice in respect to
the Ownership and Occupation of land which has

26 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
marked the progress of Scotland over the whole of
its area and from the earliest centuries. We see
the fullest powers of Ownership assumed and recog
nised as undoubted and unquestioned, and we see
its functions in promoting the civilisation of the
country as clearly as we have already seen it at
earlier periods when Parliament appealed to it for
the suppression of intolerable evils. Lest, however,
this evidence of SheriflP Campbell should be in
any way subject to detraction from his relations
with his Chief, by a fortunate accident we have,
a few years later, the same evidence confirmed and
amplified on the authority of an independent and
a very celebrated man.
Among the names of illustrious Scotchmen at
this critical period of our history, there is no
name, perhaps, which shines with a purer lustre
than that of Duncan Forbes of Culloden. Him
self a Highlander of Highlanders, with an inti
mate knowledge of their character and habits, he
was able to sympathise, so far as mere feeling
was concerned, with the personal attachments
which made them Jacobite. But his rehgion,
and his culture, and the noble profession of the
Law — of which he was a distinguished ornament,
and of which he rose to be the head in his native
country — kept him true to the historical develop
ments of the Scottish people. He used all his
influence, and strained every nerve to prevent the
RebeUion; and when it w^as suppressed, by the
bloody battle fought upon his own Estate, he

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 27
exerted himself with equal energy to mitigate the
vengeance of the Government against the van
quished. As a Statesman, as a Lawyer, and as a
Highlander belonging to another and a distant
Clan, he had pre-eminent qualifications for giving
wise advice on the difficult questions — partly politi
cal and partly economic — which were involved in
the management of such Estates as those which
had come into the hands of the Argyll family in
the Islands. The possessor of them at that time
was John, the Second Duke (1678-1743), who as
a Soldier played an illustrious part in the wars
of Marlborough, and at home as a Statesman took
a share not less illustrious in the Councils w^hich,
at the death of Queen Anne in 1714, secured
the Protestant Succession.'^ These two men were
intimate friends. Their sympathies were the same
in the great Constitutional questions of their day,
and they were not less aUke in those dispositions
of character on which so much depends in the
management of aflPairs. Difificulties had evidently
arisen in carrying into effect all the recommenda
tions of SheriflP Campbell. He had said in his
Report that the people seemed "bewitched"
' Lecky's History of England, vol. i. p. 164. It is a curious illustra
tion of the power of genius in Sir Walter Seott's immortal works, that
this Duke — the companion in arms of Marlborough and Eugene — the
friend of Pope and Thomson, and sung by both — is nevertheless now
commonly identified as " Jeanie Deans' Duke" from the beautiful and
touching story in the Heart of Midlothian. The additional Dukedom
of Greenwich was granted to him by Queen Anne for his public services;
As this Duke had no sons, the Title of Greenwich lapsed with his life.
The present Duke of Buccleuoh is his only direct descendant, through a
daughter.

28 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
in the tenacity of their adherence to their waste
ful customs. The Tacksmen had opposed a pas
sive but combined resistance to changes which
aflPected so much their own power ; and they had
easily succeeded in persuading the simple and
ignorant people under them that old customs were
better than new conditions. Under these circum
stances, and in view of the expiry of a number of
existing Leases, Forbes of CuUoden, in the same
year in which he attained the dignity of Lord
President of the Supreme Court of Law in Scot
land, 1737, undertook for his friend a mission to
his Island Estates in Mull, Morven, and Tyree.
The account of his journey, and the Report of
what he saw and encountered, is one of the most
interesting and authentic documents we possess in
respect to the condition of the people of the Western
Coast and Islands at that time.-^ It confirms the
previous account of SheriflP Campbell in every par
ticular. The Lord President is emphatic in his
testimony, and severe in his language as to the use
made by the Tacksmen of the absolute power they
held over the subordinate tenants. He speaks of
their "tyranny" and "oppression." He speaks of
their " unmerciful exactions." He speaks of the
land even lying waste by reason of these exactions,
and declares that " if the system had continued but
a few years longer, the Islands would have been
1 It has been now published in Appendix A to the " Crofter Report,"
1884, vol. i. p. 387. It was recovered among the papers of Lady Mary
Coke, daughter of John Duke of Argyll and Greenwich, by the present
Earl of Home, who most kindly presented it to me.

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 29
entirely unpeopled." He reports that within the
previous seven years " above one hundred families
had been reduced to beggary and driven out of the
Island." Yet these Tacksmen were the genuine
representatives of the Clan system. They con
stituted, in fact, what was called the Clan — for
those below them had long ceased to be treated or
regarded as more than " the men " under them ; it
is plain, that both by law and by continuous usage,
the Leaseholding Clansmen ruled with absolute
power — ^that is to say, so far as the possession of
the land was concerned.
Historically speaking, the existence of this power
— more than the use made of it — is the important
point. The use . made of it must have varied in
difiPerent districts, and stiU more in the hands of
difiPerent men. But the fact is aU-important that
this absolute power is referred to as universally
existing in the hands of the Tacksmen over all
who held land under them. No doubt on this
fact is even thought of. Throughout the narrative
there is not one single indication of any limita
tions or obstacles in the way of this power, arising
out of any independent or customary rights of
subordinate tenure. The Tacksman held over the
whole of his Farm, and, during the term of his Tack,
the whole powers of Ownership, in so far as they
were delegated by the Lease. Amongst these
powers there was of necessity the power of remov
ing those who would not, or could not, pay the
rents or perform the services which the Tacksman

30 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
might demand as the condition of possession.
But since that demand was indefinite, and variable
from year to year, the condition of the Subtenants
was necessarily precarious. For such evils there
could be only one remedy. They arose from the
powers of Ownership being separated from its special
interests, and therefore from its natural motives.
They were delegated to men whose own possession
was not permanent, and whose interests were
therefore not identified with the growdng wealth
and permanent prosperity of the people. The
remedy clearly was to go back to a connection
foiinded on the nature of things — to keep in the
hands of the Proprietor, and in his alone, the power
of removal — to deal directly with the Subtenants —
to give to them the same measure of security which
the Tacksmen had themselves enjoyed. It was, as
Culloden -^ expressed it, " to deliver them from the
tyranny of Tacksmen, to free them from the oppres
sion of Services and Herezelds, and to encourage
them to improve their farms by giving them a sort
of property in their grounds for nineteen years by
Leases, if they showed themselves worthy of the
intended favour by offering frankly for their farms
such rent as fairly and honestly they could bear."
If farms with Subtenants on them were to be let
at all to the old class of Tacksmen, these Sub
tenants were to get a separate tenure, subsisting
for the same period as the Lease.
1 I adopt here the Highland custom of calling Forbes by the name of
his estate.

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 31
Such, accordingly, was the policy adopted by
Culloden, as it had been already recommended by
the Sheriff. Culloden, however, came not only to
recommend, but also armed with authority to act
upon his opinion. Accordingly, he announced to
the Subtenants that he was prepared to let their
lands to them upon Leases, and he invited them to
oflPer. To the Tacksmen he made the like proposal,
under the stipulated restrictions and conditions.
To his surprise he found himself met by an
organised combination not to offer at all, or to offer
only very inadequate rents. The Tacksmen had
persuaded the Subtenants to regard wdth fear and
with suspicion the proposals made to them. The
first thing to be done was to break up a combination
which rested on the cunning and selfishness of a
few, and on the ignorance and prejudice of the
many. And this Culloden was prepared to do at
any cost. During some days of explanation and
persuasion, he found the most effectual argument
to be a warning that he would leave them in their
former subjection to the Tacksmen. At last the
truth dawned on the minds of some of them,
and he induced a certain number of the small
Tenants to make tolerably fair offers for their
holdings. These oflPers he immediately accepted,
and concluded a bargain with those who made
them. Dealing with the Tacksmen, he was more
peremptory and severe. He had in his own suite
some gentlemen of the same Highland class, but
who, from living on the mainland, were better

32 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
acquainted with the essential conditions of agricul
tural progress. Some of these were induced to
make fair oflPers for the larger farms, whose former
Tenants were manoeuvring so unscrupulously to
thwart the most necessary reforms. Suddenly
several of these men found that their farms were
re-let to others, and that they themselves were
dispossessed. Such examples speedily had the
desired eflPect. The Subtenants, when they found
that any reasonable oflPer of their own was at once
accepted, and that they ran no risk of being relegated
to the dominion of the Tacksmen because of a higher
oflPer, came in readily, and became themselves regular
Tacksmen — relieved from all but a few stipulated
services, and possessed for the fu-st time of a definite
tenure of their small possessions. The remaining
Tacksmen also became more reasonable, and in
the final result Culloden had the satisfaction of
reporting that those large Insular Estates had been
re-let, with some little immediate increase of rent,
and under such new conditions as would lay
the foundations of indefinite improvement for the
future. The Leases which were given at this time carried
fuUy into effect the great reform which it was
their object to attain. Many of them were given
directly to men who had been Subtenants. Amidst
the almost universal neglect and destruction which
have overtaken old Leases, a fortunate accident has
preserved some few specimens of those which were
drawn up by CuUoden, and signed by him as Com-

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 33
missioner over the Duke's Estate, at a time when
he himself had become Lord President of the Court
of Session. They are of considerable interest on
more points than one. The application to Sub
tenants, who had always been Tenants-at-wUl, of
the old law and practice of Scotland in respect to
Leases of Farms, was not without some difificulties.
Not only in the Highlands, but all over Scotland,
this class of Occupier lived in clusters, groups,
villages, or " Clachans." Some parts of the Farm
they generally held in common. Other parts they
held in various shares, generally divided on the
" runrig " system by yearly lots. Partly, no doubt,
for facUities of defence, partly as a traditional
survival of mere habit from the far distant day
of Village Communities, this method of occupa
tion was nearly universal. But never in historic
times had these Townships any corporate existence
either in law or in usage. For centuries the
Proprietors had been moving some, and planting
others, whilst individuals were brought in from
time to time by the same authority, vdth the
grant of " rooms," or of shares or portions of the
Farm. To whom then, were the new Leases to be
given 1 To the group, or to the individual Tenants
of whom the group actually consisted at the time ?
Culloden was not a man to be foiled by speculative
difficulties, nor was he a man to make any changes
not really needed for his purpose. He solved the
diflficulty by taking things as they actually stood,
by changing as little as possible, and by applying

34 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
the principle of the Lease to the actual Occupiers,
and according to their actual methods of occupation.
Thus in the case of one Farm occupied by six
Tenants, but unequally divided, a Lease of 1789
was granted by name to each of them, but with
a specification of the share belonging to each man
or woman. The whole Farm as known by its
name, with all its pertinents as known by use and
wont, is let to the six Tenants, for the term of
nineteen years, in the proportions specified — one-
half to Hugh M'Lean, one-sixth to Rachel Mac-
Arthur, one-twelfth to Donald Macdonald, and so
on. Thus far, the Tenants were dealt with sepa
rately, and the Lease was given to each in his
individual capacity. That which the Lease assured
to each of them was the "peaceable possession"
of the Farm, in the specified shares, " during the
space (of time) aforesaid." Subletting, or assigning,
was excluded, but each Tenant could leave his
share to his natural heirs. On the other hand, there
was a clause which recognised all the Tenants as in
some sense, and for some purposes, a Community,
because in some practices they were so of necessity,
from living so close together, and from possessing
more or less grazing land in common. This clause
was a special provision, that in case of the failure
of any one of the Tenants, the others were bound
either to take up his share themselves, or else to
find another fit Tenant who could do so on the
same conditions. The rent was a fixed sum for the
Farm as a whole, for which all the Tenants were

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 35
bound as a Community, jointly and severally.
Failure in the payment of rent voided the Lease,
and the Proprietor was then free to re-let the Farm
to others. The share payable by each was left
apparently to their own arrangement, but the ar
rangement woidd naturally follow the proportions
specified in the Lease. Then, after the clause fix
ing the rent, comes the new clause which constituted
the great reform in favour of this class of Tenant —
the clause in respect to Services. The words are
these (following the sum of rent) : — "and that
(sum) in full satisfaction of all Herezelds and other
prestations (obligations) and services whatsoever,
which are hereby discharged, — except the services
of Tenants for repairing harbours, mending high
ways, or making or repairing Mill Leads (conduits)
for the general benefit of the Island." ^
In these words we see the symbol and consum
mation of a change which amounted to a revolution.
In the abolition of all Services, except a few strictly
limited and defined, which were for purposes
directly connected with the benefit of a whole district
and of a large community, we see the last step, or
almost the last, from the mediaeval to modern con
ditions of society. In the admission of a class to
the benefit of Leases who had hitherto been always
merely Tenants-at-will, and had in practice been
often compelled to move from the necessity either
of seeking protection or of rendering service, we see
the elevation of a large portion of the people from a
I This Lease, with explanatory notes, is given in Appendix I. p. 323.

36 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
state of complete uncertainty and dependence, to a
state in which they could themselves rely, and
could make others rely, upon definite engagements.
Nor is the significance of these Leases given to
Subtenants some years before " The Forty-Five "
exhausted, when we have noted the clauses which
they do contain. Hardly less remarkable than the
insertion of some of these clauses, is the omission of
other clauses which in such Instruments had been
almost universal. Services of a military kind had
for many hundred years been among the fundamental
obligations of those to whom the occupation of land
had been lent or given. Even in the Kintyre
Leases, which we have seen were granted about one
hundred years before the Leases framed by Culloden,
there were at least some surviving echoes of the
Military Ages. In the full stream of those Ages,
when we put our ear to the language of such
Instruments, we hear, as it were, always the sound
of fighting — the atmosphere of war. If it was not
always being actually waged, it was at least always
in habitual contemplation. In the Leases of about
1639 there are only a few customary phrases,
coming from the old days — phrases, which were
even then little more than survivals of a time
drawing to its close. Under the influence of the
alarm which was occasioned by the first Jacobite
Rebellion of 1715, Parliament had in that year^
prohibited, as contrary to public policy, aU clauses
in Charters or Leases which imposed the ancient
' First of Geo. i. cap. 54.

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 37
obligations of " Personal Attendance, Hunting,
Hosting, Watching, and Warding." These had
been the last survivals, but they had long been
practically obsolete. They now became illegal.
Accordingly in the Leases of Culloden in 1739,
there is not even a whisper of the kind. We have
entered finally on the times of peaceful industry.
But there is another featu.re of these Leases
which is remarkable. Just as some old customary
clauses were dropped, both as obsolete and as no
longer lawdul, so also some other clauses which
were soon to become universal, had not yet come
to be introduced. I refer to what are called the
" cropping clauses " — stipulations to secure good
husbandry, and to prevent the deterioration of the
land by gross violations of its rules. In those
Leases of 1739, there is not a word upon the sub
ject. Doubtless this was due to the fact that the
attention of Culloden was concentrated on the one
great fundamental reform of establishing in the
class of Subtenants the principle of tenure by
Lease and at a fixed rent, instead of tenure at Will,
and subject to services vague, indefinite, and un
limited. One step at a time — seems to have been
his motto and his method of proceeding.
But curious and instructive as these facts are, in
respect to the first steps then taken for improving the
condition of the Western Highlands, they would be
incomplete without giving some account of the
evidence we derive from the same distinguished
man as to the depths of ignorance and of barbarism

38 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
into which the people had actually fallen, and on
the necessity for further steps of remedy and reform.
Culloden was not content wdth visiting Mull and
Morven^districts which were near to the mainland
and comparatively accessible. He determined to in
spect personally the Island of Tyree, which lies from
twenty to thirty miles farther out into the Western
Ocean. Unlike the nearer Hebrides, this Island is
not mountainous but low and flat, with large areas
of very fine land, capable of raising excellent crops
of corn. Its very name is said to be derived from
its agricultural richness — the lona Monks having
called it " Terra Ethica," the land of corn ;^ and its
Celtic name stiU retaining the letters of this deriva
tion in the form of Thirithe. The climate is better
than on the mainland, because the heavy rain
clouds which shed their torrents on Ben More and
the other hills of Mull, pass over without notice the
unobtrusive levels of Tyree. An old Gaelic poem
calls the Island " the Low-lying Land of Barley."
Even without any culture the natural grasses and
pastures of the Island are exceptionally green and
rich, so that cattle can live and thrive upon it with
less help than is generally required in the Highlands
from food prepared and stored by human foresight.
Yet on this Island, so favoured by nature, Culloden
found the people far poorer than in the Isle of Mull,
where soil and climate were all greatly inferior.
The conditions of agricultural knowledge and prac-
1 The word " ech" or " ich" signifies corn or barley, and the name of
the Island passed through several stages of decay during the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth Centuries. See Reeves's Adamnan, p. 48.

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 39
tice which he found prevailing may well seem
incredible in a country where, undoubtedly, a far
higher civilisation had given lessons to the people
more than a thousand years before. Barley was
the staple produce of Tyree, but the land, from
never being allowed to rest and from being never
manured, was so overrun with rank strong weeds
that it was an absolute impossibility to drive a
sickle through it. Culloden never saw fields covered
with a greater load of herbage than the corn-fields
in Tyree, but when this herbage was examined not
one-tenth part was corn, the rest being aU wild
carrot, mustard, and other weeds. The poor
creatures who depended on these crops did not
know how to clear the land of this vegetation, into
which all the natural fertility of the soil was allowed
to pass. As they could not cut their corn they
knew no other mode of gathering it than by pulling
it up by the roots. Then they sacrificed the straw
by burning, whilst the grain, from being half
roasted, became unsaleable. Even this operation
could not be performed untU the noxious seeds
had ripened before the corn, and had time to
be shed upon the land to the still more complete
suflPocation of each succeeding crop. These were
but samples of innumerable other practices, equally
barbarous, which Culloden had not time to specify
or describe, but which he dismisses with the signifi
cant general description, " all the other ridiculous
processes of husbandry which almost utterly destroy
the Island." He traces all these evils to the
VOL, II. D

40 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
ignorance and poverty of the people, consequent on
the exactions of the Tacksmen. He found himself
encountered by the same kind of combination as ia
Mull. The remedy he recommended was also the
same, and the measures he took to break down an
interested and ignorant oppostion, were identical
in both cases. With equal diflficulty he at last per
suaded some of the small Tenants to accept the
security of Leases, and several of the larger Farms
he re-let to gentlemen from the mainland, who came
under the new reformed conditions.
The graphic and authentic picture thus drawn of
the condition of a Hebridean Estate in the second
quarter of the Eighteenth Century, is a picture of
the whole of the Highland area, with such local
modifications as were due to the comparative
nearness of each district to the old centres of
civilisation and of law. It is the picture of Celtic
Feudalism dying hard. But it was dying — ^and it
had been dying for a long time from causes with
which the Jacobite rebeUions had nothing whatever
to do. In principle it was abeady dead when Culloden
wrote, eight years before " The Forty-Five." Every-
thuag he says implies that nothing of it was left
except a few traditions. Some of its worst evils
had already been put an end to, even in the
Hebrides, where it had attained' its most rank
development. The ferocious feuds and fightings of
the Clans had ceased for more than a hundred years.
Reiving and thieving had not been ended, for this
was carried on systematically to. a somewhat later

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 41
period, and was still indeed the habitual resource of
the Clans wherever they were in proximity to richer
lands which could be plundered. But the same re
source was not open to the poor people of the distant
Hebrides. Nothing of the Clan system remained
to them except the old power of unlimited exactions,
in the hands of Tacksmen who had come to represent
the Chiefs and Chieftains of other days. In the
ages of intertribal war and plunder this power had its
compensations, of a kind, to those who lived under it.
But in the dawning age of peace and industry, it
was a practice of the Clan system which presented an
insuperable obstacle to progress. The transformation
of this power for evil into a power for good, had been
the great work of reformation all over Scotland. For
this purpose nothing was required except to carry
back the power to the only legal foundation on which
it had ever rested, namely, the power of Ownership,
and so to evoke the higher motives which must in
evitably give to it a wise direction. Accordingly, no
thing is more remarkable in the Report of Culloden,
as it had been in the Report of the SheriflP, than the
undoubting certainty with which he assumed, and
everybody else assumed, that, even in those distant
centres of Celtic Feudalism, the Proprietors of the
land had the fullest right to let it to aU comers.
Without this right, Culloden could have done nothing
and advised nothing. If the Occupiers could have
insisted on remaining, they could have insisted on
continuing all the barbarous customs to which they
were ignorantly but passionately attached. To this

42 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
day they might have been living on crops of which
one-tenth was corn and nine-tenths were weeds.
They might have been pulling them up by the roots,
consuming all the valuable straw, and damaging by
fire the little residue of grain. The improvement
of the country would certainly have been postponed
for generations. Those only who know the desperate
and almost superstitious tenacity with which they
clung, and in some places do even now cling, to
customs and usages of the most injurious kind,
can estimate what the West Highlands would have
been if, in the last century, they had been separated
in law, as they had long been separated in lawless
ness, from the redeeming agencies at work in the
hands of Ownership for the improvement and civili
sation of the Scottish Kingdom.
On one point I have repeated the language of
Culloden almost with a feeling of compunction.
His Report is expressed with great severity as
respects the conduct and the habits of a class which
was then, and had long been, one of the most essen
tial elements of society in the Highlands — the class
of gentlemen Tenants who held farms under Leases
or Tacks from the Proprietor. The remnants of
this class survived down to our own times. I have
a personal recollection of some of them, aU of whom
were excellent, and some of them even distinguished,
men. Not a few were old soldiers, and many were
descendants from collateral branches of the family
of their Chief None of them were Farmers in the
modern sense of the word, although some of them

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 43
acquired a taste for, and knowledge of, the breeding
of cattle, by which they made an adequate profit
and lived mainly on the produce of the farm.
Beyond this, and perhaps the making of some
fences, very few of them were agricultural im
provers, and I know of no case in which any great
step was taken by men of this class in introducing
into the Highlands those reforms in the cultivation
of land of which the country stood so much in need.
On the other hand, all those whom I have known
or heard of as belonging to this class, were gentle
men in the best meaning of the term — men incap
able of a dishonourable action, and disposed to deal
as justly and humanely with their inferiors as was
consistent with the standard of obligation univer
sally recognised in their day and generation. It is
possible that Culloden, though himself a Highlander,
may not have kept fully in mind what that stan
dard of obligation was in the remoter parts of the
country where the progress of law and of legally
defined rights had not yet broken down the vague
customs and usages which had come down to them
through many generations. It is well, however,
that the glamour which fiction and romance have
cast around these usages should be dispelled by the
broad daylight of Culloden's evidence, and that the
incompatibility of those customs with the first
elements of our modem civihsation should be seen
now as it was seen, not after, but before the " Forty-
Five," by a great Lawyer and a great Statesman,
brought into personal contact with the whole

44 SCOTLA.ND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
conditions of society which had been moulded by
them. Culloden does not explain the nature of the
" services " or " exactions " which were imposed on
the Subtenants by the Tacksmen or Leaseholders.
But this omission can be supplied from other sources.
They were doubtless the same as those usually paid
to Proprietors where there were no Tacksmen, or
where such Proprietors were of the smaller class, hv-
ing on the spot as the Tacksmen did. They are to
be found given in detail in a very instructive paper,
drawm up in 1795 by Sir John Sinclair, for the
Board of Agriculture. That paper refers especially
to the northern counties of Cromarty, Ross, Suther
land, and Caithness, with the Islands of Orkney
and Shetland. But the same customs prevailed
everywhere in the Highlands, and, indeed, at a still
older date, over the whole British Islands. Specie
or money being very rare, the rents of the small
Tenants were principally paid in grain — that is, in
Bear or Oats. " In addition to the rent," says
Sir John, " the Tenants of that description were
bound to pay the following services, namely, tilling,
dunging, sowing, and harrowing a part of an exten
sive farm in the Proprietor's (or Tacksman's) posses
sion, providing a certain quantity of peats for his
fuel, thatching a part of his houses, furnishing
straw-ropes, or ropes of heath for that purpose, and
for securing his corn in the barnyard, weeding the
land, leading a certain quantity of turf from the
common for manuring, mowing, making, and in-

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 45
gathering the hay, the spontaneous produce of the
meadow and marshy ground, cutting down, harvest
ing, threshing out, manufacturing, and carrying to
market or seaport a part of the produce of the
farm." Besides these services, the Tenants paid in
kind the following articles under the name of cus
toms, namely, straw bags, ropes made of hair for
drawing the plough, reeds used for similar purposes,
tethers, which, being fixed in the ground by a peg
or small stake, and the cattle tied to them, pre
vented them from wandering over the open country,
straw for thatching, etc. The Tenants also, accord
ing to the extent of their possessions, kept a certain
number of cattle during the winter season — paid
vicarage on the smaller tythes ; as of lamb, wool,
etc., a certain number of fowls and eggs, veal, kid,
butter, and cheese ; and on the sea-coast the tythe
of their fish and oil, besides assisting in carrying
sea-ware for manure. Sometimes, also, a certain
quantity of lint was spun for the lady of the house,
and a certain quantity of woollen yarn annually
exacted. Sir J. Sinclair tells us that such were the
" services " " which almost universally prevailed " in
the county of Caithness, so late as thirty or forty
years before he wrote — ^that is, so late as (say)
1760, or twenty-four years later than the Report of
Culloden.^ It is needless to say that payments and services
so numerous, so various, and so indefinite in amount,
might be so worked, and, indeed, could not fail to
1 Agricultural Reports, Scotland, vol. iv., part iv., County Caithness.

46 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
be SO worked as to leave the small Tenant no
certain time for the cultivation of his own land on
any improved system.
Now, it is important to observe, that most of
these services and exactions, even when due, never
could have been actually imposed by the great
Landowners, because they had no farms in their
own hands scattered all over the country upon
which alone such labour could be of any value.
But the smaller Proprietors could, and did, exact
them, at least near their own residences ; and when
Tacksmen were allowed to sub-let without restric
tions, these services must have become widely
oppressive and destructive to industry.
The reform, therefore, which consisted in the
double operation of letting farms directly to those
who had been Subtenants, and of limiting or abol
ishing the power of imposing services in the hands
of individual Tacksmen, was a reform of the first
order of importance.
As I am in possession of some of the Leases which
were granted nineteen and twenty years later by
Archibald, third Duke of Argyll, I am able to
explain the general nature of the further steps then
taken in pursuance of the same principles. This is
an interval which overleaps the famous " Forty-
Five," and at the end of it we find nothing but the
quiet, continuous progress of a change which had
been commenced before. As the Lord President
Forbes was quite as intimate a friend of this Duke
as he had been of his more illustrious brother, it

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 47
is probable that Duke Archibald's Leases embodied
the latest recommendations of Culloden. In the
first place, the " Tacks" or Leases given in, and sub
sequent to, 1755, to the larger class of Tenants, that
is, to the old class of Tacksmen, prohibited all sub
letting upon "precarious tenures," that is, tenures
at Will, wdth dues as uncertain as the tenure. In
the second place, the smaller Leaseholder himself,
although stdl bound to perform for the Proprietor
certain services as part of his rent, had these services
not only strictly defined and limited, but also made
redeemable at a fixed and specified rate of commu
tation. So many days' service each year — ^twelve
or twenty-four days — was the usual stipulation, and
it is a curious illustration of the enormous change
in the value of labour, as well as in the value of
money, that one day's labour was commutable at
the rate of one penny, so that twelve days' service
in the year was redeemable by the addition of one
shilling sterhng to the rent. It was, moreover, a
special part of the stipulation that the labour or
service could not be exacted either at seed-time or
at harvest. In this modified form, the rendering
of a certain fixed amount of service or of day's
labour each year has been a stipulation surviving
in some cases down to the present day.
Between the Report of Culloden and the potato
failure and consequent famine of 1846-7, I am in
possession of a continuous series of documents
showing the progress of aflPairs in the Island of
Tyree. They prove in the greatest detail that

48 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
every single step towards improvement, which has
been taken during the last 150 years has been
taken by the Proprietor, and not by the people.
Not only so, but every one of these steps, with
out exception, has been taken against the pre
vailing opinions and feelings of the people at the
time. " All in this farm very poor, and against any
change " — such is the description repeated over and
over again in a detailed Report on each Farm sent
to my grandfather, John, siKth Duke, in 1803,
when he was contemplating certain changes to
which I shall afterwards refer. Great poverty and
great ignorance are always " against any change."
They are invariably associated with a languor of
mind which is incompatible with the possibility of
improvement. The very desire of better things is
absent, and even if the desire existed the means
would still be wanting. Under such conditions
every reform must begin outside the people, and
absolutely requires to be pressed upon them. I am
not speaking merely of the outlays of money, which
come from capital. I am speaking of those exer
cises ofmind— of foresight, and of authority— which
come from Ownership, and cannot be enforced
without the possession of its fuUest rights. The
aboHtion of the Run-rig system was always most
unpopular in the Highlands. In Tyree, as else
where, it w^as abolished, and could only be abolished
by the authority of Ownership. Again— illicit dis
tillation, with the worse than waste of an immense
quantity of grain,— was another inveterate habit.

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 49
suppressed with the greatest difficulty by the same
power. Every subsequent measure of improve
ment — the regular division of individual holdings —
the fencing of them — the selection of the best can
didates for the occupation of them — ^the prohibition
of cultivation on land liable to destructive sand-blow
ing — the building of a better class of houses — ^the
introduction of ploughs in substitution for the primi
tive " crooked spade " — the introduction of carts —
of grain of a better kind — of superior stock — of dairy
farming ; in short, every single item of progress in
agriculture has been the work, and often the arduous
and expensive work, of the Proprietor. Moreover,
even all these would have been useless without the
arrest laid upon reckless sub- division, and the steady
progress made towards the establishment of more
adequate and comfortable possessions.
The legislative measures which followed the sup
pression of the Rebellion of 1745 — the disarming
of the people, and the prohibition of the native
dress,^ except as a uniform in the Forces of the
Crown — were blows struck at Celtic Feudalism with
a special view to extinguish its pohtical danger,
along with its spirit and its miHtary power. These
measures were needless, and if they had stood alone,
would probably have had nothing but a bad eflPect.
Causes, however, far deeper seated than any legis
lative measures of this kind, had long been operating
in the right direction, and these had already almost
completed what no mere statute could eflPect. There
1 20 Geo. II. cap. 51.

50 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
was, however, one Act of Parliament passed at this
time which marks the consummation of a great
change, and which raised a hot discussion closely
connected with the subject of the present work.
This was the abolition of the Heritable Jurisdictions.
Accidental events had given this question an impor
tance which it did not really possess. The Rebellion
of 1745 had made a deep impression on the pubhc
mind both in England and in the Lowlands of Scot
land. Enghshmen had seen a Highland army
invading their country, and marching in triumph
through Preston and Manchester as far south as
Derby. London for a time had been in a state of
panic. Scotchmen had seen their Capital taken,
and a Popish Pretender holding his court at Holy-
rood. Both England and Scotland could not but
take serious note of the fact that the Jacobite forces
had twice defeated the Royal army in pitched battles
in the open field — first, on the 20th September 1745
at Prestonpans, near Edinburgh, where Sir John
Cope was badly beaten, with the loss of his artillery
and stores; a second time at Falkirk on the 17th
January 1746, where General Hawley was routed not
less completely. And this was the second of these
Jacobite Rebellions within 30 years. The victory
at Culloden, therefore, although it seemed to be for
the time complete, did not, and could not set men's
minds at rest. They were disposed to look with
anger and alarm into the causes and the system
which enabled a few great Nobles to raise armies of
ten and twelve thousand men, and at such frequent

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 51
intervals, to contend on almost equal terms with the
armies of the Kingdom. In this state ofmind they
confounded together, as men are very apt to do under
such conditions, two, or more than two, very differ
ent things. They confounded, amongst others, the
power of Clanship or of Chiefship with the power
of Heritable Jurisdictions. In this they were not
only completely mistaken, but altogether wide of
the truth. The power of the Chiefs of Clans was
wholly independent of Charters or of Law. The
Heritable Jurisdictions, on the contrary, were
entirely founded on Charters and on Law. They
were grants by the Crown of Judicial power given
to individual men, not because thev were Chiefs of
Clans, but because they were the chartered Owners
of great territorial Estates. These powers were
given to Ownership, and not to " Chiefery." Many
of the most powerful Rebels were men who had no
Heritable Jurisdiction ; many of the great Land
owners who did possess extensive legal Jurisdictions,
were the most loyal and the most energetic sup
porters of the Government. On the other hand,
not a few Rebel Lords who had chartered Jurisdic
tions found in them no help at all. The Parliament
of Scotland had for centuries been attacking and
denouncing the power of Chiefs; whilst, on the
contrary, in the Treaty of Union with England
in 1707, the Scottish Parliament had inserted
two special articles ^ saving the Heritable Juris
dictions of the Barons, and the analogous privi-
1 Articles xx. and xxi., Act. Pari. Scot., vol. xi. Append, p. 204.

52 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
leges of Royal Burghs, as Chartered rights of
Property. When, therefore, the British Parliament in 1746
and 1747 came to consider what they were to do
against Celtic Feudalism, they soon found that the
Heritable Jurisdictions formed no part of it, and had
nothing to do with the political dangers which had so
alarmed the Kingdom. Yet feeling that these Juris
dictions were for other reasons open to objection,
and had long been abolished in England, they fol
lowed the judicious course of taking the opinion of
a learned, wdse, and patriotic man — applying to his
knowledge for the facts, and to his wisdom and
patriotism for advice. In January and August 1746,
the House of Lords, in two Orders, applied to the
Court of Session in Scotland for a Report on the
different kinds of Heritable Jurisdiction, and for the
draft of such a Bill as they would recommend to the
adoption of Parliament.^ The Lord President of that
Court was then the same Duncan Forbes of Culloden
of whom we have seen so much acting in another
character. His Report is dated January 9, 1747.
Like everything he wrote it was clear, concise,
and enainently judicial in its tone. He explained
and defended the Heritable Jurisdictions in the
light of the times in which they had been introduced.
He recommended the abolition of them (with a few
important reservations) in the light of the new con
ditions of society which had now arisen. " One of
' A most admirable precedent, which might perhaps still be followed
with advantage on some occasions.

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 53
the principal causes," he says, " of lodging High
Jurisdictions in powerful Families heretofore was the
great diflficidty the Government was under, of bring
ing oflPenders to justice, and executing the laws,
when the country was yet uncivilised, and the
necessity of committing that charge to such as were
able to execute the same ; and as that part of the
United Kingdom commonly called the Highlands of
Scotland has at all times been, and is at this day,
in a state so unsettled, that offenders are not from
thence easily amenable to justice, nor can Process
of Law have free course through it, due care must
be taken to bring that part of the country under
subjection to the law, and to secure the Execution
of Process of all kinds within it, before any hopes
can be entertained of seeing a regular administration
of Justice by the King's Courts and Judges there."
Assuming, however, that the essential preliminary
would be otherwise secured, he sent up to the Lords
the draft of a BiU for the desired purpose, and on
this draft the Act which abolished the Heritable
Jurisdictions was drawn and passed in the same
year.-' To a very large extent it was a mere statu
tory acknowledgment of changes which had already
been practically established. In the preamble to
the 1 7th clause the Act narrated as a matter of fact
that Heritable Jurisdiction affecting the higher
criminal offences, and the penalty of death, had
" long been discontinued, or had fallen into disuse
as to the exercise thereof" In general and sweep-
1 20 Geo. n. cap. 43.

54 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
ing terms all Heritable Jurisdictions, both civil
and criminal, were now "abrogated, taken away,
totally dissolved, and extinguished." They were
resumed and re-annexed to their original source—
the Crown.
And yet some valuable and significant reserva
tions were made by subsequent clauses in accord
ance with the recommendation of the Lord Pre
sident — in accordance, not less, with important
usages at that time still in ftdl activity, and with
the traditional policy of the native Parliaments of
Scotland. These reservations aflPected only the
lower jurisdiction of the Baronial Courts, or, as they
were called, the "Baron BaiUie Courts," for the
framing and enforcement of Estate regulations, and
for the recovery of rents due by contract. The view
taken by the Lord President of the Heritable
Jurisdictions as a whole evidently was, that so far
from having been one of the strengths of Celtic
Feudalism, they had been, on the contrary, the only
means by which that dangerous powder could be
restrained and resisted. They had been a strength
in the hand of Ownership, for the defence and en
forcement of legal obligation. But now the govern
ment of the Crown was in a condition to undertake
this great duty over the whole Kingdom. The Lord
President, however, had seen how much still remained
to be done in the cause of civilisation which could
be done by no other power whatever than the power
of Ownership in the management of landed property.
For centuries this power had been exercised to a

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 55
large extent through the lower jurisdiction of the
Baronial Courts, presided over by " Bailies," as
representatives of the Proprietor or Lord. It was
most desirable to retain an Institution which was
still in full working order, which had in it some strong
popular elements of unbroken usage and tradition;
and without which the progress of agricultural
improvement might be seriously impeded.
In accordance, therefore, with the advice of the
highest Court in Scotland, and of its distinguished
President, the old Baronial Courts were allowed to
retain a petty jurisdiction in civil cases aflPecting
values up to Forty shillings, and in all cases what
ever for the recovery of " rents, mails, and duties,"
arising out of Charters, Leases, or other Instruments
under which land was occupied.^ This Act, therefore,
made no change in the general practice which had
been long established of inserting a clause in all
Leases of agricultural land, binding the Tenant to
attend and to serve on the Courts of the Barony in
which his Farm lay. This was not an onerous but an
honourable service, analogous to that of serving as
Jurymen in the King's Courts. It associated all
the Tenants in the administration both of law and
of equitable jurisdiction arising out of the most
important relations of the society in which they
lived. It was only very gradually that these Courts
fell into desuetude. The clause providing for
attendance upon them survived in Leases down to
oui own days. I have myself signed many Leases
1 Clause 17.
VOL. II. E

-56 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
out of which this old clause had not yet dropped.
The changes which gradually extinguished these
Courts were many. The class of men who took
Farms gradually changed. Farms, themselves, he-
came more and more individual possessions — less
and less associated with that uniformity of customs
and of habits which always dies under an active
spirit of improvement. Then, the King's Courts,
the Sheriffs, and the Sheriff-Substitutes, penetrated
everywhere, and the inevitable tendency of reforms
of every kind was to concentrate all Jurisdiction in
the highest and most responsible administrators of
justice and of law. But none the less were the
Baronial Courts a valuable institution during an
important time, and their value lay especially in the
facilities they lent to Ownership in rendering its
full response to the appeal which had been made to
it by Parliament and the Crown.
Belonging strictly to the same category of
Legislation another Act of the same Session deserves
our notice. Amid the fear and hatred roused by
the Jacobite RebeUions against all that was sup
posed to be connected with Celtic Feudalism,
another loud clamour arose against certain incidents
of Feudal Tenure which had been developed in
Scotland. These were the incidents aflPecting all
Vassals or Feuars connected with Fines, Wardships,
and other occasional dues to their "Superiors,"
which in Scotland were called " Casualties." Some
of these were open to great objection— not as con
nected in the slightest degree with the power of

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 57
Celtic Chiefs, but on the contrary as hampering and
embarrassing the great antagonist power of landed
Ownership. It was in the hands of the Vassals, and
not of the Superiors, that the real powers and
virtues of Ownership lay. It was the Vassals, not
the Superiors, who possessed the " Dominium
utile " — the dominion which incited men to the im
proved and more profitable use of land. It was a
matter therefore of public interest that they should
be able to exercise that power upon conditions
which were known and calculable. Upon the
narrative, accordingly, that certain specified kinds of
Casualties " had been much more burdensome,
grievous, and prejudicial to the Vassals, Proprietors
of the Lands held by these Tenures, than they had
been beneficial to the Superiors," an Act^ was
passed abohshing them for the future, and for the
past requiring them to be commuted into a fixed
feu-duty, either by agreement between the parties,
or by valuation through the Court of Session.
We cannot be mistaken in seeing here the
handiwork of the same enlightened Judge and
Statesman who drafted the Act abolishing the
Heritable Jurisdictions, when we ascribe to him
an important clause in this further Statute which
extended to Agricultural Tenants under Lease the
same principle of certainty in obligations which the
other clauses secured for the Proprietors under
whom they held. This clause^ was in strict accord
ance with the principle he had embodied in the
^ 20 Geo. II. cap. 50. - Clause 21.

'58 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
new Leases which he had drawn up for the Tenants
in the Argyll Estates. It did not abolish Services
as a part, or as a concomitant, of rent. He knew
that some of them were reasonable and even
necessary. Neither did it assume to Parlia
ment the task of specifying the particular services
it might be expedient to retain. He knew that
local circumstances and mutual interests must
determine this. But it did abolish, and render
illegal for the future, all Services which were in
definite and unrestricted in nature and amount.
The Tenant and the Proprietor might bargain for
such Services as they pleased ; but these Services
must be named, and specified. Uncertainty-
vagueness — the want of definition had been the
ruin and oppression of the cultivating classes under
Celtic Feudalism. The Lord President struck at
this feature of the system, and extended by law to
those classes that same remedial principle to which
a wider range had been just given on behalf of
chartered Ownership. And so the new clause
declared that no Tenant or Tacksman should in
future be obliged or liable to perform any Services
whatsoever other than such as shall be expressly
and particularly reserved and specified, with the
number and kinds thereof enumerated in some
written Instrument, signed by both the parties
thereto — " any former Law or usage notwith
standing." This was indeed wise and sound Legislation, and
it was only another item in the Response of Owner-

THE RESPONSE OF OWNERSHIP. 59
ship to the long-standing appeals of the old Parlia
ments of Scotland. For it is to be observed that these
new Statutes were passed in the united or British
Parliament, forty years after the Union, in special
consultation with the highest Court of Law in
Scotland, and with the full assent of the Scottish
Peerage and of the Scottish Proprietors. It is
indeed curious to observe that although the
privilege of recording Protests by minorities in the
House of Lords was exercised on the passing
of the BiU for the abolition of the Heritable Juris
dictions, that Protest w^as not signed by a single
Scotch Peer. It was signed by only six Peers — all
of them Englishmen. It is true that the Chartered
Proprietors of the Heritable Jurisdiction were to
receive a compensation. But the amount of this
compensation was left absolutely to the decision in
each case of the Court of Session — and this was
made a point of objection by the Protesting English
men. And now, disembarrassed on the one hand of
powers which had outlived their time, and emanci
pated on the other hand, from liabilities which
discouraged the use of capital, the Ownership of
Land in Scotland was ready to go forward faster,
and wdth redoubled energy, on a career which
indeed was by no means new, but which was now
to be pursued under more favourable conditions and
with an immense development of industrial results.
Before, however, we can enter upon a review of
these results, we must go back for a little upon the

60 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
Past, and estimate from authentic sources of in
formation what the condition of -Scotland was in
the beginning of the second half of the Eighteenth
Century, as well as attend to some events which
arose during that period, and which exerted an
influence upon the people more powerful than either
new laws or ancient usages.

CHAPTER IL
BEFORE THE DAWN.
Very nearly a century and a half — 144 years —
had now elapsed since the Union of the Crowns,
and the condition of Scotland, as compared with
its condition at that time, presented at least one
curious parallel, and one not less striking contrast.
In 1603 the Cateran of the Highland Glens was the
fellow and the counterpart of the Moss Trooper of
the Border Dales. Both were the children of the
Clan system — the product of its degeneration and
decay. The men who swarmed from the Hills fall
ing into the sources of the Leven, the Earn, the
Tay, the Dee, the Spey, and the Beauly Firth, led
substantially the same life as those who mustered in
the wider valleys or on the gentler slopes which shed
their waters into the Solway and the Tweed. The
Scoto-Saxon and the Celtic Clans were then in the
same stage of progress. The habits of both races
had been equally uncivilised and destructive. But
now the armed horseman of the Border had not only
disappeared, but had been long almost forgotten.
When one only of these facts absorbed attention,
and when the other had fallen out of mind — when
the Cateran was still a terror, and the Moss Trooper

62 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
had become a mere tradition — it was only natural
that the causes which had been common to both
should be popularly confounded and confused.
Only the calmer spirits, trained in the knowledge of
History and of Law, appreciated those causes, and
perceived the remedies which could alone prevail
over them, in the one case, as they had already pre
vailed over them, in the other. But in the midst
of the anger which swelled around the last Jacobite
Rebellion, there were some writers of the time who
saw clearly that as regarded the dangers of Clanship
the new Statutes of 1747 could only have an in
direct eflPect. One of these writers pointed out that
in all the Border Counties Clanship had once been
as powerful and as destructive to industry as it
still appeared to be in any part of the Celtic High
lands. He urged that after the Union of the
Crowns, without any meddhng with the Heritable
Jurisdictions of the great Landowners of the Low
lands, and without any modification of the Feudal
" casualties," those evils of Clanship had been
eradicated in the Southern Highlands so completely
" that civility, good order, and industry super
vened among them, and Clanship wore off by
degrees, and at last totally ceased, so that no such
thing has been known in those parts within the
memory of man." '
Although this phrase, "the memory of man,"
has not a meaning which is precise, yet it has a
1 An Misay upon Feudal Holdings, etc., in Scotland (anonymous).
London, 1747. One of a collection of pamphlets of this date.

BEFORE THE DAWN. C3
meaning which is of measurable scope. It must
indicate a period of more than a century, seeing
that every generation has inherited the memory of
its fathers for at least that period of time. This,
then, would take us back to 1647, since which it
was asserted as a matter of notoriety that no
memory remained of the Border Clans — a date only
forty-four years after the Union of the Crowns.
Within that short period, then, representing little
more than a single generation, the whole system
must have been broken up, extinguished, and almost
forgotten. How had this great change been so
speedily effected ? Of the universal prevalence of
Clanship in the Southern Counties of Scotland up
to the Union, and of all the worst habits of life
inseparable from it, there can be no doubt whatever.
We have the detailed evidence of the Parliament
of Scotland in 1587, only sixteen years before, and
of many a Tale and Ballad which illustrates that
evidence in forms more picturesque and equally
authentic. Sir Walter Scott, the latest and most
illustrious Minstrel of the Borders, who himself
belonged to one of the most powerful of the Southern
Clans, has said of his native districts that "for a
long series of centuries the hands of rapine were
never folded in inactivity, nor the sword of violence
returned to its scabbard."^ The truth is, that his
account represents a condition of society more per
manently bad than had prevailed in any portion of
the Highlands. All down the Eastern Coasts of
1 Border Minstrelsy. Preface by Sir W. Scott (ed. 1802), p. 48.

64 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
Scotland, indeed, there had always been a broad
belt of low country which was the seat of industry
and of peace. But the whole area embraced by the
Middle and the Western Marches had been nothing
but the strongholds of fighting and marauding
Clans. Scott tells us that until after the Union,
land in those regions had hardly ever been suflS-
ciently cultivated to aflPord any rent at all. In one
respect only had an advance been made beyond the
northern portions of the Kingdom. The great
Landowners of the Southern Counties had long ago
discovered that sheep could graze upon their moun
tains as well as cattle upon the lower grounds;
and it is recorded of James v. that he had a flock
of 10,000 of these animals in the Forest of Ettrick
alone. But the bulk of the people raised no crops
sufficient to feed themselves, far less to afford a
surplus for the purposes of exchange. Yet, as there
was a large population, it lived, and could only live
on the plunder of its neighbours.
This is the only explanation — and even this is
hardly sufficient — of the formidable levies which the
Border Chiefs seem always to have been able to
conunand in frays, forays, and sometimes in auda
cious enterprises against the Crown. Not seldom
these levies were made so suddenly and so secretly,
that the power of collecting them indicates an
abundance of population far greater than the pro
duce of their own country could habitually sustain.
James vi. himself, with all his ParHament, had sud
denly found himself, wdien a boy, in the hands of

BEFORE THE DAWN. 65
the "Bold Buccleuch," who in the year 1571
made a dash at Stirling with 300 infantry and
200 horsemen.-' But this was a mere squadron of
the great force which could be called forth when
occasion required a real " Summoning of the Array."
We are told that " at the blaze of their beacon-fires
the Borderers could assemble 10,000 horsemen in
the course of a single day."^ How came such long
ancestral habits to be so suddenly exchanged for
others 1 How came this great military population
to be disposed of in favour of the ploughman and the
farmer ? It had to be done, — for the old life could
be led no longer. He whom the Borderers had called
in contempt the King of Fife and of the Lothians,
had become King of Great Britain and Ireland.
The " Marches " and the " Borders " had disap
peared, and now there was only one United King
dom, with a strong Government surrounding on all
sides the Southern Clans.
There were but two ways of meeting such a com
plete revolution in the facts of life. One remedy
was sudden and temporary, but was a necessary
preliminary to another remedy which would be
gradual and permanent. That portion of the popu
lation which could not adapt itself to the new
life — and this was a large portion — must go else
where. The other remedy — that which must be
more slow and more gradual — would spring up of
itself, out of the new motives which were inseparable
from the new conditions. All other " measures "
1 Border Minstrelsy, Preface, p. 37. ^ Ibid. p. 69.

66 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
must be weak or futile. Such measures, however,
were tried ; for men are slow to recognise or under
stand what the real influences are which the human
Will steadily obeys. Legislative measures similar to
those which were tried against the Highlanders in
1747; prohibiting their dress, and the carrying of
their arms, had been tried against the Borderers —
with this difference only, that as their accoutrements
and equipments were different, the things aimed at
were not the same. For the most part, the Border
Clans were horsemen, and not foot soldiers. With
wonderful ingenuity they had trained their horses
to go upon morasses by throwing themselves down
on their bellies and their houghs, and thus gaining
an artificial breadth of support, to cross, by short
floundering leaps, ground in which ordinary horses
were instantly bogged. Accordingly, one of the
measures aimed against the Borderers was a prohi
bition against the possession of horses above the
size of ponies. But the real remedies were begun
when the native Chiefs and Landowners recruited
a Legion of men who, having known no other life
than fighting, were incapable of industry, and were
glad to oflPer the service of their lances to countries
which were as glad to have them. This Legion
repaired to Holland, and were absorbed in the wars
of the Low Country.^ One whole Clan of Greemes,
specially intractable, were deported to Ireland,
where they did, and where their descendants are
now doubtless doing, well.^
'¦ Border Minstrelsy, Preface, p. 49. 2 /jj,;^

BEFORE THE DAWN. 67
But the great remedy — the permanent remedy
— was the immediate opening up of the ordinary
channels of peaceful industry. This was the final
and irresistible response to the old appeal from the
power of Chiefs to the power of Ownership. The
eflPect was immediate, — such as might be produced
by the sudden rising of a new atmosphere, and of
a new climate upon the vegetation of the world.
The proper seeds were all there — for these are every
where stored in the nature of Man, and in the
nature of his more civilised desires. From the
moment peace and security were established. Land
owners began to value their estates as they had
never valued them before. They now valued them
not for the precipitous ravines, — the impenetrable
thickets, — the treacherous morasses, — on the edges
of which they could build castles, or in which they
could hide cattle, or behind which they could retreat
from a pursuing enemy. They valued them for the
corn they could produce, and for the share of it
which was due to those to whom the cultivator
owed his tenure, — this being his only right of exclu
sive occupation. So immediate was this eflPect that
within three or four years of the Union proprietors
began to look closely over their own private
" marches," and to claim from each other portions of
territory which, before, it had been rather a burden
to defend.^ This was all that was required. No
special legislation was needed. Old motives had
been killed. New motives had taken possession of
' Border Minstrelsy, Preface, p. 44.

68 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
Society. There must have been a great exodus from
the Dales of the old fighting classes. And more im
portant still, after this exodus had been accom
plished, there was a free current of migration to and
from the surrounding districts of the oldest Scottish
civilisation. There was no barrier of race. There
was no barrier of language. The popidation came
and went as agriculture gradually developed, and
as the mutual interests of men led them to bargain
with each other for what each could give towards
the profitable occupation and cultivation of the
soil. Withm less than half a century, as we have
seen, the Moss Trooper cavahy had been forgotten,
and the grazier and the farmer reigned in their
stead.^ And now let us turn from the parallel to the
contrast. The Union of the Crowns was a great
epoch in the Celtic Highlands, as well as in the
Marches of the Border. It closed almost completely
the ages of internal war. One of the last ferocious
battles of the Clans, the famous and bloody fight
between the Macgregors and Colquhouns in Glen
Fruin, was fought in 1603. Thenceforward blood
shed had nearly ceased. But there was no exodus
from the Highlands of the fighting classes as there
was from the Borders, neither was there any con
tinuous outflow and inflow between the Celtic and
the Scottish populations, to and from their respec-
^ statutes against Moss Troopers on the Border continued to be
passed down to a much later date. But the old name had come to be
attached to mere robbers and banditti.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 69
tive districts, like to that which had arisen on
the Borders. More impassable than the mountain
barriers, there still remained between the High
landers and the Lowlanders the antipathies of race,
and the diflPerences of language. From all this
the fact arose that the Highland Caterans lived on
and multiplied in their glens, leading to a very large
extent, as they could only lead, a life of plunder.
Instead of becoming a thing of the past within little
more than a single generation, as the Clans of the
Border had become, they continued, on the contrary,
to be a living and a very terrible reality for more
than a century and a half Although, during this
time, there was little or no advance in agriculture,
there was a cessation of deaths in battle, and it is
certain that population within the Highland line
was pressing more and more closely upon the limits
of subsistence. It could not be otherwise. Many
parts of Scotland which are now among the richest,
were then miserably poor. Thirty years after the
Union, in Charles the First's Parliament of 1633, a
BiU was brought in providing " that all impositions
for restraining the inbringing of victual may be dis
charged," and this was desired upon the ground
that the "whole Sheriffdoms of Dumbarton, Ren
frew, Argyll, Ayr, Wigtown, Nithsdale, Stewartry
of Kirkcudbright, and Annandale are not able to
entertain themselves in the most plentiful years that
ever fell out without supply from foreign parts." ^
1 Act. Pari Scot. vol. v. p. 49. My attention -was called to this re
markable fact by the late Mr. Cosmo Innes.

70 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
If this was true at that time of comparatively
fertile districts of the Lowland country, it must
have been still more true of all the wilder portions
of the Highlands. The land was a land capable
of yielding adequate means of support, even to
a limited number, only as a return to capital,
industry, and skiU. The life was a life in which
industry was impossible, and in which both capital
and agricultural skill were unattainable and un
known. Accordingly one eminent authority has
said of the old inhabitants of the Highlands that
" they were always on the verge of famine, and every
few years suffering the horrors of actual starva
tion." ^
It is curious how completely this fact is now
forgotten or ignored. In part this forgetfulness
arises out of one of the most blessed laws of nature
— that the memory of pain is transient, whilst the
memories of pleasure are enduring. Especially
would this be true of a highly imaginative people,
feeding on Legend, and having no literature of its
own except the literature of Song. There is no
poetic or inspiring element in the fight with
Famine. Yet the moment we examine in detail the
historical documents of greatest value, which are
Family Papers and the records of Parliament, we
find abundant evidence of the extreme poverty
of Scotland and of her people. From century to
century the same complaint is repeated, and gener
ally in tones which imply not so much any sudden
Sketches of Early Scotch History, p. 434. By Cosmo Innes.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 71
scarcity from adverse seasons, as a standing defi
ciency of food for the adequate support of the popu
lation. In the reign of James in., in 1476, this
complaint is so worded as to declare expressly that
Scotland was then dependent on the Foreigner
for its living. " Because," says this Statute,
"Victuals are right scant within the country, and
the most supportation that the Realm has is by
strangers of diverse nations that bring victuals,"^
Five years later, in 1483, the continued pressure of
this condition of things opened the eyes of the
Legislature to a truth as affecting the Foreign
Importer, to which they continued curiously blind
as aflPecting equally the Home Producer, — the truth,
namely, that any attempt to regulate the price of
imported victuals by law could only do harm, by
driving away the Foreigner on whom so much
depended. An Act of that year therefore provided
that in order to induce Foreigners to come for the
benefit of the King's lieges, they should enjoy the
benefit of free bargains, and that " no price be set
upon their goods, except by buying and seUing with
their own consent."^ The span of a single human
life had not yet elapsed, when Parliament returned
to the subject in a yet more serious mood. It
had in the meantime been doing its best to dis
courage production by arbitrary limitations on price.
But now it did more in the same direction by
putting arbitrary limits on consumption. Industry
1 18 James in. c. 5; Act. Pari. Scot, vol. iL p. 118.
2 22 James in. c. 10; Act. Pari. Scot,, vol. ii. p. 144.
VOL, II, F

72 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
is sometimes recouped for a small price, by exten
sive custom. But this, too, was to be checked.
The nation had recourse to a Sumptuary Law.
It treated itself as if it were a ship at sea, with
only a limited store of food which could not be
increased, but which might be made to serve
longer by everybody on board being put on
rations. The idea was embodied in a law with
grotesque inconsistencies. It denounced excess in
eating as " voluptuosity." But it did not put all
men on equal fare. It established a scale corre
sponding to men's rank in life. The consequence
was, the highest Ministers of the Christian Church
were put highest on the scale of eating, and there
fore lowest on the scale of self-denial. Archbishops,
Bishops, and the highest ranks of the Peerage were
allowed a maximum of eight dishes, whilst the scale
descended, through the various degrees of station
and wealth, to a maximum of three. To avoid eva
sion it was specified that each " dish" must contain
"one kind of meat" only.^ Illogical and childish
as this Statute must appear to us now, I am not
sure that it is more childish than many theories pre
valent in our own time upon the subject of "luxury."
There is no rational, or indeed intelligible definition
of this word which does not include within its
meaning all that exceeds the bare necessities of life,
The food of a convict — the apparel of a convict—
the lodging of a convict — is the standard with which
1 Act. Pari. Scot., 1551, vol. ii. p. 488. Of course, "meat" meant all
kinds of food, and not animal food exclusively.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 73
we must begin. All the comforts and conveniences
of life — aU that refines and elevates the course and
the enjoyment of it — ^belongs to the class of luxuries,
and the Industries which are employed in the pro
duction of them are the profitable employments of
the people. These Industries cannot be separated
from the consumption of their products. " Volup
tuosity " must be marked oflP by a higher and more
spiritual touch than the coarse one of ParUamentary
enactments, or even of intellectual definitions. The
characteristics of it can only be recognised by those
moral faculties which establish contact between the
Individual, with all his specialities of circumstance,
and the duty he owes to the Giver of every good
and every perfect gift. We enter here, however,
upon other fields of discussion, from which we must
retire again.
The interest of this Statute for our present
purpose lies in its remarkable preamble : " Hav
ing respect to the great and exorbitant dearth
risen in this Reahn of victuals and other stuff
for the sustentation of mankind, and daily in
creasing." It is a common but erroneous notion
that the Highlanders, like the inhabitants of other
wild countries, had at least always an abundant
supply of game. But neither was this source
extensively available. The country swarmed with
Foxes, Eagles, Hawks, and, at an earlier period, as
we have seen, with Wolves. These animals eflPec-
tuaUy prevented any abundance of game. Even
the Deer being often wholly unprotected, killed out

74 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
of season, driven about and allowed no rest, were
reduced extremely in number, and in the Seven
teenth Century were found only in the highest and
least accessible mountains of the country.^ When
we remember that this language was used by men
living in the richest portions of the country, in or
near which there was free access to the Foreign
Merchant, we can form some idea of the much
greater dearth which must have prevaUed elsewhere.
These repeated Statutes during several centuries
indicate beyond all doubt the great poverty of the
nation, and the deep distress which must have been
frequent, if not habitual, among the poorer classes,
in districts where no imports could ever penetrate.
This state of things is not astonishing. The only
matter of astonishment is how any considerable
population could have lived at all. Let us remem
ber, in the first place, that the food which now for
several generations has been the principal food of
all poor agricultural populations, was not then
available. There were no potatoes. Let us re
member, in the second place, that the climate is a
wet one, and that artificial drainage was absolutely
unknowm. Let us remember, in the third place,
that although potatoes will grow on damp and
even wet soils, barley and oats will not grow except
on land which is comparatively dry. Let us
remember, in the fourth place, that in a mountain
ous country, with a wet climate and no artificial
drainage, the best land in the bottoms of the
1 Sketches of Early Scotch History, p. 424, by C. Innes.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 75
valleys must have been very wet, and that even
the sides of the hills were often covered with a
boggy and spongy soU. It follows from aU these
considerations that corn could only be raised on
those spots and portions of land which were dry by
natural drainage. Sometimes these may have been
in the bottoms of the vaU'eys where the soil happened
to be light and shingly, but more often they were
on the steepest sides of the hUls, on the banks of
streams, and among the naturally dry and even
stony knolls. Accordingly nothing is more com
mon in the Highlands than to see old marks of
cultivation upon land so high and so steep,
that no farmer in his senses would now consider
it as arable at all. When these marks catch
the eye of the stranger, full of sentiment, but
deficient in knowledge, he looks upon them, and
quotes them as the melancholy proofs of ancient
and abandoned industry, of the decay of agricul
ture, in short of a stagnant or declining state.
Whereas, in truth, these are the most sure and
certain indications of the low and rude condition
of agriculture in former times. They prove that
the better lands which are now drained and cleared
and ploughed, must have been then under swamp
and tangled wood. When again we remember that
such dry spots and patches of land as were then
capable of bearing corn, were used for that purpose
year after year ; when we remember that there was
no such a thing known as a rotation of crops, since
aU the green varieties were wanting ; when we con-

76 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
sider further, that even the rudiments of a system
of manuring land were also unknown, it is impos
sible to be surprised that the population of the
Highlands was exposed to frequent and severe
famines, and we may well even wonder how any
considerable population was maintained at all.
Sir Walter Scott, in one of the most powerful of
his immortal Tales, the novel of Roh Roy, has put
into the mouth of Bailie Jarvie an accurate descrip
tion of the over-population of the Highlands, as
compared with the actual resources of the country
in the time of that noted Cateran, who is the hero of
the story : " The military array of this Hieland
country, were a' the men-folk between aughteen
and fifty-six brought out that could bear arms,
couldna come weel short of fifty-seven thousand and
five hundred men. Now, sir, it 's a sad and awfu'
truth, that there is neither wark, nor the very
fashion nor appearance of wark, for the tae half
of thae puir creatures; that is to say, that the
agriculture, the pasturage, the fisheries, and every
species of honest industry about the country, can
not employ the one moiety of the population, let
them work as lazily as they Kke, and they do work
as if a plough or a spade burned their fingers;
Aweel, sir, this moiety of unemployed bodies
amounting to one hundred and fifteen thousand
souls, whereof there may be twenty-eight thousand
seven hundred able-bodied giUies fit to bear arms,
and that do bear arms, and wUl touch or look at nae
honest means of livelihood even if they could get it

BEFORE THE DAWN. 77
— which, lack-a-day ! they cannot. . . . And mair
especiaUy mony hundreds o' them come down to
the borders of the low country, where there 's gear
to grip, and live by stealing, reiving, lifting cows,
and the like depredations — a thing deplorable in
ony Christian country, the mair especially that
they take a pride in it," ^ etc. In this passage
Scott did not speak at random. In an article
contributed to the Quarterly Review in January
1816,^ we have his picture of the historical facts
embodied in Roh Roy. In that paper he pointed
out that the most remarkable fact connected
with the Highlands about a hundred years before
he wrote, was the rapid increase of the popula
tion, which, pent up wdthin narrow and unfertile
valleys, could neither extend itself towards the
mountains, on account of hostile Clans, nor to
wards the Lowlands, because the civilised country,
though unable to prevent occasional depredations,
was always too powerful to admit of any permanent
settlement being gained upon the plains by the
mountaineers. But limited to its own valley, each
Clan increased in numbers in a degree far beyond
proportion to the means of supporting them. Each
little farm was, by the tenant who cultivated it,
divided and sub-divided among his children and
grandchildren, until the number of human beings
to be maintained far exceeded that for whom, by
any mode of culture, the space of ground could
supply even the poorest nourishment. In illustra-
1 Roh Roy, p. 291 : 1870. 2 Vol. xiv. pp. 283-3.33.

78 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
tion of this general description, Sir Walter parti
cularises the rugged district, now so well knovm to
tourists, between Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond,
in the neighbourhood of Inversnaid, where 150
families were living upon ground which did not pay
£90 a year of rent, or in other words, where each
famUy on an average rented land at twelve shiUings
a year as their sole source of livelihood.^
It is well to have this prosaic testimony to a
memorable economic fact, not from any cold-blooded
Statistician, but from the greatest Poet of History
that has ever adorned the literature of any country.
The only error that can be detected in this picture
drawn by Sir Walter Scott is, that in some ways it
is probably an under-statement rather than any
over-statement of the case. The terrible and then
increasing disproportion between the old Celtic
population and their legitimate means of subsist
ence, is as powerfully as it is accurately expressed.
But the contrast between these two quantities be
comes all the more indicative of the extreme un
productiveness of the country, arising out of the
ignorant agriculture and idleness of the people,
when we discover that the actual amount of the
population which was so poor, and which was driven
to such expedients for support, was in all probabifity
a much smaller amount than the figures indicated
by Sir Walter. The fighting power exhibited in
the short but dashing Rebellions of 1715 and of
1745 has led very generally to an estimate of the
' Quarterly Review, vol. xiv. p. 296-7.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 79
number of fighting men turned out by the High
landers, which is almost certainly exaggerated. It
will surprise many to be told that the greatest
number of men in arms against the Government in
the RebeUion of 1745, from the beginning to the
end of it, did not exceed 11,000 men.^ In 1715
the Earl of Mar had entered Stirling wdtb only
5000, and the doubling of his force at the Battle
of SheriflPmuir was due to Irish reinforcements. Of
course it is to be remembered that some of the
most powerful Clans were loyal to the Government,
so that the Rebel forces never represented the full
power of the Highland population. Some of them
remained neutral. Robert Macgregor, the famous
" Rob Roy," hung upon the outskirts of this battle
at SheriSinuir with a contingent, which took no
part in the engagement — its astute leader being a
waiter on Providence and a watcher of the tide.
This broad fact, however, remains undoubted, that
although many great Nobles and Proprietors in the
Lowlands joined in the RebeUion of 1745, the whole
military force which supported the Pretender was
entirely raised by the Highland Proprietors, although
at least one- half the value of the whole Estates
afterwards forfeited belonged to the Lowland
Rebels.^ The explanation of this is obvious. It
was in the Highlands alone that a large surplus
' I take this from an interesting MS. in the Brit. Mus., No. ] 04, in
the " King's Collection," written by a gentleman who travelled over all
the Highland Counties soon after the Rebellion of 1745, and seems to
have been employed by the Government to report upon them.
^ Observations o» the Highlands, by the Earl of Selkirk, 1805, App. A.

80 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
population survived over and above those whose
time was occupied with any industrial pursuits,
and over and above the number which could be
supported by them. In the Lowlands the old
military population had disappeared, — having been
dispersed from their original seats, and absorbed
into the ranks of peaceful industry, — some of them
in the country, some of them in connection with
the rising commerce of the Towns.
At last one outlet was opened for the High
landers which had been opened for the Border Clans
more than a hundred years before — the outlet,
namely, of lawful military service. It is constantly
repeated that the idea of enlisting Highland Regi
ments was due to the genius of the elder Pitt,
the Earl of Chatham, when he came into power in
December 1756, and undertook the conduct of
the war with France in America and in Europe.
This, however, is a mistake. That great man
has enough of glory without ascribing to him the
merit of a suggestion which unquestionably came
from two native Scotchmen, who were also native
Highlanders. There is conclusive evidence that the
policy of enlisting Highlanders, as such, in the
regular mUitary service of the Crown, was due to
the common counsels of these two intimate and
hereditary friends, Archibald, third Duke of Argyll,
better known as Earl of Islay,^ and Duncan Forbes
' He succeeded his brother John, Duke of Argj-U and Greenwich, in
1743, and died in 1761. During the whole of the Ministry of Walpole,
and some succeeding Ministries, he was intrusted with the chief conduct
of affairs in Scotland.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 81
of CuUoden. Indeed, a beginning had been made
at a stiU earlier date. No less than twenty-seven
years before the famous ministry of Pitt, this policy
had been inaugurated, so far as regarded the pur
poses of a local MUitia for keeping the peace of
the Highlands, by the formation in 1730 of the
six Independent Companies which, from the con
trast of their dark clothing with the red uniform
of the Army, came to be known as the Black
Watch.-' These six separate Companies, numbering
in all 510 men, were constituted as closely as
possible on the same system as that which had long
been the system of the Clans. The officers were
taken from the loyal Clans, the CampbeUs, Grants,
Munros, etc., but the men were recruited from all
Highlanders who would enlist. The "Broken Men "
of the Highlands were as willing to join these Com
panies as they had always been to join any powerful
Chief. These bodies of men were in the strictest
sense of the . word new Clans, formed precisely as
any other Clan might have been begun, in the
palmy days of Celtic Feudalism.^ We know the
actual constitution of at least one of the Jacobite
Clans engaged in the RebeUion of 1745, and we
see that essentiaUy it was a mere military body
with only the flavour of family or blood connection
arising out of relationship between the officers. It
was the contingent which represented the Stewarts
1 Stewart's Sketches of the Highlanders, vol. i. part iii., pp. 240-248.
^ Col. Stewart says, " their service seemed merely that of a Clan
sanctioned by legal authority " (Sketches, vol. ii. p. 254).

82 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
of Appin. In this gallant corps, numbering up
wards of 300 men, there were only six famiUes who
were genuine inheritors of the name and blood of
Stewart. Of the killed and wounded in aU the
battles of the campaign, only 47, belonged to
them, whilst 109 belonged to "Macs" of almost
every sort and kind existing in the Highlands. Yet
nothing could exceed the courage and fidelity of the
men to their leaders. They contributed much to
the defeat of Sir John Cope at Prestonpans, and
to the rout of General Hawley at Falkirk. At
Culloden they broke the Royal regiment opposed to
them, untU it was rallied behind supports.^
The Statesmen who in 1730 first enrolled the
original Companies of the Black Watch upon exactly
the same principle, must have been native Scotch
men, knowing intimately the habits of the people
whom these Companies were formed at once to
watch, to employ, and to keep in order. Between
1730 and 1738 they seem to have exercised an
excellent efPect upon the Highlands, and it was
perhaps due to them that the Rebellion of 1745 was
not far more formidable even than it actually proved
to be. In the last of these years — 1738 — the same
year in which Culloden gave such wise advice for
the agricultural settlement of the population on
his friend's Hebridean estates, — he drew up a
paper recommending an extension of the policy
1 These interesting details are given by Mr. Gregory, editor of De Rebtu
Albanicis, and author of the History of the Highlands. They were
derived from Charles Stewart (Fasnacloioh), who was private secretary
to Prince Charles Edward.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 83
of enlisting Highlanders in the regular Army.^
Through Lord Islay it was laid before Sir Robert
Walpole, who approved and sanctioned the idea.
Although this scheme was not immediately carried
into eflPect on any great scale, yet a beginning was
at once made, for it must have been in consequence
of the advice of Islay and Culloden that in the
following year, 1739, the Independent Companies
of the Black Watch were formed into a Regiment
— the famous " Forty-Second." ^ The Letters of
Service for the formation of this Regiment, dated
October 25, 1739, directed that the corps should be
" raised in the Highlands," the men to be natives of
that country, and none other to be taken. ^
The steps by which this famous body of men
passed from mere Companies, representing the Clan
organisation, into regular Regiments of the British
Army are curious, and some of them are painful.
The original Companies were raised strictly for
local service among the mountains. They were
scattered over the Highlands, but principally
stationed along the line of the Great Glen from
which, on either side, they could keep their watch
and maintain the law. When they were "regi
mented " the men did not clearly understand the
change from local to general service, although the
"Letters of Service" distinctly stated that the
Regiment was to take its place in the Royal Army,
"according to the establishment thereof " * When
1 Culloden Papers, Introd. p. 31.
2 Originally, and for a few years, numbered the "Forty-Third."
3 Stewart's Sketches, vol. i. p. 244. * Ibid.

84 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
it was marched to London in 1743, and Jacobite
agents told them they might be sent to America,
there was — -not a mutiny — but a wholesale deser
tion. Following the frequent example of their
ancestors, they retreated in a body from London,
about May 16 in that year, and tried to regain
the Highlands by marching through the centre
of England. Surroiinded and obliged to sur
render their arms, when they had got as far as
Oundle in Northamptonshire, they were soon re
stored to order, and transferred to Flanders to serve
in the never-ending wars waged upon that great
battlefield of Europe. There, during the two years
1743 and 1744, they won golden opinions by their
civility, trustworthiness, and conduct ; and there,
in 1745, at the bloody and disastrous fight of Fon-
tenoy, the Highlanders established their renown,
first by their dash during the battle, and then by
their disciphne and courage at the most diflficdt
and dangerous post of honour, that of covering the
rear of an army in retreat.^
Not indeed even then for the first time had the
soldiers of Scotland and of the Highlands become
known to the Continental States. For many hun
dred years they had been honoured in France, and
during the Seventeenth Century they had borne
a distinguished part in the wars of the Low Country.
In the great CivU War at home between Charles I.
and the Parliamentary Forces, the Highlanders had
been called on for a contingent, and the M'Leods of
• Stewart's Sketches, vol. ii. pp. 269-70 ; Culloden Papers, pp. 200-3.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 85
Skye, whose Chiefs were zealous Royalists, had lost
in the war, and especially at Worcester, so many men
that, by the general consent of the Northern Clans,
it was agreed that they should have a respite from
military service till their numbers should increase.-'
Nevertheless the conduct of the Black Watch, as
one of the regular Regiments of the British Army
at Fontenoy, attracted the universal notice of the
world. And this was stiU twelve years before the
measure commonly ascribed to Pitt. So far, indeed,
was he from having any merit in this matter, that
so late as 1744 he was denouncing on principle any
additions to a standing army, and declaring that
" the man who solely depends upon arms for bread
can never be a good subject, especiaUy in a free
country." ^ It is clear, therefore, that the honour of
this measure is an honour to be ascribed to the
Statesmen who were then at the head of aflPairs
in Scotland. Moreover, in the legislation of
1747, the Act which forbade the use of the
Highland dress, speciaUy excepted that use as a
regimental uniform. This clearly indicated not
a temporary or accidental expedient, but a per
manent poHcy. Accordingly the Forty-Second was
employed on aU kinds of service, both at home, in
Ireland, and abroad, during the eleven years
between the battle of Fontenoy and its embark
ation for Canada in 1756. Not even the first idea
of using Highlanders for the reinforcement of
the Army in America can be justly ascribed to
1 MSS. Brit. Mus. 2 Thackeray's Life of Pitt, vol. i. p. 127.

86 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
the initiative of Pitt. The Forty-Second had been
under orders for Canada, and had actually em
barked in 1748, when they were accidentally driven
back by storms. But the Forty-Second formed part
of the Force sent out under General Abercromby
in 1756, and which landed at New York in June
of that year.-' The Ministry of Pitt was not formed
till the foUo-wing month of December, so that
the policy of employing Highland Regiments in
the struggle with France for supremacy in the Ne^w
World, cannot possibly be ascribed to him.
The scheme of adding largely to the Highland
element in the regular army by the addition of two
new Regiments of 1200 men each, and of sending
them out to America, seems to have been renewed
by Archibald, Duke of Argyll, on the same prin
ciple of Clan enlistment which had been found so
successful in the case of the Black Watch. ^ The
only merit due to Pitt in this matter, was that
when he came into power in December 1756, at
a time marked by great national depression and
disaster, having himself previously denounced the
use of Hanoverian troops, he rose above all his
former prejudices about "Standing Armies," and
directed the immediate execution of the scheme,
The truth is, that the defeat of Fontenoy and
the Jacobite Rebellion happening in the same year,
had put an end to the nonsense of political tra-
1 Stewart's Sketches, vol. i. p. 294.
2 Beatson's Military and Naval Memoirs, vol. ii. (ed. 1804), under
date 1757.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 87
dition on this subject. Pitt had now entered
upon a great war, and he was almost driven , by
necessity, in January 1757, to resort stiU more
largely to that recruiting ground of a fighting
race in the Highlands, the value of which had
been tested on the most famous fields of Europe,
and had then already come to be universally
recognised.^ During the rest of the century,
and during the next century dowm to the Battle
of Waterloo in 1815, this recruiting ground was
more and more largely drawn upon — so that be
tween 1740 and 1815 no less than fifty Battalions
had been raised mainly from the Highlands, irre
spective of smaller corps, and many " Fencible " or
MiUtia Regiments ^ besides.
The eflPects of this great opening of military
service upon the population of the Highlands was
very great, both directly and indirectly. The in
direct eflPects cannot be measured by the mere
diminution of numbers from the casualties of war.
These were never excessive ; indeed they may be
said to have been trifling compared with those
accompanying the murderous conflicts of our own
day, in which arms of precision, and of enormous
range, mow down men as the ears of corn fall
before the reaping-knives. Fontenoy was reckoned
a bloody battle at the time, and the severest fight-
1 Mr. Leoky, one of the most careful and philosophical of our living
historians, has recognised the " exaggeration " of the merit commonly
ascribed to Pitt ; but he still leaves to that Statesman more than is his
due (History of England, vol. ii. p. 458).
^ Stewart's Sketches, vol. ii p. 293.
VOL. II. G

88 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
ing fell to the lot of the Black Watch ; yet they lost
in killed only 30 men, with 86 wounded. Fontenoy
was described by an officer concerned in both actions
as " nothing " to the disastrous fight against the
French and Indians at Ticonderoga in 1758, when
the Highlanders encountered the brave Montcalm,'
and when their killed numbered 297, and the
wounded 306. This was more than one-half the
whole Regiment. During the remaining service of
this splendid corps, from its embodiment in 1740
to the Peace of 1815 — a period of seventy-five
years — in all the wars in which it was engaged,
in Flanders, Canada, America, the Peninsula, and
Waterloo — its total losses in kUled only came to
778 men (rank and file), and 2291 wounded.
The proportion of officers kiUed and wounded was
immensely greater.^ At this rate of loss, takiog
even the whole of the Regiments which came to be
recruited, chiefly but no longer exclusively, from
the Highlands, the drain upon the population was
not very heavy, and probably much less than would
have arisen from such intertribal wars and devas
tations as those which marked the Fifteenth and
Sixteenth Centuries.
But the indirect eflPect of the Highland Regi
ments was enormous. Men from every part of the
Highlands became acquainted with other regions
of the world — with higher standards and modes of
living,— with other pursuits than breeding a few
1 Mante's History of the War in North America, 1754-1764, p. 148.
' The figures are given in detail in Stewart's Sketches, vol. ii., App.
No. I.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 89
half-starved cattle, and raising a few bolls of poor
Oats and Bear. They resumed that foremost rank
in the military annals of their coun-^ry which they
had not held since the days of Bannockburn and
Byland. In particular, they became familiar, during
the war in Canada and in the American Colonies,
with those "Plantations" which sounded so dreadful
in the ears of the Forty-Second when they first
heard of them, that the men rushed oflP in a panic to
regain their hUls. They had now the opportunity
of seeing the glorious lands which are drained by
the St. Lawrence and the Hudson. AUotments in
the Province of New York to the amount of 2000
acres each were given by the Government to such
oflficers as had occasion to leave the Service.^
Thus so early as 1765 the American Plantations
had become a home both to Highland gentlemen
and to Highland soldiers. Not a few of them retired
from the Army and settled there, and those who
came home recounted round the peat fires of Mull,
Skye, the Lewis, and of all the glens of the main
land, the adventures they had met with in the
Forests of the Mohawk, of Lakes George and Cham-
plain, and beside the broad waters of Ontario. The
love of adventure and the love of fighting all over
the world, were incitements thus brought into com
petition with the rival love of idleness at home.
And as the possibUity of fighting had come to an
end there, whUst the necessity of industry grew
more imperative, even old habits, so powerful with
' Memoir and Correspondence of Mrs. Grant of Laggan, vol. i. p. 8.

90 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
all primitive races, became less and less competent
to counteract the attractions of the New World.
Powerful as the external influences were which
thus came into operation, their action was rendered
still more powerful by some new internal causes
which about the same time began to crowd the
people inconveniently at home. These new causes
did not arise from political events of any kind. They
arose especially from the concurrence of some dis
coveries, very different in kind, but aU belonging
to that class of agencies which often teU on the
progress of the world and on the destiny of nations,
far more deeply than the valour of soldiers, or the
policy of statesmen. The fields of Nature are very
wide fields, and of boundless fertiUty to those who
walk on them with an eye to see, and a mind to
question. Every now and then, from one or more
of her vast domains, there is a rush of new Products,
or of new Inventions. Then, suddenly, within per
haps the space of a few years, the Human Family
finds itself " endowed with new mercies," and the
whole conditions of life are changed over large
areas of the world. Such a time, undoubtedly, was
the latter half of the Eighteenth Century. Among
many others there were in particular Three dis
coveries, during those fifty years, two of which told
upon the whole of Europe, and one of which told
especiaUy upon the poorest population of the High
lands. Let us stop for a moment to look at these
discoveries, for a whole volume of phUosophy
belongs to each.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 91,
In the dim and far-distant East, — in centuries as
remote from ours as the country or the race, — more
than a thousand years before the Christian era, — one
of those terrible diseases had arisen which belong
to the class of Plagues. So sweeping, so fatal, and
at the same time so loathsome was it that we
might almost suppose King David must have
alluded to it when he sang of deliverance from the
"noisome pestilence."^ Yet there is reason to
beUeve that the mysterious isolation of that
curious people the Chinese, amongst whom it
originated, kept the great nations of Western Asia
uncontaminated for hundreds of years later than
the latest days of the Jewish Monarchy. The
Jews did indeed profit from the commerce of the
East. The imagery of their Hterature is full of
aUusion to its products, and to the love they had
for the employment of them. But neither the
"Ivory Palaces" which "made them glad,"^ nor
the "Apes and Peacocks"^ which ministered to
their amusement, or to their sense of gorgeous
colour, indicate any access to countries farther east
than Hindostan. It was not, apparently, untU
the last quarter of the Sixth Century of the Chris
tian era that Persian merchants brought the Small
pox from the far East into Arabian ports.* But this
was in 572 — the very year of the birth of Mahomet.
And so it happened that this great scourge was
planted in the Arabian Peninsula at the very time
1 Ps. xcL 3. 2 Pa. xiv. 8. ^ i Kings x. 22.
* See Art. on "Smallpox," Quarterly Review, vol. xix. p. 361.

92 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
when, in the course of a few years, it could not fail
to spread into all the regions which were soon to
be penetrated by the great Conqueror who had just
been born. The basin of the Mediterranean Sea,
girdled as it was by all that remained of the oldest
civilisations of the world, could not be a barrier,
but became rather a channel and a road. The Moors
took this new Pest with them when they crossed
into Europe, and established their short but brUliant
culture in the Palaces of Seville, Cordova, and
Granada. Again, when they passed the Pyrenees,
and, invading France, were defeated by Charles
Martel, Christian Europe was indeed deUvered from
an Infidel conquest; but even victorious battles
could only spread the contagion of disease. And so,
from that date onwards, the Eastern PestUence was
established in the Western World, and at frequent
intervals it mowed down its thousands among all the
races which had settled there. It penetrated every
where, and was indiscriminate in its attacks upon
Celt and Saxon. No place was too secluded, no
shore was too remote. From time to time it deci
mated even the lonely Hebrides. It is strange how
entirely this is forgotten now. 'But we have the
abundant evidence of a generation which remem
bered it only too weU. Of the parish of KUmuir
in Skye the Minister writes in 1792 that up to a
time beyond the middle of the century Smallpox
prevaUed to a very great extent, and almost de
populated the country.' Of the parish of Snizort
1 Old Slat. Ace, vol. ii. p. 551.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 93
the Minister records tbat when this disease did
visit the Island it sometimes swept whole families
away, or left only one, or two, or three survivors.^
The same tale is repeated from such secluded
parishes as Durness in Sutherland,^ and Glassary
in Argyll, where it is mentioned as having been
specially fatal among the children.^ The effect of
such a disease in checking population must have
been very great.
Such was the state of things when, in 1716, an
Englishwoman of high education and Uvely wit,
going as the -wife of the British Ambassador to Con
stantinople, and spending her holiday among the
vUlages around that city, heard of the strange idea
which had long been established among Turkish
mothers, that by "grafting" this terrible disease
upon their own healthy children they could be
made to take the infection in a mild form, and
could be practicaUy ensured against its more dan
gerous attacks in after Ufe. Singularly free from
prejudice herself, and having that best gift of
genius, the wUlingness to accept a new idea. Lady
Mary Wortley Montagu did not content herself
with curiosity and wonder, but carefully examined
the evidence, and became convinced of the result.*
Yielding to this conviction she gave proof of her
courage and of her intelligence by " grafting " this
terrible disease upon her own child in April 1718.
' Old St<i,t. Ace, vol. xviii. p. 182.
2 Ibid. vol. iii. p. 582. 3 ^^ ^^l. xiii. p. 658.
¦• Her first account of, it is given in a letter, April 1, 1718. Works,
vol. i. p. 391. £d. 1837.

94 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
Returning to England in 1719 she spared no exer
tion in trying to convince others of the safety of
this method of escape from a great scourge, and
in 1720 was able to tell a friend that the practice
had been generally adopted by the highest classes
in London.' Through some vicissitudes of fortune
it made on the whole steady progress, and in 1754
gained the sanction of a most conservative profession
in the verdict of the Royal College of Physicians.*
It is a signal proof of the terror with which the
pestUence of Smallpox must have inspired the
people who had suflPered from it, that a race so
hostile to all novelties as the Highlanders was
nevertheless quickly moved to try a remedy not
only so new, but in itself so repulsive to feeliogs
the most natural and the most deeply seated. It
appears to have been introduced into the Highlands
and Islands about 1760, and was almost univer
sally practised by the people " with surprising
success " even in the remote island of North Uist,*
long before the close of the Eighteenth Century,
The plague was stayed. This is the universal testi
mony of all authorities. And it is remarkable that,
in a few districts where adverse prejudices could not
be overcome, the disease continued to be destructive
down to a much later date. In 1777-8 no less than
11 children perished in one Ross-shire parish, and
the minister declares that the disease had been

1 Lady M. W. Montagu's Works, vol. ii. p. 129.
2 Quarterly Review, vol. xix. p. 366.
2 Old Stat. Ace, vol. xiii. p. 312.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 95
wont to revisit the district every seven years, or
even oftener.' Here we have a striking measure
of the great eflPect on population produced by the
general cessation of a check so long established,
and so tremendous in its operation.
Thus the First of the Three great discoveries to
which I have referred was one which promoted the
increase of population by greatly lowering the death-
rate. The Second was a discovery which stiU more
powerfuUy promoted population by raising the
supply of food. Our knowledge of the circumstances
attending this great change is all the more interest
ing from, its contrast with our profound ignorance
as to the origin and development of the older staples
of human subsistence. We know absolutely nothing
of the first cultivation of the Cereals, although it is
certain that this must have had a definite beginning
and long stages of development.
The rapidly expanding commerce of the Eigh
teenth Century added immensely, and, in some cases,
very suddenly, to the variety of human food. But
in most cases these additions came in the form of
products which could only be grown in distant
cUmates, and the use of which had long been
established among other nations. Tea was among
the first and most remarkable of these, and it is
curious ta observe that the use of this beverage
made such rapid progress in Scotland in the first
half of the century, that even a man so enlightened
as CuUoden regarded it with positive alarm, and
1 Old Stat. Ace, vol. i. pp. 262-3.

96 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
actuaUy recommended that the Legislature should
take measures to restrain the poorer classes in their
addiction to it.' From 1730 onwards it was already
wholly displacing the native beverage of beer, and
this so widely in the Towns of Scotland and in the
Low Country as seriously to aflPect the revenue. To
a large extent, however, the other new and varied
articles of import were rather condiments and luxu
ries, than staple articles of food. It is aU the more
curious, therefore, that until long past the middle
of the century we hear Mttle or nothing of one new
product of the vegetable world which was destined
in a few years to bring about the most prodigious
eflPects upon population that have ever arisen from a
Uke cause. Nor, indeed, is there any wonder that
little attention, and no expectation, should have
been drawn to the Potato as at all likely to play
any important part in adding to the resources of
human sustenance. Although coming from the
New World, it belonged to a family of plants which
was well known in the Old, and which was most
famUiarly represented in Europe by the beautiful
flowers and the tempting berries of the Deadly
Nightshade. So weU known had been the noxious
properties' belonging to the Solanum, that when the
fruit of another member of the group was first
introduced into Europe for edible purposes from the
African Coast, the story of a miracle arose to
account for its innocence or its wholesomeness. To
this day when the Peasant of Provence includes, the
^ Culloden Papers, p. 190.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 97
Tomato in his vegetable diet, he tells his chUdren
that originaUy it had been introduced by the Infidel
Saracens as a means of poisoning the Christians,
but that the " Bon Dieu " had interfered, and had
converted it into a delicious fruit. Although the
American Solanum had been brought home from
Virginia in connection with one of the immortal
names of EngUsh History, Sir Walter Raleigh, it
had remained for 150 years in comparative neglect,
cultivated only by a few botanists or gardeners as
an object rather of curiosity than of use. Nobody
could well have guessed its extraordinary proper
ties, as, indeed, none of us can ever fully fathom
or anticipate the wonderful alchemies of Nature.
That a root belonging to a well-known and poison
ous order of plants should turn out not only to be
nutritious, but to be richer in life-sustaining power
than any known substance of like composition, and
that it should turn out to be easily cultivated in our
owm climate and in the least fertile of our own soUs,
— were results not to be foreseen by any science.
But when this discovery was at last made, it was
naturally seized upon by the population, which
wanted above aU things a crop which should be at
once abundant, and, at the same time, capable of
cultivation with a minimum of labour. The Celts
of Ireland very soon began not only to use it as
an adjunct to other food, but to live upon it as their
main subsistence. From them it passed over to
the Celts of the Hebrides, having been introduced
into the Island of South Uist so early as 1743 by

98 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
Macdonald of Clanranald. Suspicious of all novel
ties, the Highlanders resisted the use of the Potato
for some years, and it did not reach the neighbour
ing Island of Bernera till 1752. Yet within ten
years of that date the Potato crop had come to
support the whole inhabitants for at least one
quarter of the year. Very soon it was found that it
would grow luxuriantly almost everywhere- — on land
Uttle better than sand and shingle, and in bogs,
where it only required to be planted in those patches
of ditched-oflp land which all over the Highlands
came to be appropriately known as " lazy beds."
To the two great discoveries just described-
one of them eradicating a destructive disease, and
the other supplying a new and proUfic source of
sustenance — there now came to be added yet an
other — the Third — discovery, one which afforded all
along the Western Coasts a new manufacturing
industry which was at once lucrative and desultory—
an industry which yielded a large return, and yet did
not need any steady or continuous labour. This dis
covery was so curious and so almost unique in its his
tory and results, that we must dweU on it for a little,
The men whom the world caUs Thinkers are
often curiously thoughtless, — else the attempt
would never have been made to distinguish be
tween the additions of value which are " earned "by
Owners or Producers, because of some meritorious
action of their own, and certain different additions
which come to them from the exertions of other
men, or from the general conditions of Society.

«
BEFORE THE DAWN. 99
For the distinction breaks down the moment we
look into it, and the moment we grasp the fact that
aU kinds and degrees of value come largely, and
sometimes exclusively, from causes with which the
Owners or Producers of valuable things have nothing
to do. And most especially is this the case with
those who five by the labour of their hands. The
value of that which alone they have to sell, depends
entirely on the desires, or on the knowledge, or on
the powers of other men ; and it constantly happens
that sudden and great additions accrue to them
upon that value, which they have not only done
nothing to secure, but which it has been entirely out
of thefr power either to expect or to foresee. There
is no phrase so rich in fallacies as the common
phrase that Labour is the only source of Wealth.
It has no truth in it whatever — except when Labour
is understood as including every form and variety of
human influence and exertion, and especiaUy the
forms which are purely intellectual. Moreover, all
these forms and kinds and degrees of influence
must be included, not only as operating in our own
time, but as they have been exerted continuously
in aU preceding generations. These generations
have been the stages of our own growth, and each
of them has contributed something to the store on
which we are living now. In the sense in which
Labour is commonly understood, which is physical
labour, nothing can be more erroneous than the idea
that it is the only, or the ultimate source of Wealth.
Mind comes before Matter ; Brain comes before

100 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
Muscle ; Head comes before Hands. This is the law
of Nature, and this is the order of precedence in her
eternal Hierarchy. We have seen how, during the
Military Ages, this complete subordination and
dependence of the lower upon the higher kinds of
human energy was evidenced in the enlisting of whole
tribes of men under Chiefs of knovm capacity and
power. In the Industrial Ages on which we have
now entered the same great law of Nature was
illustrated continually in the unlooked-for benefits
which were daUy and hourly accruing to the owners
of Muscle from the owners of Brain, and from the
new desires and demands started by their work in
the Community at large.
Never, perhaps, was this order of precedence
more signally shown than in the great increase in
the value of their labour which came to the poorer
classes of the Western Coasts of Scotland from the
new industry to which I have referred. We have
seen that the Founders of new nations in the reign
of Elizabeth, — Botanists, and Gardeners, and Pro
prietors ever since, — had all been concerned in giving
them a new product from the Land. Chemists and
Manufacturers were now at work to give them a
new product from the Sea. And in this case, too,
nothing could have been more unexpected, or less
connected with any kind of exertion of their own,
The Ocean is fertile beyond all conception in animal
life — immensely more fertUe than the dry land.
But, on the other hand, it holds within its vast
domains nothing of the vegetable world, except the

BEFORE THE DAWN. 101
lowest of its forms. Moreover its vegetation, such
as it is, is almost entirely confined to two narrow
areas of shallow depth — one which finds its limit
between high and low water mark, caUed the
Littoral Zone, and the other an area close to shores
which is known to naturalists as the Laminarian
Zone. But in these two Zones between high water
mark and a maximum depth of about fifteen fathoms,'
wherever there are rocks or stones for attachment,
sea- weeds grow in beds and masses which are often
luxuriant and dense. Some of the smaller species,
especiaUy those belonging to the Green and Red
series, are among the most beautiful Forms in nature.
But the Olive-coloured series are not attractive in
appearance, although they are the richest in useful
products. Torn, slimy, and unsightly, when out of
the water, and fetid in their decay, their multitu
dinous cells of organic structure are, nevertheless, so
many batteries for eliminating and fixing in their own
waUs many of the inorganic elements of our world,
which are held in solution by the Sea. In particular,
the salts of Sodium and Potassium are richly con
centrated in the stems and fronds of some of them,
besides such rarer substances as Iodine and Bromine.
Chemists in the service of the rising Industries of
the Low Country soon found that from those sea
weeds which grew between the tides, a plentiful
supply could be extracted of the Carbonate of Soda.
In the manufacture of Soap and of Glass established
at Whitby and at Newcastle, this product was
' Balfour's Botany — Algse.

102 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
valuable. There are many maritime countries to
which this discovery would have brought no great
source of wealth, because the Sea Coast is very
often but a single border line, and much of it occu
pied by sandy shores, destitute of sea- weeds. But
of all countries, probably, in the world, the Western
Coasts of Scotland present the rare physical charac
teristics which could give to this discovery a maxi
mum value. These coasts are wonderfully indented
— the Ocean sending out innumerable arms which
extend far among the hills — so far, and into such
sheltered reaches, that the hazel-nut and the acorn
drop ripe into waters continuous with the poles.
The shore lines of the County of Argyll alone, with
its Islands, extend to 2289 miles' — lines which, if
unrolled, would almost reach the shores of the New
World. Along the whole extent of the outer
Hebrides, sea and land are intermixed through a
thousand channels, so that within the space of a
few miles they often constitute a labyrinth of creeks,
rocks, and islets — generally exposed to a great rise
and fall of tide. From this last cause the Littoral
Zone was unusually ample for the growth of Fuel
Such was the country of which its barren shores
were suddenly converted into a fruitful field, and
its natural growths could be turned into money, by
a kind of work the most simple, and not very
laborious. The weed had only to be cut, gathered,
and spread to dry upon the rocks or turf Then a
1 I derive this curious fact from an Abstract of Geographical Statistic
of the County, drawn up by the late Captain Bedford, E.N., who directed
the Admiralty Survey.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 103
few stones, arranged somewhat in the manner of a
prehistoric grave, forming a low and a loose enclosure,
was all that was dignified by the name of a kiln.
Within this little enclosure a lighted peat or bit of
wood was used to set on fire a few fronds of the
half-dried weed, and when it burst into a crackling
flame, fresh weed had to be added so as to keep it
down. In this way the weed was rather melted
than burnt into a hot and pasty mass, which finally
cooled and consoUdated into a glassy and brittle
substance not unlike the resin of commerce which
is derived from pine-trees. For this substance so
easUy prepared, from a natural supply of raw mate
rial needing no labour in its cultivation, there arose
an active demand during the latter part of the
Eighteenth Century. It was first estabhshed on the
shores of the Firth of Forth, so early as 1720,
whence it passed to the Orkneys in 1723. In the
Hebrides, it was introduced into the Island of Tyree
only in 1746. But the price was then trifling. In
1768 the industry had become general and import
ant, — the produce of the Western Coast being
estimated at about 5000 tons. The price was then
about £6, 10s. at the Glass manufactory of New
castle. The price varied much during the rest of
the Eighteenth Century. But every rise in price
was met by increased production. For a short time
during the French war the price is said to have
reached the high figure of £20 per ton.' Among
^ Macculloch's Western Islands, vol. i. p. 120. In 1803 I find that
the price obtained for Tyree and Mull kelp was only £8, 8s. per ton.
VOL. II. H

101 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
my family estate accounts I find no record of any
such price, and down to 1822 the average was
probably less than half that amount.' Of this
valuable material the Hebrides alone produced,
when the trade was at its height, about 6000 tons
annually — representing in good years a value which
was a great deal more than double the whole of the
agricultural rental of some of the estates on which
it was produced.
Coming, as this new manufacture did, in addition
to the two other causes tending to increase popula
tion, the trade in Kelp had a prodigious eflPect. It
employed at various seasons an immense quantity
of labour, the calculation being that every 300 tons
of Kelp gave employment to 200 men during several
months in the year. This is intelUgible enough
when we understand that for every ton of Kelp not
less than 20 tons of wet weed had to be cut,
dried, and melted, — so that the total produce of the
Hebrides represented the preparation of 120,000
tons of the raw material. It brought in wages
which had never been heard of before in the districts
where it prevaUed. In many places it encouraged
famUies to settle and to multiply where the
resources of agriculture were of the poorest ; whilst
it made both Proprietors and people bUnd to the
1 This account of the Kelp trade I have taken partly from a MS. Keport
on the subject drawn up for my grandfather, John, sixth Duke of Argyll,
in 1788, and from a paper read before the Society of Arts in 1884 by Mr.
Edward Ed. C. C. Stanford, through whose chemical skill and enterprise
I succeeded in partially reviving the Trade when almost extinct in 1863,
and through whose recent discovery of a new Product, which he has called
" Algine," a further development may now be hoped for.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 105
dangers of unlimited subdivision. The price paid
to the workers for the Kelp they made amounted
very often to a great deal more than the whole
rent they paid for their holdings — so that as
regarded these they sat practically rent free. Under
such conditions, the temptations and inducements
to early marriage, and a stationary and dreamy
existence, were insuperable — and the characteristics
of Highland Ufe which we have seen so graphically
described by Sir Walter Scott, as applicable to the
disposition and distribution of the people at the
close of the Military Ages, were repeated and even
exaggerated aU along the Western Coasts long after
the Industrial Ages had begun.
It would have been astonishing indeed, if under
such a combination of causes, all coming more
or less together, and all stimulating population ia
different manners and degrees, the Highlanders, and
especiaUy the Islanders, had not rapidly multiplied
in number. Never, perhaps, in the history of nations,
had such unexpected and bounteous fountains of
supply been opened to any people — unless, indeed,
to Tribes who by conquest had come into possession
of some wealthy land. But in this case the new
resources had arisen without any exertion of their
ovm. An arrest laid upon the hand of disease
and death — a new and abundant supply of food —
and, along aU the lines of coast, a new manu
facture, bringing money where money was almost
unknown before : — such were the additions to the
value of Ufe and to the fruits of the simplest manual

106 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
labour, which were brought to the Highlands from
outside themselves — from the genius of some, and the
invention of others — and the advancing knowledge of
the human family. All these were brought to bear
upon a people which had already been increasing
rapidly beyond the limits of their subsistence, and the
previously knowTi resources of the land they lived
in. The result was that they multiplied at a ten
fold rate, and any temporary abundance was soon
turned to want.
The eflPect of such gifts as these upon any society
of men, must always depend upon its preparation to
receive them. Here, again, we come upon the con
trast between the Highlands and the country of the
Border Clans. In no part of the Lowlands of Scot
land did the use of the Potato lead to any undue
increase of the population. Here and there, for a
little whUe, it may have prolonged old conditions.
But population had already in the Lowlands become
almost everywhere redistributed by the great cur
rent of industrial interests which first set in after
the union of the Crowns in 1603, and which had
gathered head and power after the union of the
Parliaments in 1707. The mUitary classes had been,
or were being, rapidly absorbed into the ranks of
commerce, of manufacture, and of an agriculture
which was at least beginning to be scientific. The
Potato came too late to stop the migrations which
were determined by these new conditions. It was
a pure gain with no drawbacks or temptations to
abuse. The Potato was used as an adjunct and a

BEFORE THE DAWN. 107
supplement to higher kinds of food, and not as a
staple article of subsistence. Its place in agriculture
was a corresponding place. It took rank among the
new Root Crops which aflPorded the means of a profit
able rotation with the Cereals. It became an im
portant article of commerce, and sometimes brought
higher prices than any other produce of the soil.
In aU these circumstances the eflPect of the Potato in
the Lowlands was in contrast with its eflPect in the
Highlands. There the old military classes, the
" broken men," were stUl occupying the ground in
the manner, to the extent, and with all the eflPects
described by Sir Walter Scott in Rob Roy. The
raising of the Highland Regiments had indeed opened
a door for the entering of new motives. But the
mere number of men temporarUy removed was but a
fraction of the numbers which were steadUy tending
to sweU in every glen, and to swarm on every shore.
Among them the Potato was seized upon as a new
support for a life of inaction. It graduaUy grew to
be the main food of the people during a great por
tion of the year. It was but little sold or exported.
It induced no rise in the standard of Uving. It
brought no increase of accumulated wealth. It was
simply eaten. And not only did it feed the people,
but it unquestionably made them more prolific.
When to this was added a manufacture such as that
of Kelp, of which the raw material lay around their
own doors, and in the possession of which they had a
practical monopoly as compared with all the Southern
and aU the inland portions of the Kingdom, the

r08 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
Highlanders or Hebrideans were naturally encour
aged to feel that they could live in increasing
numbers in the enjoyment of a rude and a low
abundance, derived from a few productions of the
soil and of the sea. They were thus caught, so to
speak, by powerful causes tending to stereotype and
aggravate the poverty of old conditions, before they
had time to be brought within the stream of the
nation's industrial life, as it had been developed ia
the Low country, and among the Border High
lands. It was not possible for them to think of or
to foresee that the one new industry on which they
so much depended was an industry depending
absolutely on the continuance of foreign wars, or
• upon the continued maintenance of special taxes
limiting or prohibiting the import of raw materials
far richer than seaweed in the products it aflPorded.
The result was one which has been almost for
gotten, and which at first sight may weU seem
extraordinary. The poorest portion of the Kingdom
became by far the most populous in proportion to
its resources, and speedily exhibited a rate of
increase far greater than that which could be seen
in the richest and most advancing rural districts of
the country. The latter half of the Eighteenth
Century witnessed in the Highlands, more especially
in the Islands— districts purely rural — a swelluig of
population which seems almost incredible, and yet
the evidence of it is abundant and detaUed.
There are two large Islands and two smaU Islands
lying south of the long promontory of Kintyre, and

BEFORE THE DAWN. 109
all closely connected with the Firth of Clyde. These
are Arran, Bute, and the two Cumbraes. We do
not now think of any of these Islands as belong
ing to the Hebrides or to the Highlands — although
there is no wUder mountain scenery in Scotland
than Glen Rosa and Glen Sannox in Arran. But the
stream of commerce, and of the industrial life of the
Kingdom, has now so long circled round them, and
has so penetrated through them, that all the con
ditions are the settled conditions of the Lowlands.
But we must remember that in the last century this
w-as not so. At that time they contained Gaelic-
speaking populations whose habits of life were the
same as those of the other Western Isles. Counting
this southern group, then, among the Hebrides, there
were in aU ninety-five inhabited Islands and Islets,
including the lonely St. Kilda, on the Western Coasts
of Scotland. There is good reason to believe that in
the year 1755 the total population of these Islands
was about 52,200. During the sixteen years be
tween 1755 and 1771 the increase amounted to
10,538. During the next twenty-four years, from
1771 to 1795, the further increase amounted to
12,728 — so that taking the forty years between
1755 and 1795 the total increase was 23,266, or
not far short of one-half of the original number of
inhabitants.' Considering that the whole of this
Insular area may. be said to have been almost purely
rural, — ^^since two or three so-called Towns were then
nothing but insignificant vUlages, — this is a rate of
1 Walker's Hebrides, 1S08, vol. i. pp. 24-?.

110 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
increase which was probably unknown in any part
of Europe, seeing that it arose from breeding only,
and included no element of immigration. More
over, it is all the more remarkable when we com
pare it with the rate of increase in the kindred
population of the mainland during the same period.
In 1755 the Gaelic-speaking Parishes on the main
land had a total population of 237,598, yet on this
much larger number the increase in 1795 was little
more than one-half of the increase on the smaller
population of the Islands. Although several causes
contributed to keep down the rate of increase on the
mainland as compared with the Islands, yet we
cannot mistake the one cause which operated most
powerfuUy as an artificial stimulus to population
in the Hebrides. Beyond all question, it was the
Kelp manufacture. It is true that many Parishes
on the mainland were extensively bounded by the
sea-shores. But the purity and strength of the
water in the open Ocean, and the tumult of its un
contaminated waves, are required to stimulate the
growth of the richest seaweeds. Apart, therefore,
from their immensely more extended lines of coast
there were chemical causes at work to concentrate
the Kelp trade in the hands of the Hebrideans;
and it was on the strength mainly of this tempting,
but dangerous, because precarious, industry that
these people multiplied so fast. This conclusion is
confirmed when we look into the detaUs. The
Insular Parishes in which the population increased
fastest between 1755 and 1795 are almost always

BEFORE THE DAWN. 1 1 1
the Parishes which had the most productive shores
for seaweed. Thus the Parish of the Small Isles
(Rum, Canna, Eigg, etc.) rose from 858 to 1339;
Stornoway, in the Lewis, from 1836 to 2639 ; KU
muir (Skye) from 1581 to 2500; Tyree from 1602
to 2416. These are but individual examples of a
general fact. On the mainland the largest increase
was in the Parishes which had the longest boundary
of open sea, whUst in some of the inland Parishes
there was no increase at aU, and even, in some
cases, an actual decline in numbers. Thus the in
land Parish of Farr, in Sutherland, diminished by
200, whilst its coast neighbour. Tongue, with a long
line of shore, increased by more than 400.'
It was impossible that there could be such
a rapid and extraordinary increase of population
without results specially dangerous among men who
were the poorest in the Kingdom, and who were the
least qualified to provide against it by the resources
of a various and an advancing industry. Under
such conditions there could not fail to be a tremen
dous and frequent pressure upon the limits of a bare
subsistence. Accordingly the evidence is abundant
which proves the extreme poverty of the country,
and the frequency with which its people were ex
posed to the severest scarcity, and sometimes to
the dangers of actual famine. There are ample
sources of information which fill up all the time
between the date spoken of in Sir Walter Scott's
tale of Rob Roy and the close of the Eighteenth
1 Table of population in Walker's Hebrides, vol. i. pp. 28-9.

112 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
Century. We have the famous Letters of Captain
Burt written about 1730 by an Oflficer who was
stationed at Inverness, and traveUed often through
the Central Highlands on his way to and from the
Capital of the North. We have the Tour of Mr.
Pennant, who, in 1769 and 1772 visited not only
the mainland, but the Hebrides, and saw every
thing with the eye that belongs to the Naturalist
and the Scientific Observer. We have the syste
matic and admirable work of Professor Walker, the
result of successive journeys through every part of
the country undertaken at various intervals between
the years 1760 and 1790. We have the Statistical
Account of Scotland, organised by Sir John Sinclair
in the last decade of the Century — 1792-5 — in which
we have, all the information which occurred to the
best educated men in the country, — the Minister of
each Parish giving as complete an account as he could
of its history and of its actual condition. Lastly,
we have the Professional Reports drawm under the
direction of the Board of Agriculture about the
same time. The great advantage of aU these books
is, that they were written before many modern con
troversies had arisen, and when the view taken of
facts was unbiassed by the social theories and the
political passions of a later day. The burden of
their song is uniformly the same, and the earliest
of these writers. Captain Burt, iUustrates his
picture of the condition of the people by detaUs and
incidents which are often more instructive than any
general statements, however accurate.

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BEFORE THE DAWN. 113
There is, for example, no indication of the con
dition of industry, and of the standard of Uving, in
any country, more significant and more accessible to
observation, than the scene presented by its Market
places. If its natives have any produce at all to sell,
it must be brought to these places, and the range of
variety, of quantity, and of price to be met with
there, is an infalUble index of plenty or of want.
Inverness, though a mere village in 1730, was still
not only the most important place in the Highlands,
but the only Town existing in the country. Yet
Captain Burt's account of its Market-days is an
account of almost incredible poverty. One man
might bring under his arm a smaU roll of linen,
another a piece of coarse plaiding. Such men were
quite considerable Dealers. Others would bring two
or three cheeses of about 3 or 4 lb. weight. A kid
sold for sixpence, or eightpence at the best. SmaU
quantities of butter, tied up in bladders, were set
down in the dirt of the street. Here were a few
goat-skins — there a piece of wood for a cart-wheel.
The price of such articles when sold was spent by
the natives in purchasing a horn, or a few wooden
spoons, or a wooden platter, or some such rude
plenishing for their huts. One Highlander might be
seen near eating a large onion without salt or bread
— another gnawing a carrot — or other such vegetable
rarities, none of which were then produced in the
country.^ Nor can we encourage the sentimental
comfort that although little was sold, yet plenty
- Burt's Letters, vol. i. (ed. 1876) pp. 83-4.

114 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
was produced, everything being consumed at home.
Poverty in marketable surplus is an infallible indica
tion of a corresponding poverty in home consumption,
and in home production. Where there is habitually
Uttle or no surplus, not even a bare sufficiency can
ever be secure. There may be years of plenty ; but
there are quite sure to be many years of scarcity,
and some of famine. Accordingly, Captain Burt
teUs an anecdote " of the time of one great scarcity
here," — as if the full record of such times would
include a number. And the anecdote he does teU of
that one time, brings pathetically before us the tre
mendous difference between that kind of destitution
which aflPects individuals alone from the want of
money, and that other kind of destitution which
aflPects a whole people from the want of food. A
woman came to the wdfe of the Ofl&cer in command
at Fort- William, imploring her to get for her a single
peck of oatmeal from the Military Stores, to save her
chUdren from starvation. But even the MUitary
Stores were at a low ebb, from the impossibUity of
buying meal in the country, and the detention of
some expected vessels. The poor woman was there
fore oflPered a shUling as a mark of sympathy. After
looking at it for a moment, she burst into tears —
laid the useless coin down — and exclaimed, "Madam,
what am I to do with this ? my chUdren cannot eat
it." The peck of meal was given to her, and Cap
tain Burt says he never saw such joy. But what
must have been the condition of the people who
were not near any Military Stores, and had no

BEFORE THE DAWN. 1 1 5
importing vessels to look to when storms had
passed ?
Some forty years had elapsed from that date to
the date of Pennant's Tour. There was no change
for the better. The use of Potatoes had extended,
and the manufacture of Kelp had become universally
estabhshed wherever the materials existed. But
population had pressed hard on the heels of every
new resource. During even a portion of that
interval — during even one quarter of it — the
number of mouths to be fed had in many Parishes
increased not by dozens, or by scores, but by
hundreds. The consequences were what might
have been expected where there had been absolutely
no corresponding advance in the knowledge or
practice of a higher agriculture. Pennant saw
poverty everywhere, with scarcity at the very doors.
In the great and fertUe Island of Islay he saw " a
people worn dovm with poverty " — raising wretched
crops of Bear, and " drinking more of it in the form
of whiskey than eating of it in the form of bannocks."
In their smoky cabins "pot-hooks hung from the
middle of the roofs, with pots pendent over a
grateless fire, fiUed with fare that might rather be
caUed a permission to exist than a support of
vigorous life" — the inmates lean, withered, dusky,
and smoke-dried. Notwithstanding the exceUency
of the land, above £1000 worth of meal was annually
imported. A famine was threatened at the time
of his visit, but was prevented by the seasonable
arrival of a meal-ship.^ Of the Island of Rum he
1 Pennant's Tour, 1771 (ed. 1776), Part I. pp. 261-2.

1 1 6 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
wrote that the people were a well-made, well-look
ing race, but carried famine in their aspect."^ Of
Skye ^ he said that the produce of the crops was
very rarely " in any degree " proportioned to the
wants of the inhabitants. Golden seasons had
happened, when they had superfluity. But "the
years of famine were as ten to one."^ It is nearly
the same story everywhere. In Sutherland he
found the people almost torpid with idleness and
most wretched, the whole tract seeming the very
" residence of sloth." UntU famine pinched, they
would not bestir themselves ; but crowds were pass
ing when he was there, emaciated wdth hunger, to
the eastern coast, on the report of a ship being there
loaded with meal.^
In aU descriptions written by an English stranger
some allowance is to be made on account of the much
higher standard of Uving to which he was accus
tomed among the agricultural population of the
South. As regards certain particulars, this aUow-
ance may be large ; as, for example, when such
strangers speak with horror and disgust of the
Highland huts and hovels with no chimneys, the
fire made in the middle of the floor ; or when, in
respect to food, the people are described as repair
ing to the shores to live on shell-fish. Such houses
were not very much poorer than those which the
Chiefs themselves had iahabited only a few years
before ; whUst the habitual use of sheU-fish as one
1 Pennant's Tour, 1771 (ed. 1776), Part I. p. 319.
2 Ibid. p. 353. 3 Ibid. p. 365.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 1 1 7
article of diet was no evil at all, and had certainly
descended by unbroken usage from prehistoric times.
SheU-fish are now among the luxuries most enjoyed
by the most comfortable artisans in our largest Towns.
To be driven to Uve upon sheU-fish almost exclusively
is, however, a very different condition of things. On
the other hand, we must remember that this low
standard of dwellings and of food, as compared with
the same classes in the South, is part of the case
which illustrates and establishes the dangerous
position of the Highland people up to the close of
the Eighteenth Century, when, in the face of such
poverty, they were nevertheless increasing at the
rate which has been shown. Moreover, we have
such evidence as that of Pennant more than con
firmed by men from whose language no deduction
whatever can be made on account of their being
strangers, or on the ground of unfamUiarity with
traditional and poor conditions of habitation, or of
food. The truth is, that the language of Pennant,
spoken of the years preceding 1772, faUs far short
of the descriptions — although less eloquent and sen
sational in form — which are given of some following
years by the native Ministers, whose invaluable
Reports constitute the First Statistical Account.
Only ten years after Pennant's Tour, in 1782-3,
there was a great faUure of the Oat and Bear crop
aU over Scotland, and the scarcity told, of course,
with double severity in the Highlands. Thus, even
in Easter Ross, a district comparatively fertUe, the
Minister reports that the resources of the sea in

118 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
fish, and especially in sheU-fish, were the main sup
port of the people in his own Parish of Fearn, and
in all the neighbouring Parishes ; "so that hundreds
of men and women, with their horses, were seen
daily coming home with great burdens and loads of
the best cockles." But bad as this was, it was
better than forty years before, when (in 1740),
many people were starved to death. -^ The same
Minister, writing in 1791, declares that the terrible
year of 1781 was only the beginning of a series of
bad seasons, which had then continued ever since,
so that nothing like a good crop had been raised
among them during the ten intervening years. ^
Another Minister in the same County says that the
scarcity of 1782 had impaired the constitution of
some of the poor for the rest of their life.^ From
Orkney we hear that in some "late bad years"
the people lived very miserably, mostly upon milk
and cabbage, although none had actuaUy died.*
But within the memory of then living men, in
1739-41, the years had been so bad that many had
died of want.* In Mull the memory had survived
of a terrible famine about a hundred years before,
in the reign of WUliam in., which had almost
depopulated the whole Parish. On one extensive
Une of shore only two families had survived.*'
The great interest of these facts Ues in this,
that they reveal a principle and a law. A people
1 Old Stat. Ace, vol. iv. p. 300. 2 /j^^; „ 299.
3 lUd. vol. i. p. 262. 4 jt,i^ ^0] xj.^, p 332.
6 Ibid. p. 319. 6 /j,-^_ p 188.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 119
which has little or nothing to sell is quite sure
to be a people liable at times to have little or
nothing to eat. It is a common sentiment to
admire the olden times, and the primitive condi
tions in w^hich smaU communities lived for them
selves only, consumed aU that they produced,
and produced only what they could consume. But
though this is a common, it is nevertheless an ignor
ant sentiment. Where there is no surplus, there
can be no storage, no saving,, no accumulation.
And where there is none of these there can be no se
curity against the vicissitudes of the seasons. The
production must be without knowledge, and the
consumption without foresight. It would be pre
sumptuous, indeed, to say that great civilised com
munities, in the possession of skill and capital, can
never be liable to famines. It is easy to imagine,
and even to specify, contingencies under which the
richest populations might be overwhelmed. If, for
example, any disease comparable in destructiveness
vdth that which in 1846 attacked the Potato,
were to attack the Wheat plant, or still more the
Cereals in general, nothing could avert a desolating
famine. It is well that we should remember such
possibilities, and that we should recognise the
dependence which they imply. But as a matter
of historical fact the prevalence of scarcities and
famines has steadUy diminished over the world in
proportion to the establishment of civilised condi
tions. And the very first of these conditions is the
working of all Producers beyond the mere getting
VOL, II. I

120 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
of a subsistence for themselves. In the making of
some surplus, and in the storing of it, or of its value,
lies the origin of Capital. Both are the direct result
of Mind — of Mind in the form of knowledge, or of
invention, or of skiU in working ; and of Mind in
the form of intention and foresight in the use
to which gains are put. A people that is consuming
almost all that it produces, can be contributing
nothing to the progress of the world, and is quite
sure to be pressing very hard and very dangerously
on the limits of its own subsistence. There may be
cases in which this is at least comparatively un
avoidable, because of the barrenness of the land
they live in, and the poverty of its resources. But
in the vast majority of cases it arises simply from
ignorance, and from mental lethargy.
The Human Species presents in this matter a great
enigma. It is the high prerogative of Man to
subdue Nature — ^by knowledge to find out her fruits,
and by skUl to cultivate and to improve them. But
whole generations, and even centuries, may pass
over particular portions of the Human Family during
which this prerogative seems to faU with them into
complete abeyance. In matters purely physical it
becomes literaUy true that seeing, they see, and do
not perceive — that hearing, they hear, and do not
understand. No suggestion, however obvious, seems
ever to occur to them. They tread upon with their
feet, and fumble in their hands, many of the most
bounteous gifts of the organic world, each one of them
with immense possibilities of development — and yet

BEFORE THE DAWN. 121
not a single hint is taken — not a single seed is sown
—not a single germ is tended. Even the slender
inheritances of former ages are hardly preserved, or
are actuaUy suflPered to fall into ruinous decay. It
is the frequency of this phenomenon that gives force
to the argument of Archbishop Whately that no
race of Man has ever risen from the lowest stages,
except by contact with some InteUigence other than,
and higher than, their own. Nor is this a question
of race. All races have exhibited this condition
during long periods of stagnant Ufe, and some of them,
too, in combination with high qualities of imagina
tive and Uvely wit. Such was the condition of the
Highlanders in respect to their knowledge of the
agricultural resources of their own country, not only
during aU the MUitary Ages, but down close to the
times in which we are now living. The detailed
accounts of it which we have from the most authen
tic sources, and that which some of us could give
from our own observation, seem reaUy to be hardly
credible. And yet it is always to be remembered
that the same thing was true of the Lowlands at an
earUer date. The Highlanders were from one to
two centuries behind in almost everything. Many
causes contributed to this — distance, language, the
habits and the usages of Celtic Feudalism.
It is, however, a great mistake to count among
these causes any natural barrenness of soU. The
Highland country is not a poor one as regards some
great natural productions. Its climate, though un
favourable for certain fruits of the earth, is pre-

122 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
eminently fitted for others, and these of a highly
valuable kind. The truth is that it yields some
such products in a rich abundance with which
few other countries can compare. The native crop
of the country is its natural Grasses, which are
luxuriant beyond description^covering with ver
dure the steepest mountains, and the loftiest table
lands, insinuating themselves among the barest
rocks, and carpeting the sandy levels along the
margins of the sea. Some parts of the country,
which have been reputed to be the poorest, and in
which the inhabitants have been most, and longest
poverty-stricken, are now well known to be naturally
the richest in the quality of their Grasses. The
Hebridean pastures are of the very finest quality.
From the earliest times aU over the Highlands the
people had been possessed of a native breed of
Cattle, and of a native breed of Sheep — domestic
animals through which these Grasses could be con
verted into the most coveted forms of human food,
the very best of meat, and the very best of cheese
and butter. Yet they did not know the methods
of breeding or of feeding, which to us now seem the
most obvious and elementary. For example, it never
occurred to the people that the over-abundant herb
age of summer could be cut and dried, so as to
furnish provender for the winter. The consequence
was that their Cattle died by thousands in every
season which was at aU severe. All the surplus
grass, which might have been made into hay, was
allowed to rot in absolute waste. Those which

BEFORE THE DAWN. 123
survived the winter , were miserably small, — not
because the breed was a bad one, or because
it was incapable of improvement, for even now
it is a favourite in the market, — but simply because
the animals were neither bred nor fed with the
sUghtest knowledge of the simplest methods.
But more than this : — strange to say, whUst no
natural hints or suggestions in the direction of im
provement seem ever to have been taken, even the
most accidental causes in the direction of decline,
were not only yielded to without resistance, but were
accepted and cherished under ridiculous arguments
and superstitions. Thus, the pressure of famine had
driven the people occasionally to resort to the bar
barous and destructive expedient of bleeding their
Cattle for the purpose of mixing blood with the pro
duce of their scanty grain, and so making cakes
more sustaining than oatmeal and water. They had
forgotten the origin of this custom, and they did
not know that it must tend to aggravate the feeble
ness and exhaustion which aflPected their animals
from poverty of winter food. The idea arose that
the Cattle were the better of being bled, and the
practice was continued when the original necessity
had ceased, I have myself spoken with men still
alive, and not of extreme age, who recoUect having
eaten those cakes when they were chUdren, and
who seemed to regret the loss of them among other
Celtic blessings which a remorseless civihsation has
swept away. The miserable size and condition of
the Highland Cattle, even when they survived the

124 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
winter at aU, is described by many writers. Captain
Burt likened them in size to "Northampton Calves."
And yet these Cattle were the only produce of the
country which was ever sent to southern markets.
They were the staple of the whole area of the
Highlands, the only produce on which the people
could depend for any surplus, or any means of
purchasing the fruits of other lands.
The same story, but with some circumstances of
special aggravation, has to be told of the treatment
in the Highlands of that other domestic animal which
constitutes one of the very chiefest resources of Man
kind. The native breed of Sheep, like the native
breed of Cattle, was small and degenerate. It is
now wholly extinct. But there seems good reason
to beUeve that it might have been improved by the
same methods which in later years made the Black
Cattle of the Highlands so exceUent and so profit
able. Sheep were never an article of sale. The
people had never discovered that any breed of Sheep
could live at large upon the mountains. They were
treated as delicate and tender animals — folded and
housed at night. In this way, of course, they were
kept in smaU flocks only, and whoUy for domestic
use. Hence, in the Highland code of honour, they
were not generaUy " lifted," or stolen, like Cattle,
which were considered always as lawful prey. The
w^ool of the Sheep was worked up into homespun
clothing, and the deficiency of milk from the half
starved Cows was eked out, as it stUl is in Italy, by
the mUk of Ewes. Yet, with all the care which such

BEFORE THE DAWN. 125
valuable uses did ensure, the care was so little allied
with knowledge, that the treatment of the Sheep was
even more ruinous and destructive than the treat
ment of the Cattle. Their pasture was the poorest,
and often at a great distance. They were folded in
summer and harvest, and housed in winter and
spring. No attention was paid to the choice of
Rams, and they were left to nature as regarded the
breeding season. Consequently the Lambs came
before the grass,— all being stinted, and many
starved. From the middle of May they were
deprived of half their mothers' milk, by separation
during the night, so that the Ewes might be milked
for human use in the morning. About the end of
June the Lambs were weaned — sometimes in a most
barbarous maimer, by tying a smaU stick across
their mouths, which not only prevented them from
sucking, but even from pasturing wdth any toler
able ease.^ No wonder that the breed decayed, —
that they were considered, perhaps erroneously, as
incapable of recovery, and were soon everywhere
supplanted by another breed, which, for some cen
turies, had been more skUfuUy treated in the Low
Country. These miserable conditions of pastoral economy,
in a country by nature pre-eminently pastoral,
explain and justify an observation made by those
who first came to examine and report upon the
Highlands. Generally, they said, the natives of
1 Agricultural Survey oj Argyllshire, 1798, p. 240. By James Mac
donald, A.M., 1811. Drawn up for the Board of Agriculture.

126 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
most countries, even the least advanced, have some
thing to teach others, — some local product in which
their own land abounds, and in the cultivation of
which they show a skill from which strangers can
learn something. But in the agriculture of the
Highlands nothing of the kind was to be found
among the people.^ They did not know how to
utilise, with even tolerable economy, the natural
and spontaneous resources of their HUls and Glens.
They treated w^ith similar simplicity even that most
ancient and immemorial gift — the cultivation of the
Cereals. The grey Oat, and the Bear, and the Rye,
which they grew, were aU of inferior sorts, and
bore every mark of having degenerated in their
hands. So little did they know that most elemen
tary of all principles in the improvement of the
fruits of the earth, — the selection of the best seed
for propagation, — that they were actually known
to select the worst, on the idea that the best
should be used as food, and that the worst was
good enough for casting into the ground. There
are a few places in the Hebrides where a light
sandy soil so drinks in the rays of the sun, and so
retains the heat, that they used sometimes to yield
a large and an extraordinary early harvest, even
from twenty to twenty -five fold. But the general
return of arable land in the Grey Oat of the country
did not average more than from three and a half to
four fold, although neither the soU nor the climate
could be blamed for this. Nowhere in Europe was
1 Walker's Hebrides, Introduction, p.. 4.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 127
equal labour bestowed on such an inconsiderable
crop.^ And to the scantiness of their harvests in
respect to quantity was added the loss constantly
arising from the diflficulty of securing them. This
was almost entirely due to the inveterate habit of
sowing so late in the spring that the grain rarely
ripened before the early autumnal gales. Further
more, the people, before the introduction of the
Potato, had not a single garden vegetable, or any
vegetable product whatever, except their grain.
Yet it was in the face of all this poverty of know
ledge, and consequent scantiness of production, that
the population was, nevertheless, increasing at the
tremendous rate which has been shown. On almost
every farm there were double, sometimes treble, or
quadruple the number of hands which were required
for the labour to be expended. And this too, in
spite of implements and methods of handling
them, which were as primitive and as wasteful as
their customs in respect to the breeding and feeding
of Cattle and of Sheep. Their Plough was a rude
machine, to which four horses, or sometimes in the
Eastern Counties, eight oxen, were yoked abreast,
and which were tended by at least three men.
One of these had the strange function of walking
backwards in front of the animals, and striking them
in the face, " to make them proceed forwards."
^ Walker's Hebrides, vol. i. pp. 212-213.
2 Ibid. vol. i. p. 123. The real object of this arrangement seems to
have been to enable the man to stop the team at a moment's notice,
lest the least check from a stone or a root might carry away the whole
rickety gear.

128 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
But this was not aU. The Plough was often preceded
by another archaic machine, caUed a Reestle, for
cutting the fibrous roots which the Plough was
incompetent to deal with. One or two more horses
were required for this, and two additional men.
Thus, from four to six horses, and from three to
five men were performing, and performing very Ul,
the work which could have been better done by
two horses and one man.^ There was thus aU over
the country a great superfluity of hands, which it
was impossible fuUy to employ, and of mouths
which it was quite as difficult adequately to feed.
There were few farms in the Highlands which
could not be equally well cultivated with one-third,
and some with one-half fewer men-servants and
horses than were actuaUy used.^ Two Parishes are
mentioned which afforded more than 500 men to the
Regiments in the American War of 1755-63, and yet
all their cultivation went on as before. In one district
of these two Parishes, of which the rent was £700,
there were 700 women, aU of necessity half idle.
The perfect simUarity between many Highland
and many Lowland Parishes, as regarded soil,
climate, and character of surface, made the con
trast all the more striking between their rural
economy in these respects. In the South, there
was no such waste of labour, no such extravagant
superfluity of horses and of hands. There the
population had become adjusted to the industry
and the known resources of the country.* Hence
1 Walker's/Teij-Wes, vol. i. p. 125 andp. 83. ^ lb. -p. 84. 3 76. p. 82.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 129
the contrast, too, between the two portions of
Scotland, in respect to the activity of the people.
The language which Sir Walter Scott puts into the
mouth of the Glasgow Bailie respecting the habitual
idleness of the Highland people, is language which
was perfectly correct as the description of an
hereditary habit, but would be wholly incorrect as
a description of any pecuUarity of race. Thousands
of the people who were so industrious in the
Lowlands were quite as much of Highland blood
as any of those who remained among the mountains.
The people in the Highlands were idle simply
because they -had little or nothing to do, and thus
idleness had become with them, as it wUl become
with aU men under Uke conditions, habitual and
hereditary. They had long been multiplying
beyond the opportunities and the caUs for labour
which could be aflPorded by the knowledge and by
the habits of the society to which they belonged.
Such was the state of things when some
acquaintance with more civUised conditions began
to stir the minds, and elevate the desires of the
Highlanders. Men returning from the more
plenteous lands in which they had fought and bled
with unsurpassed courage, discipline, and devotion,
could not but feel the nakedness of their owm
country, and the poverty of their own hereditary
modes of life. The same influence arose in number
less districts from men who went to service in the
Low Country. Restlessness, and a sense of discom
fort arose among them. They did not see any

130 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
means of improvement in their own country,
because its poverty was inseparable from those
very habits and institutions to which they them
selves had always been most devotedly attached.
On the other hand, they had seen the New World.
The men of the Forty-Second had been quartered
for many months in Albany, the Capital of the
Province of New York. There they had been the
admired of aU admirers, petted and caressed by the
old Dutch famUies who had founded the Colony, as
well as by the English settlers ; and there, among
the still uncleared forests of the Hudson, they had
taken part in happy excursions of camp life, which
must have recalled the summer Shealings of the
Highlands.-' Along with several other Highland
Regiments they had revenged the defeat of Ticon
deroga on the Heights of Abraham. New scenes,
and with them, new visions, had opened up before
them. The consequences were natural and inevitable.
Within a few years of the close of that war
in 1763, a steady stream of emigration to the
Colonies poured out from many parts of Scotland,
but especially from the Highlands. It began, as
aU important movements must begin, with the
most intelligent and educated classes — those who
had occupied the position of Tacksmen, and had
been, as it were, the oflficers and non-commissioned
officers of the Military Clans. It extended rapidly
among aU the subordinate classes of the tenantry—
1 Memoirs of an American Lady, by Mrs. Grant of Laggan, p. 57.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 131
embracing, in some places, a large number of those
who, by selling their stock, could realise a sum suf
ficient to cover the expense and to start the famUy
with some Uttle capital in America. This move
ment began about 1762, and became general and
extensive about 1770.^ Indeed, forty years before,
as early as 1722, no diflficulty had been found in
recruiting a considerable number of Highlanders at
Inverness to emigrate to Georgia. These dates are
important. Even the latest of them is before the
new system had time to operate, by which the
wasted and neglected mountains of the country
were for the first time turned to account by the
grazing of Sheep. The earliest of these dates is
long before that immense work of reclamation had
been even thought of. The movement was purely
spontaneous and instinctive, and it spread steadily
among all the most congested populations of the
Western Coasts and Islands. From Duirinish, in
Skye, between 1771 to 1790, no less than eight large
Transport Ships had saUed with Emigrants for
American settlements. They carried oflP at least
2400 souls ;^ yet so tremendous was the multiply
ing power that, in 1792, the total population of the
Parish was as great as in 1772. From GlensheU,
on the opposite mainland, the movement had been
led, in 1769 and 1773, by men who were substantial
farmers.* In the latter year it reached the remote
parish of Reay in Sutherland,* and the far Island of
1 Earl of Selkirk's Observations on Emigration, 1805, p, l7l.
2 Old Statistical Account, vol. iv. pp. 132-3.
= Ibid. vol. vii. pp. 131-3. * Ibid. p. 574.

132 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
South Uist, from which " vast numbers " are said
to have followed during the next twenty years.^
Jura and Colonsay lent their contingent at the
same time.^ The Small Isles followed a little later
—the Minister in this case speciaUy reporting that
these little fragments of a broken land were " over
stocked with people " from the fruit of early mar
riages, and an area of soil which was "able to
supply them but scantUy with the necessaries of
life."^ The parents often divided with a newly
married son their holdings, already of necessity
very small, which " reduced both to poverty and
misery." From Appin, one of the oldest seats of
the MUitary Clans, and a Parish with a very small
area of arable land as compared with the vast and
steep mountain surfaces which were then almost
useless, the emigration began in 1775, and, in
spite of it, the Minister reports, in 1790, that the
inhabitants were then so crowded that " some
relief of this sort seemed absolutely necessary."*
This was a rush indeed. Some of the Ministers
who refer to it call it a "rage." It was purely
spontaneous, and in some of its circumstances was
marked by the special characteristics of popular
waywardness and impulse. The selection made
of particular Plantations for the new home, seems
curiously capricious, but it was in reality determined
by accidents connected wdth the clannish instincts
of the race. Wherever some friends or Clansmen
' Old Statistical Account, vol. xiii. p. 298. 2 jf^i^ y„i ^ii. p. 324.
3 Ibid. vol. xvii. p. 281. 4 Jiid. vol. i. p. 488.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 133
from the same glens or Islands had happened to
precede them, there the rest followed, when they
moved at all. Thus almost each separate district
of the Highlands had its own preference. The
people of Inverness had formed an early connec
tion in Georgia. From Perthshire, Badenoch, and
Strathspey the Highland Regiments had been
largely recruited for Chatham's war against the
French, and the people of those districts of the
Central Highlands naturally resorted to the great
Province of New York, and formed Settlements on
the Delaware, the Mohawk, and the rivers of Con
necticut. Argyllshire with its Islands, Skye and
the Outer Hebrides, as also Sutherland and Ross,
all sent their earlier emigrants to North Carolina,
where they formed a Settlement noted in the
subsequent American war for its loyalty and mis
fortunes. The outbreak of that war checked the
tide of emigration during the seven years (1776-
1783) of its duration, and diverted what remained
of it, to Canada, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward's
Island. But there a home was found for those who
moved from Lochaber, Glengarry, Moydart and
some other parts of the County of Inverness.-'
The thoroughly popular nature of the movement
is curiously illustrated, moreover, by the methods
which were taken. When in any part of the
country any considerable number of people had
determined to emigrate, some leading man circu- '
lated a subscription paper, and a regular contract
1 Lord Selkirk's Observations, etc., pp. 166-7.

134 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
was entered into between the subscribers, and some
one of their own number who acted as agent and
contractor for the rest.^ The emigrants did not
generally go to any of the Lowland ports. They
did not wish to attract attention. They knew that
the movement was not favoured by those above
them. Perhaps they themselves had even a
strangely surviving feeling of miUtary desertion.
Vessels were engaged, which came round to the
soUtary bays and arms of the sea, which everywhere
sent their waters close up to the doors of the
overcrowded homes. In these the Transports
spread their saUs quietly and unobserved, and
were soon hull down on the neighbouring and
friendly Ocean. On the other side of it, as quietly
and as unobserved, they landed their invaluable
freight — spreading broadcast the seed of a noble
race over immense and fruitful lands.
It is indeed a most curious fact that when this
movement of the Highlanders first came to be
widely known it excited not only general regret,
but even general irritation and alarm. The know
ledge of it was spread by the Parochial Reports
in the Statistical Account organised by Sir John
Sinclair in 1790. These began to be published
in 1791, and continued to appear in successive
volumes during the five following years. The
Ministers who drew up those Reports were, of
course, men of very various abUities. Some of
them regarded the emigration with a passive but
' Lord Selkirk's Observations, ete, pp. 143-4.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 135
grudging resignation ; most of them with regret ;
some of them with angry denunciation, — a few
only with a clear and enUghtened estimate of
its causes and its probable results. Yet the
evidence of these men was in reality uniform and
unanimous as to the social conditions of which the
emigration was the natural and inevitable result.
They aU testified to the scanty and decreasing re
turns of the soU, to the lean and half-starved
Cattle, to the frequent returns of scarcity and
famine, and in the face of aU this, to the steady,
general, and, in some cases, enormous increase of
the population between 1755 and 1791. On the
other hand, in a limited number of Highland
Parishes, the new Tables showed a diminution.
The panic and the outcry which arose ori this dis
covery is one of the strangest phenomena of our
national history. It is all the more remarkable
when we observe that the very first volumes of
the Statistical Account showed in many Lowland
Parishes a diminution quite as great, and in some
cases very much greater. Moreover, some of the
most conspicuous of these cases of "depopulation"
were in Parishes close to Edinburgh, such as Yester,
Cramond, and Dalmeny, — cases in which the de
crease amounted to 18 and 25 per cent.^ Nay,
more — the slightest examination would have shown
that great diminution was taking place, as a rule,
in aU Parishes which were purely rural and agricul
tural. Hardly anywhere was the population in-
1 OM Statistical Account, vol. i. pp. 345, 224, 232.
VOL, II. K

136 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
creasing, except in Parishes wdth villages, towns,
manufactories, or , mines. Everywhere the first
step in agricultural reform was the division of
labour, and the consequent migration of super
numerary hands. An excellent account of this
was given by the Minister of Dalmeny, whose
Parish had been largely benefited. Subdivided
farms with bad husbandry, puny crops, and both
men and beasts almost starving, had given place to
thriving tenancies and well-fed labourers.^ Not the
slightest outcry or alarm was raised by this con
temporaneous depletion of Parishes in the Low
Country, nor was the least attempt made to combat
the reasoning by which it was so satisfactorily
explained. This diflPerence of feeling would hardly have
been rational even if it had been true that the
diminution had been the result of mere Migra
tion in one case, as compared with Emigration in
the other. It was not very wise or inteUigent to
think or feel that men moving off to our own
Colonies were less happy, or less useful to the
world than men moving off to our own Towns.
But, as a matter of fact, even this distmction was
by no means an universal characteristic of the
movement as between the Highlands and the Low
lands. The Lowland Counties during the same years
sent many Emigrants to the Colonies, whUst the
Highland Counties sent many thousand Migrants
to the great centres of industry in the south.
' Old Statistical Account, vol. i. pp. 232-233.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 137
The Highlanders were undoubtedly more attracted
than others by the possession of land, and they w^ere
notoriously less accustomed than others to con
tinuous labour. Nevertheless, Highlanders as well
as other Scotchmen had long been induced by the
high wages of the Low Country to settle in great
nmnbers there. The excitement and agitation,
therefore, which arose when men discovered that
some Highland Parishes were less crowded than they
had once been, and the complete indifference with
which the same result in Lowland Parishes was
regarded, are an indication of one of the most rapid
changes of sentiment that has ever perhaps been
exhibited by any people. Forty years earlier the
Highlanders were universally regarded in the Low
lands wdth mingled feelings of hatred and of fear.
Now they seemed to be as universally valued as
the main defence and the principal ornament of the
nation. Beyond all doubt this great change of
feeUng had a just and an honourable cause. It
arose out of the memories of Fontenoy, Ticon
deroga, and Quebec. It had been confirmed by the
known opinion of General Washington, who having
served first with the Highlanders and then against
them, carefully acted on the principle that the High
land Regiments must be confronted with special
caution as the strongest point of the British
line.^ But amidst all that was natural and praise
worthy in the outcry against Highland Emigra-
1 Marshall's Ufe of Washington, vol. iv. p. 84. (Ed. 1805.)

138 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
tion there was also an element of selfishness. It
was not right to think of the Highlands as
nothing but a recruiting-ground for soldiers, or to
think of its people as fit for no other function
than that of fighting. It was not rational to expect
that the Highland population would be long con
tented to live without any share in the growing
wealth and comfort of their countrymen in the
Lowlands. If the public had looked carefuUy into
the reports of the Parish Ministers, they would have
seen that, even as regarded the love of military
service, a great change had already set in . During the
war with France in Canada and America, the High
land Regiments had been true Clans — military bodies
exclusively Highland, alike in men and officers.
Many of the rank and file were gentlemen by birth
and by position, and aU the oflficers had personal and
local connection with the men whom they com
manded. But no such Corps had ever been, or ever
could be formed again. Even so soon as in the
subsequent war of American Independence, the
character of the Highland Regiments had begun to
change. They were no longer exclusively recruited iti
the Highlands ; and in some Parishes the Ministers
now reported, in 1791, that few recruits for foreign
service could be got. This was a change which went
on increasing. Just as in the MiUtary Ages, now
departing, it had been " broken men " out of whom
many of the old Clans had been formed, so hence
forth it was chiefly among those Highlanders who
had already left their own country, that enlistment

BEFORE THE DAWN. 139
continued to be successful. Notwithstanding the
frequency of great wars, the MUitary Ages were
coming to a close. The new institution of Standing
Armies were completely changing the nature of
MUitary service. It was no longer a pastime. It
had become a profession. Highlanders could no
longer rush oflP to short campaigns with old friends
and old companions ; and then rush back again to
Uve as before on the mUk of Ewes, on the blood of
Cattle, and on cakes of oatmeal. If they were to
move away from home permanently, or for long and
indefinite periods of time, they might as well try
for something better than the pay of a soldier, and
the monotony of a barrack. They had seen and
heard enough of higher conditions of life to make
them desirous of sharing in them.
The American War of Independence had ar
rested Emigration. But the last year of that
war, and the first of peace- — 1783 — was coincident,
as we have seen, with a terrible time of scarcity
and almost of famine. What had been called
the "rage" for Emigration naturally revived, and
in 1801-2-3 a whole fleet of Transports had been
carrying oflP loads of Highlanders from the Western
Coasts. The ignorant jealousy and alarm with
which the movement was regarded, sweUed apace.
It aflPected, almost as much as any other class,
the Proprietors of land in the Highlands. It is
a vulgar error very commonly entertained that
these early Emigrations were incited, or even
encouraged by Landowmers. They had just formed

140 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
a Society,^ of which my grandfather, John, fifth
Duke of Argyll, was the first President, fuU of
Celtic enthusiasms ; one of whose aims it was to
watch over every interest connected with the High
lands. In 1801 this Society appointed a Committee
to consider the wonderful phenomenon of the emi
gration of a half-starving people. They spoke of it
not only with sorrow, but with positive bitterness,
and suggested every kind of theoretical scheme, by
which it might be discouraged and prevented. So
keen was the sentimental and benevolent spirit
displayed, that Landowners were unjustly accused
of a desire to keep up their supply of cheap labour
for the manufacture of Kelp, or of indulging their
old pride in a multitude of idle retainers. False,
and indeed absurd, as such an accusation was, it is
at least worth remembering as an antidote to the
opposite accusation, that they were driving oflP the
people from their Estates. It is an unquestionable
fact, that at this early period the Landowners of
the Highlands and Islands disliked the Emigra
tions, and did not fully comprehend the meaning
or the causes of them. That meaning lay
deeper than anything of which they were con
scious. Sheep-farming had indeed begun, but it
had not reached many of the , Highland Parishes
from which the Emigration was most copious and
persistent. Neither had it reached, nor did it ever
' The Highland and Agricultural Society, an admirable body, which
has ever since exercised a salutary influence on the progress of Agricul
ture, not only in the Highlands, but all over Scotland.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 141
reach, many of the Lowland Parishes which Migra
tion had depopulated with even greater sweep.
And yet, however unconsciously, the Proprietors
of land had long been contributing gradually and
SteadUy to the great change which led irresistibly
to these movements of the people. They had made
this contribution in every step they had taken to
wards a higher civilisation — when they began to
think of increasing the produce of the soil — when
they ceased to give farms to men who knew
nothing of farming — when they sent forth their
own sons and kinsmen to oflficer the Army and
the Navy, or to serve the Crown as Governors
and Founders of the Colonies — when they abolished
or commuted Services at home — when they granted
Improvement Leases — when they persuaded their
Tenants no longer to cast lots every year, each
man for patches of arable ground no bigger than
a tablecloth — when they built enclosures — when
they showed their people how^ to make hay, and
how to improve their Cattle, and how to manure
their land, and how to alternate their crops. There
is such a deep-seated and searching Unity in
Nature, which includes the Mind of Man and the
habits of Society — that not one single new idea, or
one single new desire, can be introduced or foUowed
without carrying with it a host of consequences.
Every one of these steps in the path of new duties
and of new inclinations, tended to break up an old
world, and to usher in another which was different
in everything. One Highland Minister pathetically

142 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
epitomised it all. He complained that the people
in his Parish, round their peat fires, instead of dis
cussing, as of old, feuds and deeds of war, were now
tamely discussing how they could better tend their
Sheep, and improve their wool.'^ But as yet the
Proprietors did not see the inevitableness of the
results which were typified by the lessening sails of
Transport Ships, as their topmasts disappeared
behind the waves into the splendours of the West.
And so their Committee talked of the "malignant"
spirit of Emigration as if it were hardly less vricked
than Military Desertion. They even succeeded in
persuading the Government of the day to pass an
Act which, under the guise of sanitary regulations
as to food and ventilation in ships, was strongly,
though perhaps unjustly, suspected of an intention
to prevent it. Lord Selkirk, who favoured emigra
tion, speaks in his Work upon the subject, of the
"jealous antipathy " against it which he found " in
the minds of the more considerable Proprietors
of the Highlands."^ It was in this spirit that
the Committee of the Highland Society drew up
their Reports in 1802 and 1803. And yet in
that very document they showed their complete
knowledge of the fundamental fact on which
everything depended. The first cause to which
they attribute the Emigration is " such an increase
of population as the country in its present situa
tion, and with a total want of openings for the
' Old Statistical Account, vol. iv. p. 576.
^ Observations, etc., 1805, p. ISO.

BEFORE THE DAWN. 143
exertion of industry, cannot support."^ Every
other cause was a mere consequence of this one
cause — which was in itself aU-embracing and all-
sufficient. It was not peculiar to the Highlands,
but was operating quite as powerfully in every
Lowland Parish under like conditions. Only, in
the Islands and Western Highlands the stream
had been pent up longer, and was overflowing
with a rush. One simple explanation — one great
natural analogy — wovdd have spared the Committee
aU their sorrow. A great Hive was swarming.
Chiefs and Landowners, Field Marshals, Poets, and
PhUosophers were standing round the " Skep,"
gaping, staring, wondering, and scolding, at the
naughty instinct of the Bees.
' Observations, etc., p. 137.

CHAPTER III.
THE BURST OF INDUSTRY.
There is one scene in Scotland which, more than
any other, groups within a single landscape so
many features identified with the history of the
Country and of the Nation, that there is hardly an
age in all its Past, which has not some striking
memorial in sight. It is the scene lying aU around
that reach of the Firth of Clyde which not very
many years ago was the site of a small fishing
village, and is now occupied by the Quays, the
Harbour, and Roadstead of Greenock. Splendid
as the view is on a clear day, it is not less remark
able on account of the immense variety of interests
which belong to all its features. The hUls that
sweep round from West to North, falling steeply
into the Firth along its opposite shores, are the
southern extremity, or escarpment, of the High
land mountains. From these shores they stretch
without a break, except their own glens and fissures,
to the boundary line between Sutherland and Caith
ness. There is good reason to believe that these
mountains, although very far from being among the
highest, are among the oldest in the world — older

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 145
than the Alps, or the Pyrenees, or the Apennines in
Europe, — older than the great range of the Hima-
layah in the Asiatic Continent. The Geologist must
ever regard them with curiosity, as suggesting many
hard questions in his science, which have not yet
been solved. The sudden depression in this line of
Hills, which is a conspicuous feature in the land
scape immediately opposite to Greenock, marks the
boundary line of the Grampian ranges towards the
East, — a line which runs almost straight from that
depression on the Clyde to the North-East Coast
of Scotland at Stonehaven. These are interests
which concern not the Nation but the Land, and
carry us back to times before the birth even of the
" everlasting hiUs."
Turning our eyes now^ up the course of the River
Clyde every feature in the landscape is crowded
with human memories. In the farther perspective
we see the point at the foot of the KUpatrick Hills,
where the soldiers of Agricola terminated the line
of Forts which then was, and long continued to be,
the northern boundary of the Roman Empire. Fifty-
six years later the same Une was occupied by the
continuous Wall of Antoninus Pius.^ In all history
there is perhaps no more striking contrast than the
blaze of light which shines upon that Wall and on
those who buUt it, as compared with the profound
darkness that encompasses the Tribes against whom
it was erected. We know, indeed, that our ances
tors were brave, and that they were formidable even
^ Irving's History of Dumbartonshire, ch. i.

146 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
in the eyes of Rome. We know that they were
defeated, but by no means easily defeated, in open
battle with the Mistress of the World, against
whom they fought with Chariots and with Horse
men ; nay, more — we know that although they lost
in the battle, they won in the campaign. Agricola
retired from their country into the Province he had
gained and fortified. Yet some of them seem to
have been so savage that Gibbon sees no reason to
doubt the story that they were cannibals. ' This,
however, is a story of events later by about 280
years than the battles of Agricola. It is the story
of a mercenary Tribe in the pay of Rome and trans
ported into Gaul. Time does not always mellow
or improve. Sometimes it develops Savagery. It
certainly did so among the Ctesars during the same
time. The brutal cruelty of Valentinian is not a
greater contrast with the virtue and wdsdom of
Marcus Aurelius and of Antoninus Pius, than the
alleged cannibalism of the Attacotti, with the noble
eloquence ascribed to Galgacus. The condition of
the Tribes he led, remains a mystery. Of their habits,
of their manners, of their polity, of their habitations,
and of their dress, we know practically nothing, or
so little, that it all seems equally perplexing and
inconsistent. We cannot beUeve that the Cale
donian Chief really addressed his army before the
battle of the Mons Grampius in a speech the least
like that which is pvit into his mouth by Tacitus.''
1 irving's History of Dumbartonshire, ch. i. ]). G; and Gibbon's Decte
ajid Fall, ch. xxv. 2 Xacitus's Life of Agric

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 147
It bristles with epigram, and with the results of
phUosophic reflection. It expresses these results in
words so vigorous and terse that one of its sentences
has, through aU later ages, become proverbial.^ In
short it is a speech breathing the most cultivated
eloquence of Rome. Yet neither, on the other
hand, can we believe that Tacitus would have put
such a speech into the mouth of Galgacus, if that
Chief had been known to be a Savage. We are
left, therefore, in darkness that can be felt. On the
other hand, of the people who buUt that Wall from
the Clyde to the Forth, and whose dominion ex
tended southwards to the PUlars of Hercules, we
may be said to know everything in the most minute
detaU. Such is the power of Literature. The con
trast is aU the more striking when we remember
that this was the epoch when the Roman Empire
was at its best. The well-known and splendid
panegyric of Gibbon represents the age of the
Antonines as the Golden Age of the whole Roman
world. Remembering these things, this land
scape on the Clyde acquires a special interest.
Looking at the KUpatrick HiUs we can see, in
imagination at least, the Standards of the Sixth
and of the Second Legions covering the men
who worked at that famous Rampart. Nor are
surviving monuments wanting to fill up the
picture. The artificers and the artists of Rome
have everywhere left some lasting records of their
sense and feeling for the Empire which they served.
1 " Omne ignotum pro magnilieo."

148 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
When the Engineers of our own day were set to
join the Clyde and Forth by a Canal, they found
that they could do no better than follow the Wall
of Antonine. At frequent intervals the pick and
the spade struck upon its foundation stones. Here
and there some massive Tablet told how many
thousand paces had been accomplished by each
laborious Legion. Occasionally, too, some sculpture
more elaborate and more beautiful than the rest,
embodied the natural feelings of satisfaction and of
pride with which the Roman Generals regarded
every extension of the Imperial dominion. Such
were the Tablets found at KUpatrick, representing
Winged Victories in majestic attitudes of triumph
and of repose.^
A very little nearer to us than the foot of the
KUpatrick Hills, and seen against them — at the
junction of the Leven with the Clyde — rises another
featme in the landscape inseparable from the history
of Scotland — the great Rock Fortress of Dumbarton.
There could not be a more striking symbol of the
passage from Roman to Mediaeval times. It is not
certain whether it was or was not included within
the WaU of Antonine. This uncertainty is itself
significant. It arises from the fact that Rock For
tresses were despised by Rome. They did not enter
into her military system. Roving tribes and rude
barbarians had need of natural Strengths. But
1 Three Sculptured Stones, one of great beauty, are engraved in
Irving's History of Dumbartonshire, p. 11, and are preserved in the Museum
of Glasgow.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 149.
Rome had none. If a Roman General wdshed for
some sudden hollow for the purpose of fortification,
he did not hunt for a ravine ; he dug it with the
spade ; he made a Fossa. If he wished for some
Steep around his position, he did not go out of his
way to find a precipice. He threw up a Vallum, or
he buUt a WaU. The lofty rock, therefore, which
the southern Celts or Britons of Strathclyde made
the capital of their territory, — which they called
" Alcluid," and which, in another Celtic dialect, has
since been called after them, " Dun-briton," — does
not seem to have been valued or thought of by
Agricola or by Antonine. If they included it at all
in their lines, it was for the purpose of covering
a ford across the Clyde, which at that time would
have given easy access to the Imperial Province
on the southern bank. But when the Romans
retired, the great "Dun "of the Strathclyde Britons
resumed its military importance. Its very name
reminds us of the mixture of races from which we
spring. For centuries it was one of the Strengths
of the Scottish Kingdom — captured and recaptured
— used alternately as a retreat, as a palace, and as
a prison. More than once it was both of these in
the pathetic career of Mary Queen of Scots. It was
to gain its friendly shelter that in May 1568 she set
out from HamUton to the fatal battle of Langside ;
and it had been from the short grassy slope which
dips into the river on the western face, that twenty
years before, in her early chUdhood (1548), wdth her
attendant " Four Maries," she had been carried into

150 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
the Barge which bore her oflP to be the Bride of
France. It is not easy for us now to realise the
importance which in those days was set on the Rock
Fortress of Dumbarton. Another revolution in mili
tary science, quite recent, has brought us back to
the sentiment of the Romans. In the face of our
new Artillery, Hill Forts have lost their value. But
in the Seventeenth Century the dearest interests of
the future were concerned in the possession of that
precipitous mass of volcanic rock. Scotland was
a special scene of contest between the Catholic
Reaction and the interests of the Reformed all over
Europe. It was through Scotland that the attack
could best be made on "Great EUzabeth." The'
House of Guise was encouraged when they heard
that Dumbarton was held for Mary. The English
Queen wrote personal letters of congratulation when
she heard it was captured for James vi.^ John Knox,
in the last year of his life and in physical decay,
which left untouched his indomitable spuit, heard
wdth joy of the daring escalade of Crawford of Jordan-
hill, by which it feU to the Protestant cause in 1571.
This, however, is not by any means the only or
even greatest historic memory which is recalled by
the same prospect up the VaUey of the Clyde. There
is another time, much earlier and much more noble
in all the influences it has left. Again, a little
nearer to us than Dumbarton, on the declivity of
the hUls of Cardross, which here form the right bank
of the Leven, King Robert the Bruce chose his place
' Irvmg's History of Dumbartonshire, \\ 132.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 151
of residence during the last years of his glorious
reign. There he spent his time governing his King
dom, now and again hunting and hawking, or sailing
and rowing in his royal Galley on the two beautiful
and then unsulUed rivers which flowed — one on each
side — beneath his Castle waUs. The high but flat-
topped ridges of the KUpatrick HUls, the rocky
precipices of Dumbarton, and the far-off blue sum
mit of Benlomond, formed the scene on which King
Robert looked when he sickened prematurely under
the weight of a memorable life, and when dying he
bequeathed his heart to be carried to the Holy
Land, in the pathetic scene recorded in verse by
.Barbour, and by Froissart in prose not less poetic.^
The long and troubled Centuries which followed
the death of Bruce — the relapse of a large part of the
Kingdom into comparative barbarism — the ferocious
Epoch of the Clans — -have each and all their memo
rials in the scene before us. The whole length of
shores opposite to Greenock are those of the old
Province of the Lennox, half Highland, half Low
land, full of the sites on which Celtic Feudalism
yielded, slowly but steadily, to the higher Feudalism
of CivUisation and of Law. It so happens that
immediately frontiag Greenock there is one feature
in the physical geography of the country which
stands in sad connection with the close of that
struggle. The high ridge which slopes somewhat
steeply into the Firth of Clyde is backed by
another ridge, in some lights hardly separate, but
1 Froissart's Chronicles, chap. xx.
VOL. II. L

152 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
which on a clear day is seen to be higher and steeper
than the nearer summit. This division between two
parallel ranges marks the hollow in which lies Glen-
fruin. Although so close to one of the great centres
of our modern life, few wilder or more solitary Glens
are to be found in all the Highlands. It was in
this Glen that on the 7th February 1603 was fought
the last of the savage and bloody battles of the
Clans.-' The Colquhouns of Luss were beaten and
decimated in resisting a blood-feud raid of the Clan
Gregor. The horror of the scene was brought home
to the rising civilisation of the Lowlands not only
by the death of several gentlemen of distinction from
the valley of the Leven, near Dumbarton, amongst
whom was Tobias SmoUet, ancestor of the novehst,
but also by the butchery in cold blood of some
student lads and boys of that Burgh who had been
induced from curiosity to watch the fight. ^ There
can be no more curious contrast than that between
the prospect from the nearer summit, then, and the
prospect from it, now. On the northern side lie the
deep shadows and the wild but peaceful pasturages
of Glenfruin. On the southern side lie the reclaimed
fields of modern agriculture, and all the various and
busy industries of the Clyde.
And yet even this contrast is less striking and
less instructive than the change — the transformation
— which was wrought as if by magic, in the character
of the celebrated Clan which on that and on many
1 Irving's History of Dumbartonshire, pp. 147-50.
The doubt which has been cast on this ghastly story seems to me to
be dispelled by the evidence. Ibid. p. 150.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY, 153
previous occasions had been pre-eminent in ferocity.
Sentiment is an excellent thing. It is indeed the
salt of the world— the cheap defence of nations.
But Sentiment may be bad as well as good ; and then
if the Ught that is in us be darkness, that dark
ness is intense ! It is a bad sentiment, and not a
good one, that can make any man look back with
sympathy to the Epoch of the Clans. Sentiment —
deep and even enthusiastic — may well be felt for those
changes in our national history which broke down
that Epoch, and which brought back the character
and the genius of Highlanders within the advancing
influences of our national civUisation. They soon
showed that there they had a part — and a great
part — to play. And perhaps never was there a case
of it more signal than the case of the Clan Gregor.
James vi. was shocked and scandalised, as well he
might be, by this massacre in Glenfruin, occurring
as it did in a part of his native Kingdom where it
could not be concealed, and just at the moment
when he was mounting the throne of England.^ The
Clan Gregor were proscribed and pursued as a
Blood and as a Race, in a manner hardly less savage
than their own slaughter of the Colquhouns,
Yet it was not their race nor their blood, but the
system under which they lived, which had made them
savage. The Savage is close under the skin with all
of us. Our humanity and our civUisation depend
entirely on our inherited ideas — on our loyal accept-
^ Queen Elizabeth's death took place on the 24th of March 1603 —
or forty-five days after the massacre of Glenfruin.

154 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
ance of them — and on these ideas being themselves
consistent with the historical developments of an
advancing Commonwealth. The Clan Gregor, like
other Clans, had been taught to believe that the
robbery of Cattle was not immoral. The Robber Clans,
when they condescended to reason or to think at all
on such matters, had a theory of their own. Cattle in
Scotland had originally been an indigenous animal.
They said that God made the Cattle — that He also
made the grass upon the hills, and therefore their
conclusion was that Cattle — the very earliest form of
human property — could not be considered as rightful
property at all.^ The strongest might always take
it, and those who defended it could only hold it by
success in battle. This theory is not perhaps quite
so incoherent as the modern form of it which apphes
the same reasoning to property in land, but shrinks
from applying it to property in the produce. The
old Highland Reivers, on the contrary, applied it
only to the produce, and did not think of apply
ing it to the soil from which the produce came.
Anarchical doctrines and slovenly reasonings —
when not translated into deeds — were little re
garded in those days. But the doings of the Clan
Gregor in Glenfruin were a little too tangible to be
suflPered. Their own methods were the only methods
which Society could take to confound their doc
trines. And so, however cruelly, yet with the
universal consent of aU, they were proscribed, and
their very name forbidden. But their dispersion,
1 MS. Brit. Mus. 1748.

THE BURST OP INDUSTRY. 155
and the transplantation of many of them into
another country and another atmosphere of custom
and opinion, proved but the beginning of a nobler
reputation. In the Church, in the Army, and in
the Civil Professions, Macgregor has long been,
and is now, a familiar and an honoured name. But
there is one branch of the old Clan Alpine which
more than any other has exhibited the qualities of
a reclaimed and ennobled Race. Here, again, the
rights of legal Ownership proved to be the suc
cessful remedy for the Ulegal powers, and the dan
gerous influences of " Chiefery." The Earl of Murray
transplanted three hundred of the proscribed Mac
gregors from Menteith, and settled them as a
barrier against another turbulent Clan, the Mack
intoshes, in Aberdeenshire.^ There, under the
name of Gregory, these descendants of the Clan
Alpine gave birth not only to some, biit to a whole
galaxy of the most distinguished men that Scotland
has produced. One of them was the friend of Sir
Isaac Newton, and among the earUest teachers of
his PhUosophy. Another of them was the Patri
arch of a whole dynasty of Professors of the highest
scientific and literary distinction in several of the
Universities, both of Scotland and of England.
One of them was the inventor of the Reflecting Tele
scope. Another was at the head of the Medical Pro
fession in Edinburgh, when Society there was at
its best, and where, from the combination of many
charms of genius and of virtue, he reigned supreme
"¦ Sir Walter Scott's Introduction to Rob Boy.

156 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
as the "Beloved Physician." With one of the last
of this distinguished family I had the honour of being
intimate in early life — the late Dr. WiUiam Gregory,
Professor of Chemistry in the University of Edin
burgh — a man of the utmost refinement of character,
and of the most liberal and cultivated mind.
The continuity of our national history is not less
remarkable than its changes, and this characteristic
is not less visibly represented in the scene before
us. In looking at the mountains which enclose
Glenfruin, we are looking at a district which is still
the property of the Colquhouns of Luss. There
they have been — traceable without a break — for
some 700 years, ^ and there they are at the present
day. The thriving Town of Helensburgh, which
stretches its gardened VUlas up the slope of the
hill leading to Glenfruin, is built upon land
acquired and held from the Colquhouns by feudal
Charters, granted under the rights and powers on
which property has rested in Scotland since before
the days of Malcolm Canmore.
And now letting our eyes fall from the hUls in
front of us, to rest upon the broad water at our feet,
there can be no doubt of the multitude of objects
which are representative of the latest developments
of our national life. We are standing in the birth
place of James Watt, and w^e have before us, in all
their amplitude, the triumphs of his genius, and of
the genius of his successor, Henry Bell. There is
^ See The Chiefs of Colquhoun and their Country, by WUliam Fraser,
C.B., LL.D. Edinburgh, 1869.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 157
not a sight or a sound among the many which fill
the eye and the ear from one of the greatest com
mercial centres of the world, which is not a monu
ment, direct or indirect, to the memory of these two
men — of Watt, who, in 1765, by the inspiration of
one new idea, which flashed upon him on the Green
of Glasgow, that of the "Separate Condenser,"^
started the Steam-engine on the path of its immense,
and yet unfulfilled developments ;¦ and of Bell, who
on these waters, in 1812, was the first in Europe to
apply it to the purposes of Locomotion. It does in
deed seem almost incredible, when we remember that
there are men not only now living, but keeping a
front place in the contests of active life, who were
born several years before a single steam-vessel had
moved in British Waters. It is but seventy-four
years ago since the ' ' Comet " was launched by Bell
upon the Clyde, whUst now its harbours and its
bays are crowded with Liners who keep up com
munication with America more frequently — more
regularly — and with more safety — than sailing ferry
boats then kept up communication with the neigh
bouring Sea-lochs of Dumbarton and ArgyU.
But the shipping and the harbour of Greenock
are the standing memorials of another ejaoch in our
national history which preceded the epoch of Watt
and Bell, and in which the way was prepared be
fore them. That was the epoch of the Legislative
Union in 1707. The Union of the Crowns in 1603
had put an end to such horrors as the massacre of
1 Smiles's Lives of Boulton and Watt. 1865, pp. 127-8.

158 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
Glenfruin. But it was not until after the Union of
the Legislatures in 1707, that such sights of commer
cial enterprise as that presented by the Clyde were,
or could be seen. I have already observed upon the
greatly exaggerated importance often ascribed to
the defeat of the Jacobite RebeUion of 1745. On
the other hand, as an Epoch, the Legislative Union
with England, accompUshed in 1707, is almost as
immensely undervalued. It was not only the be
ginning, but it was the one indispensable foundation,
of all the later progress of Scotland in industry and
in wealth. The Clyde bears witness to this truth with
a loud voice. The only foreign commerce which
Scotland enjoyed before the Union was some tradi
tional and old-standing trade with France and
Flanders. A stringent Navigation Law had been
passed by the Scottish Parliament just after
the Restoration, in 1661, which proceeded on a
preamble that trade and navigation had terribly
declined during the CivU Wars, and it is remark
able that one of the clauses of this Act confesses
that Scotland had then no shipping to pro
tect in any Trade with any part of Asia, Africa,
or America, nor, in Europe, with Russia or Italy.^
Not very much of the Avorld was left to us
after these subtractions. All the vast and grow
ing Donnnions and Plantations of the British
race in India and in the New World were under
the Government of the English Parliament.
' Act. Pari. Scot., vol. vii. p. 258 (I Carol, n. c. 277).

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 159
Commerce at that time was universally regulated
by the accepted doctrines of restriction and
monopoly. Scotland was as jealously excluded
from the privileges of EngUsh merchants and of
English shipowners, as if she were, as in deed
she was, a foreign country. In her own protecting
Navigation Law of 1 661 she had, indeed, oflPered free
trade with England and with Ireland, provided the
privilege were made reciprocal.^ But her compara
tive poverty, and the smallness of her demand, did
not commend this to the English as an equal bargain.
On the other hand, Scotchmen had an aptitude, and
even a genius for commercial pursuits which had
begun to appear in every direction. The Bank of
England was founded by a Scotchman — WUUam
Paterson ; — and it was in the desperate eflPorts of
Scotland to get some outlet for her rising spirit of
enterprise that her ParUament and people were led,
in 1695, by the same remarkable man, to throw
themselves with enthusiasm into the famous Darien
scheme. Founded on the most enlightened com
mercial principles, and intended to open and to
establish a new Trade Route to the Indies which wUl
be one of the triumphs of our own day, this great
scheme of a Scotchman, who was far in advance of
his time, was thwarted and ruined — as it seemed,
entirely by the jealousy of England. Her Parlia
ment and her commercial Companies opposed it
vrith passionate resentment, and pointed with horror
to the prospect of Scotland becoming a Free Port for
1 Act. Pari Scot, vol. vii. p. 258 (1 Carol, ii. c. 277).

160 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
half the commerce of the world. Yet only one-half
of the Capital Stock w^as to be held by Scotchmen.
The other half was open to Englishmen, and a
large amount of it was actually subscribed, and
held by them. This, however, did not concihate
the English Parliament. Narrow and odious as
its spirit seems to us now, it is impossible to
read the Scotch Act of Parliament^ establish
ing this great new East India Company, and
especially the liberal and enlightened regulations
for free trade with all nations promulgated at
the Settlement,^ wdthout seeing that Scotland and
England could no longer work together without
either a more complete union, or a more complete
separation. Two immense MonopoUes trading by
opposite routes with the same markets, — contending
with each other on every Ocean, — ^jealously sepa
rate in destinations which were nevertheless geogra
phically united — and both these Monopolies entitled
to the protection- of common forces under a com
mon Crown, — could not possibly have been worked
together. The thing was impracticable. Every de
tail was as full of difficulties and incongruities as
the principle of the whole. The drawing of strict
fiscal lines between Scotchmen born and living in
Scotland and Scotchmen born or living in England,
when every day made the passage and the inter
course of the two populations more easy and con
tinual, was Uke drawing straight lines in water.
1 Act Pari Scot., vol. ix. p. 277 (I Will, iii., c. 10).
2 See Life of Paterson in Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen, vol. iv. p. 108.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 161
A complete union or a complete quarrel were the
only alternatives. Scotland would have to return
to her old historic alliance with France, hostile to
England, or the two nations must admit themselves
to be one.
It is well to remember how narrowly we
escaped from the wrong alternative. The pas
sionate jealousy in England of any rivalry in
trade,— the supreme power exercised by the spirit
of monopoly over the English government, — tl|ie
ruinous losses inflicted on Scotland by the failure
of the Darien Settlement, — all so exasperated the
national feeUng in Scotland, that at last in 1703-4
the two Parliaments were actually takmg measures
for arming against each other.-^ The Scottish Legis
lature went the length of passing an Act provid
ing that on the death of the reigning Sovereign,
Queen Anne, the next Sovereign of Scotland must
not be the successor to the English Crown, un
less previous to that event some more satisfactory-
security had been obtained for the Uberties and
interests of the Scottish nation.^ To this they were
driven by the logic of necessity. The bond of
Union, through the Crown alone, was proving under
trial to be no bond at aU. Or, if it was a bond at
all, it was a bond which tied their hands in fight
for the interests of their country. Their King, sur
rounded by English Ministers, and swayed by the
feeUngs of the EngUsh Capital, had responded cor-
^ De Lolme's Essay on the Union, 1787, p. 19.
2 Act Pari Scot., vol. xi. p. 136 (2 Qu. Anne, cap. 3).

162 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
dially to the most outrageous expressions of hos-'
tUity against the Scotch on the part of the English
House of Commons ; ^ nay more, he had used his
Prerogative in Scotland in the same sense. He
dismissed his Scotch Ministers, who had the con
fidence of the Nation, because they promoted the
Trade and Commerce of their country.^ William's
part had been, no doubt, a difficult one to play. His
relations with the Dutch, as well as his position in
England, embarrassed him in dealing with the bold
attempt of his Scottish subjects to rival both in the
commerce of the Indies.' Chiefly, however, it was
international jealousy, fast rising into international
hatred, between his Southern and his Northern
Subjects in Britain, which determined his conduct.
The nearer, the wealthier, and the more powerful of
the two carried the day. Yet nothing can justify the
vindictive and almost savage orders which had been
issued by the English Government to aU the Gover
nors of Plantations in America and in the West
India Islands, that they were not, on any account, to
succour or support the emigrants from Scotland to
the Darien Settlement. This order might have en
dangered, and in the sequel did actuaUy endanger,
the lives of many of the most loyal of William's sub
jects, as a penalty upon them for undertaking, not
only a lawful, but a most meritorious enterprise.
It was also a direct invitation to foreign enemies, and
1 Ufe of William Carstares, p. 250. By Rev. R. H. Story, 1874.
2 Dalrymple's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 132.
' See the explanation given in a Paper, purporting to be vrritten by
King William, in Story's Ufe of Carstares, p. 251.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 163
particularly to the Spaniards, to attack the Settle
ment. Such an exhibition of the spirit of international
jealousy between subjects of the same Crown, and
contiguous inhabitants of the same Island, is all
the more shocking, and all the more instructive,
when we remember that some of the leading men
against whom the order was directed were the
same men who had lately been intimately associated
as fellow-countrymen with the merchants and finan
ciers of London in another scheme of great national
unportance, and from whose aptitudes for Com
mercial Business, England had derived manifest
advantage. But such are the inevitable results of
encouraging the passions of separate Nationalities,
under the nominal unity of one Crown. Anta
gonism becomes only the more fierce and ungovern
able in proportion to the number of jealousies which
are aroused, and of contradictory interests and
aspirations which cannot be satisfied. At last —
not one moment too soon — the English Government
became thoroughly alarmed by the bitter animosity
which had been roused in Scotland. In June 1704
the Queen addressed an almost imploring letter to
the Parliament sitting in Edinburgh, pointing out
the dangers to the Protestant Succession, and the
encouragement of common enemies, which must arise
from the increasing estrangement between the two
Kingdoms. She intimated, too, the repentance of
England in respect to the Darien affair by a promise
to agree to conditions by which such injuries should

164 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
cease. This Letter or Message was read on the 11th
of July 1704, but the only reply was an angry
Resolution voted on the 17th that Parhament
would not settle the Succession "until we have
a previous Treaty with England regulating our
commerce and other concerns with that Nation."
And this was followed on the 4th of August by the
Act providing that the Successor to the Cro-wn of
Scotland " be not the Successor to the Crovm of
England," unless under the protection of a Treaty
securing the interests of "this Crown and King
dom from English or any Foreign influence."'
Clearly the Spnit of Separation was taking fast-
it might be fatal — hold. There is nothing so easy
as to fan such flames, and few things more reckless.
Scotland had been, and indeed still was, exhibiting
consequences not dissimilar in her own deaUngs with
Ireland. Recent acts of the Scottish Parliament
had forbidden Trade with Ireland, one of them
(1686), in language, and under penalties, which
seemed to breathe a special hatred. Not only was
any vessel to be confiscated which brought victual
from Ireland, but the victual itself was to be "sunk
and destroyed." ^ Scotland, no doubt, had her old
causes, and causes only too recent, of grudge against
that Dependency of the English Crown. For cen
turies there had hardly been any attempt against
the liberties or the nationality of Scotland, which
had not been supported by armed men recruited
1 Act Pari Scot, vol. viii. pp. 128-137.
2 Ibid. vol. viii. p. 598 (2 Jac. vii. cap. 26).

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 165
irom among the Celts of Ireland. Nothing can ever
be forgotten or forgiven where the amalgamating
influences of Time are neutralised and defied, by
Institutions which dissociate and repel.
The truth is that the affection, which men call
Patriotism, must not be idolised. It may be among
the highest, and it may be among the lowest of
human virtues. It may be generous and fruitful, or
it may be narrow and barbarous, according to the
worthiness or the un worthiness — the dignity or the
meanness — the ampUtude or the narrowness — of
the object of it. If our " Country " be a Glen, or a
Parish, or a Province, — if our compatriots be a Clan,
or a Kindred, or a group of miUtary comrades — our
Patriotism wUl be of a corresponding character. If
the idea and the sentiment, by which we feel our
selves to be associated with, and bound to, any
group of men, be an idea which has in it any germ of
grovTth and greatness — however small that germ may
be — then our love of the country, and of the people
by which it is represented, is a noble love. But like
aU our passions it is Uable to degradation. It may
cease to expand with expanding growths — it may
faU to rise with ennobling opportunities. The
love of a great Country may go back to the passions
of a petty Province, or to the almost forgotten
hatreds and antipathies of the Tribal and Barbarous
ages of the world.
This was the danger from w^hich Scotland and
England happily, but narrowly, escaped ia the years
inomediately preceding the Union.

166 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
When even a man so enlightened as Fletcher of
Saltoun was carried away by the narrower view of
patriotism, and wrote, spoke, and acted in the in
terest of Separation, we are better able to estimate
all we owe to those wiser Patriots who saw that the
larger hopes, and the wider interests of their Country
were identified with the cause of Union. Fletcher,
we are told, " disliked England merely because he
loved Scotland to excess." ' It was a dangerous
moment. The centrifugal forces had begun to
work with great momentum. They were arrested
just in time. It is pleasant to remember that not
a few of those who made this resistance effectual,
and directed the national feeling into the true
channel of Imperial greatness, — my own ancestors
being among the number,^ — were descendants of the
men who had seen the great work of Union begun
in the old alliance of Malcolm and of Margaret ; of
those who in a later time had fought for, and with,
the Bruce ; and of those who in generations yet
more recent had stood by the Scottish Monarchy for
three hundred years, against the disintegrating
anarchy of the Clans. And now in happier times
they saw that the interests of their country, and its
glory, lay in assuming its full share of imperial
duties under one Imperial Crown. All they asked
was that Scotland should retain everything that
1 Dalrymple's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 129.
2 John, Duke of Argyll and Greenwich, vi^as Queen Anne's Commis
sioner in the Parliament of 1705, which passed the Act authorising the
Treaty of Union ; whilst his brother, Lord Islay, was one of the Com
missioners who framed the Treaty.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 167
she cared to keep of her own domestic Institutions
in ReUgion and in Law.
The patriotic men who effected the Union of the
two Nations wisely insisted too, as an indispensable
condition, on a perfect equality between them in
aU the privUeges of Trade. England also consented
to refund to Scotland the losses she had occasioned
by her -violent conduct in the Darien enterprise.
The whole Capital Stock of the Company was to be
repaid, with interest.^ This, however, was a small
matter compared with the removal of aU impedi
ments to Enterprise. The effect was immediate
and enormous. Scotchmen not only gained a full
share of the expanding commerce of the world, but
shot ahead of all rivals and competitors in the
race of industry and of maritime, activity. Before
the Union, Greenock consisted of two straggling
VUlages, each of them with a single row of cottages,
most of them thatched, fronting the natural beach.
Only one of them had even the accommodation
of a wooden pier along which any vessel could lie.
Everywhere else along the shore the boats could
only be drawn up upon the shingle.^ The first
ship that ever saUed from Greenock for the Ameri
can Continent had sailed in 1695, and that solitary
ship was destined for the Darien Settlement. The
moment the Union was accomplished a new life
was opened, and a new career begun.
^ Article xv. of Treaty of Union. Act Pari. Scot, vol. viii.. Append.
p. 203. ^ Smiles's Uves of Boulton and Watt.
VOL. II. M

168 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
But Trade and Navigation were not the only
industries which received a new impetus at the
Union. There was another, older and of neces
sity slower in its growth, which began at the
same time to feel the new blood that was stir
ring the national life, and penetrating aU its
members. The scene before us, as we look from
the Southern Shores of the Firth of Clyde, is one
specially representative and characteristic of aU the
peculiar conditions of Agriculture in Scotland, then,
and ever since. There are many large parts of
England which have been cultivated land since
before the Conquest. Local memories do not go
back to the time w^hen these areas were first
cleared and settled. In Scotland, too, there are
some areas of land, comparatively small, which are
in the same position. But by far the largest part
of the country, not only in the Highlands, but also
in the Lowlands, were "brown heath and shaggy
wood " — forest, bog, morass, and stony waste — dovm
to the time of our grandfathers — sometimes down
to the time of our fathers — not seldom down even
to our own recent years.
No such transformation has taken place in any
country within so short a space — unless, indeed, in
the case of new and savage lands, suddenly brought
under the dominion of civiUsed Man. And of this
great change the whole country which encircles the
harbour of Greenock is a typical example. There
is hardly an acre of level arable land visible to the
eye. The few that exist are so foreshortened, and

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 169
so dominated by mountains or hilly surfaces that
they form no feature in the landscape. Early in the
present Century, during the war with France, some
French prisoners were sent in a frigate to the
Clyde. One of them, ''on looking round him from
the deck, exclaimed, with almost a shudder at the
prospect, " Ah ! quelle Terre aride ! " This may
have been a natural impression for a Frenchman
who perhaps came from beautiful Provence, and
who had no idea of any fertility except in abun
dance of Corn, and Oil, and Wine. It was never
theless a most erroneous impression, because in no
part of the South of Europe are the mountains so
weU clothed with grasses as in the West of Scot
land. The naked limestone Ranges of the Maritime
Alps, of Italy, and of Greece, are barrenness itself
compared with the schistose Hills of Dumbarton
and ArgyU. But the Frenchman's impression was
at least so far weU founded, that the land around
him on every side, whether on the Lowland and
Southern, or on the Highland and Northern Shore,
was a land which gave no indications of an ancient
and settled agriculture. It was a land which
yielded nothing except to laborious Reclamation, and
when he spoke, that Reclamation had not proceeded
very far. Even now when fields, and enclosures of
every kind, have climbed the hills, and spread
along all the shores, there is little that can convey
to us through the eye any adequate impression of
the Work which has been done, — of the Capital
which has been invested — of the Enterprise which

170 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
has been shown — of the prodigious change which
has been effected. In this respect Agriculture is at
a disadvantage as compared with other kinds of
industry. It is peaceful, quiet, unostentatious. The
great buildings, — the tall chimneys, — the crowded
quays, — the gallant ships, — the forest of masts,
which all catch the eye and impose on the imagi
nation when we look at any of the great Hives of
manufacturing or maritime activity, — are aU in sin
gular contrast with the unobtrusive instruments,
and the equally unobtrusive results of Husbandry.
No man can see the tangled woods which have
been cleared, the bogs which have been drained,^
the stones and boulders which have been blasted,
broken, and removed. Still less can we see the
ignorance which had to be encountered, the stiff
resistances of prejudice which had to be overborne. It
has come to pass that the results of forethought, and
of skill, and of faith in principles, are all now repre
sented by nothing but the sUent growths of Nature.
Agriculture hides her laborious works under the
verdure, or under the golden radiance, of her fruits.
Some personal recollections of the second quarter
of this Century wdll give an excellent iUustration of
this prominent distinction, and of the kind of work
which had been going on during the life of men who
were then still in the vigour of their years.
All round the shores of Scotland, but specially
conspicuous along the shores of the Firth of Clyde,
there are the marks of an Old Coast Line, which is
from 30 to 40 feet above the . present Une of tide.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 171
At some date which we do not know, and by some
agency Avhich is not thoroughly understood, but
which, geologicaUy speaking, has been very recent,
the whole of Scotland seems to have been hitched
up out of the surrounding seas to that extent. If
it be possible for the Ocean to change its level, and
suddenly to sink or retreat below the line at which
it has stood for centuries, without any corresponding
change in particular areas of the land itself, the
efPect may be due to such a change. This is a
geological and a physical problem which must be
left to speculation and to science. Whatever may
be the explanation, the fact is certain. The old level
of the sea is indicated by a line, more or less con
tinuous, of steep banks or low rocky precipices, which
present in many places the distinctive features of
cove and cave, and of under-cut shelves of rock.
These are the weU-knovpn work of water gnawing at
the land. The sea must have washed our Island at
this higher level for long and uncounted ages. The
horizontal distance between that Old Coast Line and
our present Coast Line varies greatly, of course,
according to the conformation of the land, and the
consequent shaUowness or depth of the water at
difierent portions of the shore. In some places
where the shore was, and stUl is steep, the Old
Coast Line is close to the existing line — only lifted
higher up. In other places where the old shores
were shallow, the space which has been left dry by
the retreat of the sea is very wide — sometimes one
or two hundred yards.

172 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
There is no physical feature of our country
more distinctive than this diflPerence between two
portions of the old sea-margin — the sudden bank
and the flats below. Nor is there any more
intimately associated with separate historic times.
The precipitous rock or bank was the home
of the MiUtary Ages. Upon it they buUt their
"Towers along the Steep." The level lands
between it and the sea were left for the Industrial
Ages to occupy and reclaim. In this historical
separation there were, no doubt, some exceptions.
Where the old sea-bottom had been sandy or
muddy, it was speedily covered wdth sward. In
such places it often became the site of such agri
culture as was known and practised by the earliest
human inhabitants. But generally along our ex
posed and rocky shores the spaces thus added to the
land had a very difiPerent character. They had been
swept for Centuries by the ice rafts of the Glacial
Age. They had been covered with the boulders
and stony rubbish which these rafts bore away from
fretted and disintegrating shores. Upon such sur
faces, when upraised, nothing but the rough forests
of ancient Caledonia could find a footing. When
these had been destroyed by fire or flood, peat
mosses had been formed, or the land remained as
hard and stony as when first it had been elevated
above the sea. These old w^astes and woods are
now generally reclaimed. Very often they are the
best fields upon the best farms. Very often they are
the sites of comfortable Villas, or of thriving Towns.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 173
Yet the processes by which this great change
has been effected are out of sight and out of
mind. The very peacefulness of the scene takes
away aU sense of Work, and all memory of the
Workers. I speak from experience. I was born
and brought up in a Castle which, somewhere about
the Twelfth Century, had been built upon the top of
the Old Coast Line, where the last of the Highland
mountains slopes into the basin of the Clyde. It
was the stronghold of the Clan Macaulay. They were
descended from a younger branch of the old Earls of
Lennox, and aU through the Military Ages they had
kept their ground in their Strong House of Arden-
caple. From improvidence in expenditure — pro
bably from joining in the new habits of civilised life
before new values of produce had enabled them to
aflPord it — their extensive possessions had been
graduaUy alienated, and the last portion of them
had been acquired by Lord Frederick Campbell in
the latter half of the last Century. Not untU after
they were dispersed had they produced any very
distinguished man. It was reserved for them in
our own time to give birth to the most brilliant
Essayist, and one of the most interesting His
torians in the English tongue. The Macaulays
had lost their lands just before the Age of In
dustry had begun. They had not been im
provers. Yet from the high Tower which in later
times had been raised upon the massive foundations,
and the dungeon-like apartments of the old Castle
of the Clan, I used to look down in childhood

174 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
upon a broad field of level and fertile land, between
the Castle and the sea, grazed by " deep uddered
kine" — sometimes loaded with golden sheaves —
and sometimes rich in the untainted foliage, with
its purple and yeUow flowers, which used to make
the Potato crop one of the most beautiful of aU.
Those were stiU the early days of steam navigation
in the West of Scotland, and I recollect one river
boat, which could be held in the cabin of some of
the great Liners now yearly launched, which was
caUed the " Pride of the Clyde." AU the talk 1
heard w^as of the opening triumphs of the Engineer —
of the future of navigation on the Ocean, and of the
yet unsolved problem of the navigation of the Air.
The two brothers Hart, from whom Mr. SmUes has
borrowed some pleasant anecdotes of James Watt,^
were favourite guests — simple, and self-made men
from Glasgow, full of knowledge and of suggestion on
every problem of science applied to use. My Father ^
was a mechanic, and not an agriculturist. He was
himself an accompUshed workman, making, with
exquisite finish, various implements and articles in
wood, and in ivory, and in metal. Nothing was ever
said of the older, slower, and less exciting conquests
over Nature, and over the waste condition in which her
great natural Engines had left the encumbered soil.
And yet there w^as one tool-mark of the Re
claimer which might have recaUed his work. Run
ning straight from the foot of the old Coast Line
"¦ Lives of Boulton and Watt, pp. 499, etc.
2 John, seventh Duke of Argyll, then Lord John Campbell.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 175
down to the sea, through the middle of the cul
tivated flats, there was one deep and open cutting,
caUed by the country people the "Red Drain."
It had been excavated out of the solid Old Red
Sandstone rock, which there overlies the flanks of
the Highland Schists. I had often been attracted
to its edges by the wild strawberries, which nowhere
else grew so large ; and by the thickets of bramble
in which the Whitethroat skulked and sang. But
a chasm — in some places between seven and eight
feet deep — with smooth sides of rock, not easUy
cUmbed, seemed to a child rather a formidable trap.
Of its history and of its purpose I knew nothing
— tUl old documents, in faded ink, have in later
years revealed the story. It was the great OutfaU
by which the fruitful fields, I had so often looked
over from the Tower of the Macaulays, had been
redeemed from the condition in which they had been
left by the Glacial Age, and by the tangled thickets
of " Woody Caledon." The operation at the time
had been the talk and the wonder of the neighbour
hood, in a generation not long preceding that in which
my childhood was spent. The Red Drain had been
cut at a cost which was considered fabulous at the
time — a time when money was as yet scarce in
Scotland. The surrounding areas on both sides
had been sub-drained and trenched at a further
outlay, not less new and astonishing to the natives.
Great roots and prostrate trunks of Oak and Fir
had been uncovered in the operations. Loads of
stones had been dug up, carted away, and built

176 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
into dikes, whilst boggy holes and quagmires
had been fiUed up and leveUed. Without any
mention of detaUs, significant allusions to the
change effected by Lord Frederick are to be found
in writings published before the close of the
Century. Thus we hear that land on which Cattle
could not walk with safety, had, in 1794, been con
verted into land firm enough to bear their weight.^
Before this operation we are further told that not
even a Dog could have run over it vrithout sinking
to the belly. This account, meagre as it is, testifies
to a further and a later change almost as great as
that which had already been accompUshed in 1794.
To speak of any one of the fields on the Estate of
Ardencaple as sound enough to bear the weight of
Cattle, would, in my earliest years, have been as
absurd as to speak in the same language of the
oldest wheat lands of Essex or of the Lothians.
Over some 700 acres, every foot of which I knew, it
is hardly conceivable to me, even now, where any
marsh or bog can possibly have existed. Long before
1823 not a trace, and strange to say, hardly a memory
had remained of their um-eclaimed condition. The
very perfection and completeness of the work had
rendered it impossible to think of it as a work at all.
It was another country, and in all its surroundings
it may almost be said to have been another world.
This story of a particular case is- the story of a
movement which soon became general and simul-
^ Ure's Agriculture of Dumbartonshire, p. 27 : Reports to Board of
Agriculture, 1794.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 177
taneous over the whole of Scotland. It is a vignette
from a great Picture. It presents to us the starting-
point, — the position and the character of those who
began the race, — the triumphs they achieved, and
the causes also which have led in our day to a very
madequate appreciation of them. Everywhere in
Scotland, not only on the shores of the Old Coast
Line, but on all the slopes of aU the hiUs — on many
of the great plains which were swamps and peat
mosses, — on every variety of surface which was
covered with tangled thickets of Alder and Birch
and Oak, — over large areas which had before been
cultivated in spots and patches — the work of agricul
ture in Scotland has been the work of laborious and
costly reclamation. That work was begun by the
Owners as a pleasure and a pursuit, when as yet its
economical results were doubtful, and when the
outlay was as far beyond the means of the culti
vating class, as the eflPects of it were beyond their
comprehension and beUef. It was objected at the
time to such improvements that they cost many
times more than the price of the " fee-simple " of
the land ; — that other land of much greater extent,
and of better quaUty, might be bought for less than
quarter — often for less than a tenth part — of the
enormous outlay thus incurred. And all this was
true. Such land was reaUy made, not merely in
herited or bought. It was redeemed from absolute
waste, and rendered contributory for the first time
to the sustenance of Man. Where the Snipe
probed in quagmires, and the Badger burrowed

178 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
under roots of trees, and under cairns of stone,
very soon new ploughs were turning the furrow,
and Cows of a newly created breed were filling
the pails with milk.
The Pioneers in this immense work of re
clamation were invariably the larger Landowners,
both because generaUy they were the only men who,
by intercourse with an older civUisation in the
South, had acquired the spirit, and the knowledge,
which are the moving influences of the world, but
also because they were the only men who had any
command at aU over the capital necessary for the
work. The last Macaulays seem to have been a
perfect type of the true old Celtic school of men
who thought much of their Chiefery, of their old
connection with the Clan Gregor, and of the retainers
whom they could send out to fight or reive in
aUiance with them,^ but who thought nothing of
the acres under their own power which could be
made to bear the fruits of industry and of peace.
And so when, after the Union, first of the Crowns,
and then of the Parliaments, the possibility of living
came to depend not on swords and dirks, but on
ploughshares and the spade, their resources were
dried up, and they sank into irremediable decay.
The roof of the old Castle of the Macaulays was
faUing in, and their once extensive territory had
dwindled to a few farms, when the last of them,
somewhere about 1765, had to sell the remnant.^
The old coast lines, over which they had looked for
1 Irving's History of Dumbartonshire, p. 424. - Ibid.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 179
centuries, and the wastes and morasses which they
had valued only for purposes of defence, came into
the possession first of my grandfather, and subse
quently of his brother. Lord Frederick Camp
bell. This was the very year, more perhaps
than any other definite date that can be named,
when the first streaks of the Industrial Dawn were
breaking into Day. Both in manufactures and in
agriculture this was about the birthday of the new
life in the West of Scotland. Fortunately, the place
of such Chiefs as the Macaulays was very often taken
— not by strangers, but by other Highlanders as Cel
tic as themselves, but who had kept in the stream of
advancing civilisation — had enlisted in theRegiments
of Industry, — and had opened their eyes to a wider
horizon than the mountain battlements of Glen
fruin. They were men who had carried on those best
traditions of Scotland which had been embodied in
the appeal from Chiefs to Owners, and who now, in
the morning of a new day, devoted all the power,
and influence, and wealth which had come from a
wise rule over Tribe and Sept, and Clan, to the
strengthening of an Imperial Crown, and to increas
ing the resources of a united People.
If such men had not thrown themselves into
the new work, it would have been postponed
indefinitely. But they did throw themselves
into the work wdth an admirable spirit, and a
high intelhgence. Across a narrow strait of
water belonging to the Firth of Clyde, the
elder brother of Lord Frederick, John Fifth

180 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
Duke of Argyll, was carrying on similar reclama
tions on a much larger scale upon his Estate of
Rosneath. There, on the same old Coast Line,
Edward I. of England had held a Strength when
he was attempting the subjugation of Scotland,
and there, in the capture and burning of the Castle,
one of the traditionary exploits of Sir Wilham
Wallace had been achieved. There the Glacial Sea
had wound round the whole Peninsula — insinuating
itself into intricate creeks and coves, where dead
valves of the great Clam ^ are frequent — a sheU fish
now living in Arctic regions, where it is the
favourite food of the Walrus, but which has
finaUy disappeared from the shores of Clyde, along
with the icy temperature in which it flourished.
All the flats and ancient shores, corresponding
with those of the old Macaulay lands, are now
covered with fine timber, or converted into good
arable soil, every acre of it planted and re
claimed during the same years. Men with whom
I have myself spoken recollected the time when a
favourite horse had been lost m a bog-hole which
is now the most fertile corner of a spacious field.
Such operations were no matters of routine then.
They were the beginning of a new era. They were
the fruit of a new impulse set up by men whose
minds had been awakened by contact with wide
movements and Imperial interests. Lord Frederick
was the first pubUc man who brought the influence
1 The Pecten Islandicus, a very handsome shell common in the glacial
clays.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 181
of Government to bear upon the systematic preserva
tion of our neglected National Muniments. He was
the first head of the newly founded Register House
of Edinburgh; and in that great national Institution
the benignant wisdom of his countenance is still
preserved by Gainsborough's incomparable brush.
Another brother. Lord WUliam Campbell, was
Governor of South Carolina, where so many Scotch
men and Highlanders had gone, or were going
before the revolt of the Colonies. He was after
wards Governor of Nova Scotia, where he founded
the Town of Campbeltown on the southern shore
of the Bay of Chaleur, where that great Inlet is
joined by the beautiful river, the Restigouche,
which divides the Provinces of New Brunswick
and Quebec. The eldest of the brothers, John,
Fifth Duke, had begun life in the army, had
fought at Dettingen, had learnt aflPairs under his
two cousins, his most eminent predecessors, and
from thefr friend CuUoden. He was the second
Lieutenant-Colonel of the Black Watch, and had
done much to discipline them before their depar
ture for Canada in 1757. He succeeded in 1770,
and spent the rest of his life in devoted attention
to agricultural improvement, dying in 1806 the
oldest Field-Marshal ui the British army.
Such were the men and such was the class of
men who aU over Scotland carried on and began
and estabUshed the work of Rural Reform. It
needed aU their mental activity, all their enlight
enment, aU their influence, and all their wealth

182 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
to make even a beginning. In almost every County
it is the same story. In looking over the detailed
Reports to the Board of Agriculture in 1794-95, it
is impossible not to be struck by the great part
played by the principal Landowners aU over Scot
land, in stirring up into a new life the dead and
inert elements with which they had to deal. In
the North the family of the Dukes of Gordon is
remembered as the beginners of the work,-' stimu
lated, as it is said, so early as 1706, by an English
woman, daughter of the Earl of Peterborough, who
was himself a great improver in the South. In Ayr
shire the Earl of EgUnton takes a high rank among
the most energetic improvers of the country.^ In
East Lothian the Haddington famUy were eminent,
whilst the Tweeddales also remind us of those earher
Hays who were the improving Tacksmen under the
Abbots of Scone in 1312. In Fife the very ancient
title of Rothes acquired a new eminence in the arts
of peace. In Banff an Earl of Findlater receives
especial honour from aU contemporary accounts ^ for
his exertions both in agricultural and manufacturing
industry. From the great County of Aberdeen,
which had been terribly desolated by the years of
famine at the close of the previous century, and a
large area of which had actually been abandoned
and thrown out of cultivation, we are told that to
enumerate aU those to whom its recovery, and
1 Northern Rural Ufe, p. 24 (D. Douglas, Edinburgh, 1877).
2 Reports, vol. i., Agriculture of Ayr, p. 16.
s Ibkl Agriculture of Banff, p. 13. The Findlater family is now
merged in the Earldom of Seafield.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 183
subsequent advance were due, it would be necessary
to give a complete list of all the gentlemen in the
County.-' The class of capitalist Tenant Farmers had
not yet arisen, or were only beginning to appear
in the South and East. The introduction of one
of this class from East Lothian into Ayrshire by
the Earl of EgUnton, is specially mentioned as an
epoch in the West. There also some of the
smaller Proprietors had more means, and they
early joined the race. But all over the West
Country, and aU over the Highlands, this class
had little or no command of money. The ex
treme poverty of the country in the middle, and
during the whole of the latter half of the last
Century, seems almost incredible. Some of the
oldest famUies in the Lennox, and some of the most
considerable Landowmers, were obliged to have re
course to loans when they were called upon to pay
sums of the most trifling amount. The Dennistouns
of Dennistoun, a Knightly family, so old, that their
boast was that Kings had come from them, not they
from Kings, in borrowing £33, 6s. 8d. from the
Minister of Cardross, somewhere about 1720-5, had
to grant a bond backed by two Glasgow merchants.
The Napiers of Kilmahew, the most ancient repre
sentatives of an illustrious name, in the same Parish,
were, in 1732, in much trouble about a bill amount
ing to £6, 5s. 3^d.^ Illustrations without number
1 Agriculture of Aberdeenshire, p. 75, Reports, vol. i.
2 Old Cardross: a Lecture by David Murray, M.A., 1880.
VOL. II. N

184 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
could be given of the same kind. The whole circu
lating medium in all Scotland, at the time of the
Darien scheme, was supposed to be not more than
£800,000, and of this one-half was risked and lost
in that unfortunate speculation.^
But although Scotland, at this time, was a
country singularly poor in realised Capital, it was a
country rich in everything that is the source and
the fountain out of which Capital can be made.
Scotland had an immense "Wages-Fund." For
here we come upon distinctions of the very highest
interest and importance. The "Wages-Fund" is a
formal and scholastic phrase belonging to anti
quated theories of Political Economy. The doctrine
it expressed has been fiercely and successfully
assailed in the interests of Muscle, and the op
ponents of the doctrine have made good a portion
of their case. It is not true that the wages of Mus
cular Labour come only from realised Capital. That
kind of Labour has a good right to vindicate its
own inherent contribution to Value. Without its
help no Value can be embodied, and no Capital can
be gathered. Wages may be advanced for a time
out of the savings of the past, but only in the con
fident expectation that they will be more than
repaid out of the gains of the future. Wages there
fore come out of Work, and Muscular Labour is a
rightful sharer, to the stipulated extent, in the
ultimate Value to which it contributes. It may
fairly be said that, whilst standing in some aspects
1 Life of W. Paterson : Chambers's Biographical Dictionary.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 185
pretty nearly abreast in the fighting lines of Indus
try, Muscular Labour comes rather before than
behiod its comrade. Capital. It certainly can find,
and has often found, employment where there
has been little or no Capital — little or no money —
whether accumulated in Banks, or in Shares, or in
the more primitive investments of sUver and gold
hidden in holes, or kept in stockings. Money must
be made before it can be saved or stored ; and in
the getting of money or of money's worth some
kind of Muscular Labour is always of necessity con
cerned. But the truth is that both these sources of
Wealth, whilst nearly equal in rank as between
themselves, stand a long way behind and below
another, which is nearer than both to the fountain-
head. Capital is the product and representative of
a prior and a deeper source. Men who have no
Capital — no hoarded or accumulated money — wUl,
nevertheless, employ Muscle, if they have a reason
able expectation that it can be hired for a stipulated
Wage, and that the value conferred on mere physi
cal work by the higher agencies of Enterprise and
Forethought, wiU belong securely to those who wield
them. But this reasonable expectation can only
be entertained where the laws of Covenant and of
Ownership are firmly settled. Such a system of
Law therefore is the richest inheritance of any
people. It is the true Wages-Fund. Like all
other things of the highest rank in Nature, it is
inteUectual and moral — not physical or material.
Here, as elsewhere, it is true that the things which

186 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
are seen are temporal, but the things which are not
seen are eternal.
Scotland was then poor, not only in money, but
in money's worth, so far as actual productions were
concerned. The habits and usages of her people
were rude and ignorant. Like many other cus
toms, their usages were tending more and more
to mischief Their miserable agriculture had been
getting worse and worse. The small area of soil
which alone had been cultivated was getting more
and more exhausted from over-cropping. Their
desperate local attachment was leading to reckless
sub-division. In the Highlands ancient predatory
habits had grown into such settled and almost
acknowledged customs of robbery by violence, that
regular BlackmaU rents were paid to the Robber
Clans, as the price of exemption. But these usages
— and others less conspicuous, but hardly less
destructive — had never been aUowed by the
Parliaments of Scotland, or by her Judges, to
corrupt her Law. Rooted in an ancient and noble
civilisation, that Law had been not only kept
pure, but, without departure from fundamental
principles, had been adapted from time to time to
new requirements of Society. Her poverty was
thus, as it were, accidental, temporary, and super
ficial — arising only from ignorance of some natural
laws, and of some natural products. The moment
these became known, and in proportion as they came
to be generally understood. Enterprise sprang up
as if by magic. But Enterprise entirely rested, and

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 187
could oiUy rest on that confidence in the results
of action, and in the fruits of Work, which itself
again can have no other foundation than a complete
system of acknowledged Rights and of sanctioned
ObUgations in all the relations of Industry.
Nothing, indeed, can be more misleading than
the ordiaary definition of the sources of Wealth,
and no wonder — because before we can make clear
to ourselves the sources of anything, we must begin
with some clear idea as to what that thing is in itself
Wealth must be defined before its sources can be
traced. Yet the common definitions of Wealth by
the Political Economists very generally omit, or
slur over, the one most essential element in the
whole group of ideas which are represented in the
word. I know of only one definition which goes
straight to the point, and leaves a complete and
satisfying impression upon the mind. It is the defini
tion given in the searching words, " A man's life con-
sisteth not in the abundance of the things which he
possesseth."-' Here the whole strength of the defini
tion is concentrated in the last word — " possesseth."
No mere enumeration, or description of the kind of
things possessed, however elaborate and ingenious,
can ever convey the idea of Wealth, unless stress is
laid, before all others, upon the one fundamental idea
of Possession. Wealth may be defined to be — the
Possession, in comparative abundance, of things
which are objects of human desire, and which can
not be obtained without some sacrifice, or some
1 St. Luke xii. 15.

188 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
exertion. There may be infinite variation in the
kind of things which men desire. There may be
infinite variation in the strength of that desire.
There may be infinite variation in the quantities
which constitute abundance in the eyes of a poor or
of a rich community. But there can be no varia
tion in the one fundamental conception of Posses
sion as the root idea of Wealth.
The sources of Wealth must therefore be insep
arable from the sources of Possession. We all know
what these sources are. In early and rude societies
the mental and physical quaUties which make men
Chiefs and Leaders, are the powers which enable them
to take, and to give. Possession. As society advances
these powers are translated into Law. This, then,
becomes the source and the guarantee of all Posses
sion. It is in this august name that we find the
ultimate source of Wealth. It is a source, like all
other ultimate sources, which lies in Mind — in the
settled Jurisprudence of a weU-ordered Common
wealth. Compared with this, nothing can be more
poor and meagre — nothing indeed can be more con
founding and confusing than the stereotyped defini
tions of the sources of Wealth. Land, Labom, and
Capital, are the orthodox Three. In this enumera
tion the deepest source of all — Possession — is either
omitted altogether, or else it is hid under a word
which does not suggest it. Labour of the Brain
is confounded with Labour of the Hands. Capital
is treated as something separate from both, which
it certainly is not. Capital is the purest repre-

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 189'
sentative of Mind, because our very conception of
it turns on special acts of Purpose and of Inten
tion in the disposal or use of Income. Land is a
most confusing word if it be intended to designate
the whole external world. The definition, therefore,
altogether is scholastic and artificial in the highest
degree — teaching nothing, suggesting nothing, — be
cause none of its distinctions correspond with such
great dividing lines as exist in Nature. One of
these lines runs along the seeming gulf between
Mind and Matter, and another between our own
share in both of these, and the boundless volume of
them which is external to ourselves, but with which,
nevertheless, we have close relations. These divid
ing lines are famUiar to us all — in our thoughts, in
our actions, and in our language. They seem to
poiut to a better Three than Land, Labour, and
Capital. Mind, Matter, and Opportunity, would be
the amended list. Mind is that which we know- — ¦
as we know nothing else. Matter is that which is
ours also in Muscle, and in all that it acts upon, or
that re-acts on it. Opportunity is a convenient term
for every kind, degree, and variety of condition, and
of circumstance which helps to stimulate our desires,
to clear our aims, or to facilitate the attainment of
them. These being the Three great sources of Wealth,
Scotland was, by nature, rich in two of them,
and was every day becoming richer and richer in
the Third. In Mind there was no better fibre in
the world than the fibre which had been spun out

190 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
of her old amalgamated races. Mind among them
might be mis-directed and wasted, or it might be
sleeping. But it was there — with an immense and
unknown Potential Energy. It had been shown
for generations in all the special faculties appro
priate to the MUitary Ages. It had now caught
the fire which burns in mechanical genius, and in
peaceful enterprise. So, in like manner, Scotland
was rich in the raw materials of Nature, which
it is the function of Mind to work with, to work
upon, and to subdue. Her country was soon
found to be full of the savings hoarded in the
depths of Time, the great accumulations of Energy
which had been laid up in . her stores of Coal and
Iron. Her agricultural and pastoral surfaces were
rough and unreclaimed, but they were not poor.
Even the Glacial Ages had done Scotland enormous
good— for their great Planing Engines, though
they had left, here and there, tough and tenacious
clays, had also scattered everywhere the materials
of a better soil. Nor were these two sources of
Wealth all that had been prepared for Scotland in
starting her in the race of Industry. The Third,
and the last of the Three great sources of Wealth,
Opportunity, had been secured and opened up for
her in that one fundamental condition on which all
the possibilities of Opportunity depend. This was
the condition without which no opportunity can be
seized — no design can be formed, no enterprise can
be undertaken — the condition, namely, of an
ancient, accepted, and well-defined system of Law

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 191
and of Jurisprudence. Men knew their own rights
and their own obligations, becau.se these rested on
written and recorded Instruments, and because the
exact force of all of them had been settled and
applied through centuries of Judicial interpreta
tion. As in the Kingdom of Nature the invariable-
ness and certainty of her Laws are the necessary
Implements of Purpose and Design, so in Human
Society there can be no other foundation for In
dustry and for Enterprise, than Laws accurately
defining, and Courts impartially enforcing, all the
rights and all the obligations of men. There is no
place in Science for the Slattern or the Sloven.
In dealing with Nature the loose reasoner, and the
inaccurate observer, soon find their level. So it
must be in every PoUtical Society which desires to
preserve the germs of life, and to keep open to men
the infinite opportunities of knowledge.
If, in the purchase or inheritance of land from
old Owners of the type of the Macaulays, such new
Proprietors as Lord Frederick Campbell had not
been able to trust in the validity of the Titles by
which Property had been conveyed for seven or
eight hundred years — if the words of Charters,
which carried the fuU rights and powers of Owner
ship over Moors, and Marshes, and Woods, and
Peateries, and over all the other enumerated varie
ties of surface, had not, during all these Centuries,
been unifornaly sustained as living and truthful words,
not only in all the decisions of law, but also in all
the acknowledged obligations and practical transac-

192 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS..
tions of life — then, such reclamations as those of the
old Coast Line on the Firth of Clyde, would never
have been undertaken, and Scotland would have
remained even more waste and wUd than she had
been in the days of Malcolm Canmore.
But direct, rapid, and costly reclamations of
this kind were not the only, nor perhaps the most
important, application of that great Wages Fund
which consists in the confidence of men in the
security of aU legal rights, and in the enforcement
of aU legal obligations. Land in Scotland had for
centuries been almost universally let on " Tacks " or
Leases. These varied more or less in their condi
tions and in the period of their duration. But one
essential fundamental principle was expressed and
embodied in them all, viz. , that the Owner lent his
land to the Occupant for a time, and for a time
only. At the end of it the right of disposmg of the
land on new conditions reverted to the Owner. This
principle extended as a matter of course to Sub
tenants, if there were any such. They could not
have any higher or larger right of possession than
those under whom they held. As water can rise
no higher than its fountain, so derivative tenures
cannot rise above the tenures from which they are
derived. We have seen how, under the advice of
Culloden, many of these Sub-tenants had in the
Hebrides been raised from the condition of Tenants
at Will to the higher condition of Tacksmen, more
than thirty years before the operations of Lord
Frederick and of his brother in Dumbartonshire.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 193
But this was before the new practices of Agricul
ture had begun, and before its new resources had
been placed at the disposal either of Owner or
of Tenant. All that these Leases therefore did,
in this direction, was to encourage definite lengths
of tenure for such industry as was then understood,
leaving the Tenants to pick up any new methods
which might arise. But this is precisely what
men of that class, in that stage of society, never do.
They run on from generation to generation in the
ruts of custom — hating every novelty and blind to
every suggestion. One thing, nevertheless, the
system of Leases did which was in itself invaluable.
It established definite breaks in the continuity
of occupation, and therefore saved the country
from a perpetuity of ignorance. That featiire in
Leases which is often made an objection to them
by the ignorant, was the very feature that gave
saving entrance to the new life, and to the new
knowledge, which would otherwise have been
excluded for generations. As Leases had been
given during 400 years at an immense variety
of dates, it foUowed that everywhere, all over Scot
land, at all times, a crop of Leases was coming to
an end ; and the necessity of making new arrange
ments for a new Tack gave precisely that kind of
opportunity which Mind requires for the discharge
of its special functions in directing Muscle. As
LongfeUow says of the awakening Song of Birds aU
round the Globe, "'Tis always morning some
where," so it may be said of Scotland as regards

194 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
these opportunities of improvement, that all through
her Counties and Parishes they were arising every
where. Thus, for example, the Leases given by
the advice of Culloden on the Argyll estates,
between 1739 and 1750, were expiring during
the very years between 1759 and 1770, when the
enthusiasm of new discoveries and of new aspira
tions was at its height, and when it was beginning
to transform the whole conditions of the National
Industry in aU its branches.
Among these transformations there was one
aflPecting AgriciUture, the value of which is now
confused under an ignorant form of sentiment. It
consisted in the steady but gradual disappearance
of Township farms. These were farms tenanted by
small groups of men, using their pastures in common,
and cultivating their arable lands in Run-rig. I de
signate the sentiment in favour of these old Town
ships as an ignorant sentiment, because it is mainly
founded on a misunderstanding as to their real
nature. They were not farms under a common
management for the eq\ial benefit of a community.
The flavour of communism, which makes the memory
of them popular with some theorists now, is a flavour
which comes from nothing but mistaken analogies.
The Township farms were not what we should now
call Club-farms. They were not held nor managed
by the representatives of a community on behalf of
the whole. They were mere groups of individual
men, each man having his own individual property in
the Cattle, and his own exclusive share in the arable

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 195
areas of land. The principle of occupation was the
principle of pure Individualism — only, under such
conditions that none of its benefits could arise.
The common grazing might contain the very best
land of the farm, if only it could be reclaimed. But
no one of the Tenants could exert his mind or his
muscles in reclaiming a single morsel, because it
would have limited by so much the grazing of the
others. Neither could any one Tenant, more intelli
gent than the rest, and seeing that the common
grazing was overstocked, gain anything by limiting
the number of his own beasts, because all his more
ignorant neighbours would at once add a corre
sponding number, and so keep down the whole herd
to the old starvation point. Neither, again, could
any of the Tenants, even if they had the capital
and the knowledge, begin to establish a better
breed, because the good breed cordd not be kept
separate from the bad. Thus all were kept down,
even as regarded the Cattle and the grazing, to one
level, and that was the level of the stupidest.
The case was if possible worse as regarded the
arable land. Each Tenant had indeed his own scat
tered patches exclusively to himself, so long as he had
them at all. He got no help, if his crop failed, out
of any share in the comparative abundance of others,
nor on the other did he share with others in any
fortunate excess. In all these ways, and in others,
he was an individual farmer, and nothing else. But
he was not allowed to benefit by any individual wit,
if by chance he had it, as regarded the possibility of

196 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
improvement. He had no inducement to dig deeper,
or to manure better his little patches, because all
the benefit of his labour would probably go next year
by lot to some less intelligent or less industrious
neighbour. Then, with other kinds of improvement
even more important, the whole system was abso
lutely incompatible. If one man, seeing the starved
condition of the Cattle, wished to make and store a
little hay for winter feeding, he had no means of
doing so. The moment the harvest was over, the
whole area of the arable land was turned into a
common pasture field for all the Township. No
man could enclose a morsel of ground to save a
bite of hay. No man could drain, Ume, or otherwise
improve any portion of the farm, because, although
it was exclusively his own to-day, it would be as
exclusively another's to-morrow.
Such was the stupid and ruinous system on
which land was tenanted not only in the High
lands, but all over the Lowlands of Scotland during
a great part of the Eighteenth Century, and in
some cases down to our own time. It was the same
in England only a little earlier, and Lady Verney
has disinterred the curious fact that one Parish in
the County of Buckingham, within a few hours'
journey of London, continued to be occupied in
.Runrig for more than 400 years — from 1441 to 1845,
when it was divided into individual holdings by the
external authority of the Enclosure Commission.^
' Article on "Allotments," by Lady Verney, in Nineteenth Century,
June 1886.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 197
Although now banished from every part of Scot
land, except where it yet lingers in the most
distant and poorest Hebrides, I have myself had
to interpose for the abolition of it on the mainland
of Argyllshire about forty years ago. As late as
the middle of the last century it was as general on
farms within sight of the great Lowland Towns of
Edinburgh, Glasgow, Paisley, and Greenock as it was
round the more Highland Towns of Perth, Dundee,
and Inverness. Nothing but an unquestioning and
unquestioned adherence to the rights of Ownership,
operating steadily but gradually through the oppor
tunities afforded to awakened Mind by the termina
tion of Leases, could have redeemed the country
from this system. The people themselves generally
clung to it with a duU and blind tenacity. Nor
is this surprising. It was a system of which all
the parts so hung together, and which as a whole
was so rooted in aU the routine habits of daily and
yearly Ufe, that not one stone of it could be touched
without the whole structure tumbling. Any change
involved a total change in the prospects and in the
life of every famUy concerned.
Under such circumstances the initiative never is,
and never can be taken by those who live under such
a yoke of custom. It is so with aU of us. Our eyes
and our lips can be opened only by the touch of a live
coal from some altar other than our own. There was
a race of Scotch Judges in the last century whose
vritty sayings, expressed in the broadest native
Doric, were long the amusement of the legal pro-

198 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
fession in Edinburgh. One of them, on heariog
a Counsel plead on behalf of his Client that he
had acted in ignorance of the Law, interrupted the
pleader at once, saying, " Mr.  , the Law taks
nae cogneesance o' stupeedity." But if Judges
can take no cognisance of stupidity. Historians
are compelled to do so, because mental blindness
is a perpetual wonder from generation to genera
tion as we trace the movements of Mankind,
whether in the progress of civilisation or in the
backslidings of corruption and decline. There is a
profound passage on this subject in the Apocryphal
Book called the Wisdom of Solomon, in which the
slow progress of our knowledge in Natural Things
is set forth as diminishing the wonder, and yet
enlarging the estimate, of our ignorance of the
Spiritual World : — " For the thoughts of mortal
men are miserable, and our devices are but uncer
tain. For the corruptible body presseth down the
soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the
mind that museth upon many things. And hardly
do we guess aright at things that are upon earth,
and with labour do we find the things that are
before us." ^
It is fortunate, however, for Mankind that very
often new truths are borne in upon us by the mere
weight of external circumstances, not as the result
of any " musing " at all, and when we ourselves may
be as blind as ever to " the things that are before us."
And so it was with the cultivating classes in Scot-
^ Wisdom of Solomon, ix. 14-16.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 199
land. Great, and indeed complete, as the change was
which came about within a time comparatively short,
we must not exaggerate the rapidity of the process.
It had begun, as we have seen, in the Border
Counties after the Union of the Crowns, more than
a century before the time we are now considering,
and the displacement of the Military Classes there
when the Border Wars ended, had been connected
with the poverty and distress which was conspicuous
in Scotland before the Union of the Parliaments.
It received a great impetus after that event, and
about 1760 it went forward at an accelerated pace.
But even in the last decade of the century, during
the years when the Statistical Account was being
compiled, and the Reports to the Board of Agricul
ture were being drawn up, large areas of Scotland
were either stUl occupied in Runrig or were just
escaping from it. The causes which at once facili
tated the change and forced it on, were all as purely
natural as any physical causes, although they
operated in and through the WiUs of men. In the
first place, EngUshmen had discovered that the
smaU Black Cattle of Scotland could be fed up to
a much greater size, and made the very best of
beef The price of them consequently rose without
the smaUest exertion on the part of the Runrig
Tenants. Moreover, the Dealers who bought them,
and the EngUsh Farmers who fed them, were known
to make a further and a much larger profit upon
them. Scotch Tenants and Scotch Landowners very
naturaUy began to think that a much larger share
VOL. II. ^

200 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
of this profit might be secured to the Producers in
Scotland by taking some care to bring them to
market in a less starved condition. From this in
stinctive desire, and this very rudimentary sugges
tion, everything else that' happened necessarily
followed. To improve the breed of Cattle there
must be the means of separating the good from
the bad. To feed them better there must be hay.
The same necessity which applied to Cattle as a
supply of meat, applied equally to the new manage
ment of Cattle as a source of Dairy produce. Cows
under the old system, being small and half-starved,
gave but little milk, and for a very short time in
the season. With better food and, above all, with
a continuous supply of it, their Dairy produce in
milk rose in quantity by 150 per cent., and could
be continued as much longer in point of time. All
this depended on better breeding and better feed
ing. To have hay, even wild hay, there must be
enclosures, still more when artificial grasses began
to be introduced. Then, along with them came
the new Green or Root Crops, and the system of
alternating these with Cereals.
Every step in this ascending series of innovations
depended on and involved the one essential pre
liminary of enclosures. Nothing could be done
without them. Special and separate areas of land
devoted to special and separate purposes, consti
tuted the new source of power. It was the same
principle as that which flashed on the genius of
Watt when the thought occiirred to him of the

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 201
" Separate Condenser." In the older Engines one
and the same vessel, the Cylinder, was used for
more than one mechanical purpose. Expansion and
Condensation were effected in one common chamber.
Heat was wasted ; power was lost. The great
principle of the Division of Labour was the principle
of Watt's discovery. It is a principle which runs
through the whole of Nature. Man in adopting it
has been only following her great example. It now
penetrated every nook and cranny of the Industrial
world ; it took possession of the new Rural
Economy by the operation of an universal instinct.
The grand secret of its success lay in the scope it
gave to Brains, which are always personal — indi
vidual — and Uable to be unequal in infinite degrees.
EspeciaUy in an age of awakening, the aptitudes of
Mind,, and the receptiveness of InteUect, and the
energies of Enterprise are all pre-eminently indi
vidual. It is their function to raise individual men
above the common herd, and to enable them to
throw oflP the stupidities of Custom. Common and
undivided lands were the Castles and Fortresses of
aU these stupidities — ^the strongholds in which
they held out the longest. But everywhere their
roofs were falling in, and their walls were being
undermined — just as about the same time, the old
Towers of the Macaulays became uninhabitable.
Enclosures, with all the other works of reclama
tion which depended on them, became the universal
occupation of aU the Owners of land as opportunity
offered. Like everything else in Scotland which was

202 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
valuable, it was nowhere absolutely new, because
ParUament, even during the Military Ages, had
encouraged the fencing and protection of woods and
plantations. It had, moreover, recognised afresh,
in recent years, the value to be set on the concen
tration of individual interest and of individual
motive upon landed property. In some places,
though not generaUy, the Ownership of land, and
not the Occupancy only, had been held on the fashion
of Runrig. That is to say, certain areas of land
belonged, in small lots, to difiPerent Owners, and
these were re-divided from time to time. This
involved the same evil, and although it did not
extensively prevail, yet wherever it existed it
affected indirectly all surrounding properties. It
did prevaU, however, extensively in Annandale,
where Border wars had long rendered property
valueless. Accordingly, in 1695, it had become
sufficiently mischievous to attract the attention of
the First Parliament of King WiUiam in., and an
Act was passed for remedying it — on the significant
Preamble that "great disadvantage was arising to the
whole Subjects from lands lying in Runrig," and
that the same was highly prejudicial to the Pohcy
and Improvement of the Nation by planting and
enclosing." ^ Wherefore, power was given to every
one having an interest in such property, to call for a
separationand final division of it under the authority
of the Sheriffs. No such Act was needed for the
abandonment of Runrig in respect to Occupation,
' Act Pari Scot., vol. ix. p. 421 (5 Will, in., ch. 23).

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 203
because this could at any time be eflPected by virtue
of the ordinary rights of Ownership. The farms
occupied by several Tenants, and grazed or culti
vated by them according to the habits and know
ledge of the time, were so occupied and cultivated
only under the terms of Covenant. The terms
of that Covenant might be altered from time to
time. There was no legal impediment in the way.
No Legislation, therefore, was required. The saving
eflPects of permanent divisions and of individual
farming were only just beginning to be understood.
Rude and unsubstantial fences had from time im
memorial been erected to divide the " Infield " from
the " Outfield " land — the area which was under
crop from the area which was uncultivated. The
same practice had now to be extended to the in
ternal divisions of the arable land, and to the
immense areas which were being reclaimed and
brought within that description by reclamation from
the wastes of common grazings. In the district of
the Lennox, typical from its geographical situation
bordering on both Highlands and Lowlands, the
progress of Enclosure was so rapid and continuous
that in 1794 the Report says, " Not a year passes but
several thousand acres are surrounded with fences." ^
In the fine district of Annandale, the old home
of the Braces, the evil of Commons seems to have
been speciaUy enduring and obstructive, since owing
to them the greatest exertions of individuals could
not make the country capable of modern cultiva-
^ Agriculture of Dumbartonshire ; Reports, vol. ii. p. 19.

204 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
tion.^ Yet in 1794 scarcely a single Common
remained undivided, except in the case of lands
belonging to the Royal Burghs. As compared with
individual Proprietors, either the inteUigence of these
Corporate Bodies was less, or their difficulties were
greater, since, it was said, " they alone could claim
the privUege of keeping waste tracts of the country
useless to mankind, — an eyesore to the benevolent
passenger, and fit only to indulge the indolent occu
pier in brooding over his poverty and his turf-fire." ^
This passage is curious, and directs our attention
to a fact of some interest. The Old Royal Burghs
in Scotland were in some cases not inconsiderable
Landowners. They possessed certain areas of land,
fishings, and various other rights of property, as other
Landowners did, by Charters from the Sovereigns
who had the power and the right to give them along
with the Municipal " liberties " and privUeges which
rested on the same Instruments. Thus the same
early Sovereign of Scotland, WiUiam the Lion (a.d.
1165-1214), who gave by Charter to the ancestor of
Robert Bruce the great Estate of Annandale, also
erected the Town of Ayr into a Royal Burgh, and
granted it certain lands, which are carefully de
scribed by boundary names as purely Celtic as any
now used in the heart of the Highlands. It was
specified that out of this area belonging to the Town
each Burgess might reclaim six acres out of the
Wood or Forest " to make their own profit thereby.'"
1 Agriculture of Dumfries ; Reports, App. p. 22. - Ibid.
5 National Manuscripts of Scotland, Part i. p. 21.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 205
This would seem to point to an unlimited power of
individual appropriation corresponding to the num
ber of Burgesses. But practically the use of these
Burgh lands was generally the use of pasture for the
benefit of the Burgesses as a Community, and for
centuries they continued to be so used in common,
by all who acquired the position and rights of a
Burgess. It was natural that under these conditions there
should be great diflficulties in changing the mode of
use. But if the Burghs were in 1794 behind in the
improvement of their lands, this reproach has been
removed long ago. Burgh property in Scotland was
caUed the " Common Good," and the Burghs soon
found out by the example of other Landowners
around them that the best way of consulting the
" Common Good " was to give up common Occu
pation and resort to individual holdings. Accord
ingly the landed property of the Burghs has long
been managed on the same principle on which it is
managed by individual Owners, — except that the
public interest of the Community has led to a
more rigid and universal system of letting by open
competition, so as to secure the highest possible
rents. Every tendency to let land on terms below
the market rate was very naturally regarded as
sunply a cover for jobbery. Early Statutes ^ forbade
Burghs to grant Leases for a longer term than three
years, and the object of this prohibition was to
secure to the Burgh the growing value of land, and
1 Such as 1491, u. 19, Act Pari Scot, vol. ii. p. 227.

206 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
to prevent the transfer of that growing value from
those in whom Ownership resided to those who had
no other right than that of temporary Occupation
and of special bargain. This principle was finally
embodied in stringent legislation by an Act passed
in 1832,^ which prohibited all feuing, alienation, or
leasing of any part of Common Good of Burghs
except by public roup — that is to say, except at the
very highest attainable rent or feu-duty. When,
therefore, Burghal Owners discovered, as other
Owners did, that lands enclosed, and otherwise
reclaimed from slovenly and prorhiscuous uses, im
mediately rose in value, and afforded at once double
or treble the former rent, they joined in the great
industrial race of enclosure and reclamation by which
the whole face of Scotland has been transformed
from being one of the poorest to being one of the
best cultivated countries in the world.
The principle thus laid down by Parliament,
that the value of all property belonging to Corpor
ate Bodies must always be tested by competition,
and let by public roup at the highest market rent,
is obviously the only safe principle in the manage
ment of a " Common Good." It is undoubtedly the
principle on which aU land would be let which falls
directly in the hands of the State. ^ Private Owners
can and do depart from it with more or less
advantage, because the preferences of character and
^ .3 Geo. IV. cap. 91.
2 Mr. Henry George has repeatedly admitted that the State mast let
its land by auction.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 207
the considerations of sentiment which lead an in
dividual Owner to let his farms to one man who
can give less, rather than to another man who
can give more, are preferences which, in his case,
must always have their natural limits, and which,
whether wise or not, are at least always generous and
can never be corrupt. In the case of Public Bodies,
on the contrary, such preferences are quite sure to
be the result of intrigue and of corruption. Accord
ingly it is certain that in the centuries when
publicity was unknown, and when the government
of Burghs was far from pure, the " Common Good "
had been often jobbed and wasted. Repeated Acts
of ParUament were passed during the Sixteenth
and Seventeenth Centuries, recording and vainly
endeavouring to check this evU.^ A strict adher
ence, therefore, to the principle laid down in the
Act of 1832 was the only remedy — the principle,
namely, of free and open competition in the hire of
land or of other property belonging to all Public
Bodies. It is one of the innumerable benefits of Private
over Public Ownership, that it is not bound by such
rigid necessities. The free choice of persons in
selecting Tenants, is one of the most essential of its
powers. The highest offerer is not necessarUy the
best Tenant, except under an equaUty of other
conditions, which is rare. Yet even in respect to
land belonging to private Owners, the larger
' Observations on the Law and Practice in regard to Municipal Elections
in Scotland. By J. D. Marwick, LL.D., pp. 336-71.

208 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
interests of the public are at least presumably in
favour of the same principle. The rent of agricul
tural land must ultimately be determined by the
produce. The man who can pay the highest rent
is presumably the man who can turn out the largest
amount of produce. This he can only do by supe
riority over other competitors in some faculty or
aptitude of Mind, or in the possession of Capital
which has been stored by the foresight of himself, or
by others whom he represents. There are wonderftd
bits of faculty and of aptitude connected, each of
them, with some corresponding bits of Brain, which
in Agriculture, as much as in any other pursuit, tell
upon the result. It may be a faculty for estimating
the " points" in the breeding of domestic animals on
which all progress in utility and in value depends.
It may be some inborn and instinctive aptitude for
the best methods of manufacture in the artificial pro
ductions of the Dairy — it may be merely the faculty
of thrift in everything, and of turning everything to
the best account — it may be any one, or any combi
nation of these, that wiU enable one man to pay for
land a rent much higher than can be afforded by
others who have no sunUar qualifications, and who
are the blind followers of routine. Private Ovraers
may, and continually do, prefer some man who is
inferior in all these respects, and they may do so
wisely on account of personal or hereditary associa
tions. But in general the interests of agricidtural
production, which on the whole are the interests of
the nation, are to some extent sacrificed thereby. It

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 209
can never be for the public interest that dull men
should be preferred to men of ability, or men with no
means to men who have adequate capital. It is only
when the extreme test of competition for the holding
of land is appUed to men who are all equaUy poor,
and who seek for it as a means of bare subsistence,
that it ceases to have any value in the public
interests. Yet even in this case, those who think
that the hire of land should be dealt wdth as a
matter of charity, wdll find it difficult to defend the
rejection of several candidates who oflPer more, on
behalf of some favoured one who oflPers less. It
would be a strange exercise of benevolence not to
prefer those who, from the very fact of being the
most needy, are wiUing to give the most, because
they are satisfied with the smallest residue. Ac
cordingly, the Irish Land Act of 1880 incites and
encourages the Cottier Tenantry of Ireland to exact
the last farthing they can get for the sale of their
interest to any new Tenant. Private Owners had
made rules modifying the severity of this principle
in favour of incoming Tenants. But the coarse
hands of the State, when it intervenes, have
nothing to fall back upon except the principle of
Competition in its extremest form.
This system when applied to conditions of
hungry and necessitous competition which are in
themselves disastrous, can end in nothing but the
ruin of agriculture and universal pauperism. Under
such circumstances there is no presumption in favour
of the highest oflPerer. He is the hungriest, and

210 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
nothing more. It would be a bad principle of
selection applied to a morbid condition of society,
and securing further degradation by systematic
preference of the most unfit. This was the actual
result in some parts of Ireland — not at ah. as
the consequences of EngUsh law or of English
customs, but, on the contrary, as the natural
fruit of the most genuine old Celtic habits and
traditions. The total absence of any elevating guidance,
or of any intelligent control, over men vrith a
low standard of Uving, and a narrow horizon
of desire, can never end in anything but disaster,
whatever be the avocation or pursuit to which
such a system is applied. Most disastrous of all
must it be when appUed to that industry and
pursuit which comes before every other in the pro
gress of nations. UnUmited Ucence to sub-let and
to sub-divide, and to multiply down to the level of
a potato diet — a perfect jungle of sub-tenures — one
set of lettings beneath another, and single " rigs "
below the lowest — all let to the highest bidder—
aU except the first, from year to year only — and aU
interposed for long and indefinite periods of time
between the Owner and any possibility of unprove-
ment or even of regulation — such a system was
perfectly adapted to banish Mind, in aU its
higher faculties, from the business of agriculture,
and from the building up of Society upon founda
tions even tolerably safe. Ownership lost aU
its virtue along with all its opportunities, and

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 211
aU its power. And aU this system was purely
native — purely Celtic. The Middleman holding
tracts of lands for Life or Lives, and living on the
competitive rents of very poor and very ignorant
people, all struggling for a bare subsistence, is the
nearest possible modern representative and ana
logue of the old Irish Chieftain nourishing a crowd
of Septs as his servitors and retainers, and living
in his turn upon them, by their help in inter-tribal
wars, and in peace " by coign and livery," " cosher-
ings and cuttings." The abuses of the system
adopted by the Middlemen were multiplied and
intensified by the abuses which grew up like
weeds among all below them. There was one
hideous practice of Tenants of Ireland, unheard
of in any civiUsed country in the world, to which
they were stimulated by the high prices of wheat
during the many years of war towards the end
of the last, and the first quarter of the present
century. This was the practice of burning the
land — setting fire to the finest grass lands, whereby
the best mineral and vegetable ingredients of the soil
could be used up and carried off in a few years of
enormous and exhausting profits. In vain had the
Irish Parliament passed one enactment after another
to prohibit and punish this barbarous waste. It
was only one of a thousand other mischievous
practices arising out of the paralysis of the powers
of Ownership. Laws are useless when they cannot
be enforced, and they never can be enforced when
the power to practise and to compel obedience is

212 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
not in the hands of those who have a motive and
an interest in doing so.
Like many other noble words that are used
without thought, the word Custom has suffered
degradation. It has a venerable sound — reminding
us of harmless ancestral usages, loved, regretted,
and commemorated. It has its own place, too—
and a very high place — in the most civUised systems
of Jurisprudence and of Law. Neither oral nor
written Covenants between men, however definite,
can express the whole of the conditions which they
imply. Many of these conditions may be, and
indeed must be omitted, — not at all because they
are inapplicable, but, on the contrary, because their
appUcation is of necessity understood. Customs so
universal or so general, as to occupy this rank, are
not opposed to Covenant or Contract as the basis of
all relations between men in matters of business.
They are essential parts of every system of Contract,
in so far as they are evidence of things mutually
understood. In the oldest Charters in Scotland
there are many references to customary Use and
Wont, to be ascertained as a matter of fact, in the
determination of the most important rights ; as, for
example, in the extent and boundary of lands, or in
the extent and limits of the privUege of fishing.
But nothing can be more different from this high
idea of Custom than that other idea which con
secrates under the same name every stupid practice
and every abuse which may creep in and establish
itself among the ignorant or the weak.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 213
The wonderful burst of Industry which trans
formed the whole face of Scotland in the course of
the Eighteenth Century, and especiaUy during the
latter half of it, could never have arisen if her
ancient Law had not been kept pure and uncon
taminated from such debasement. Everything that
takes from Knowledge its initiative by depriving
it of Opportunity — everything that discourages
Enterprise by accumulating against it unknown
elements of uncertainty — is a barrier — often an in
superable barrier — to improvement. Fortunately for
Scotland the rights recognised by Charter on the
one hand, and conveyed by Covenant on the other,
had been kept clear and definite. If the property
conferred on Corporations was longer left without
improvement, or if it had been wasted and dis
persed, this result had only arisen because Corporate
Bodies can never in such matters represent, except
very imperfectly, the natural influences and motives
which animate Individual Owners, and which make
their aspirations and desires coincident in the main,
and in the long-run, with the public interests. No,
such law was ever thought of for them, as the law
which was ultimately passed for Burghal Owners,
laying down an universal and unbending rule that
nothing should be let except by roup, and at the
highest rates determined by competition. On the
contrary, in a memorable Act passed at a memorable
epoch in the national history, ParUament had called
upon all Landowners to remember that in the dis
posal of their lands they held, and were free to use

214 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
a large and a wide discretion over the choice of their
Tenants. Upon the loyal exercise of this power, the
Monarchy had relied in its long contention against
the most formidable political dangers. Upon the wise
and enlightened exercise of the same power the Nation
now again relied, not less securely, for its advance
from famines and poverty to comfort and to abun
dance, and from comparative barbarism to a high and
advancing civUisation. As in the Sixteenth Century
Landowners were called upon not to let their farms
and " rooms " to men ignorant of their duty to the
National Government, so now, in the dawn of the
Industrial Ages, they were trusted not to let their
lands to men ignorant of, or deaf to the new duties,
the new demands, and the new opportunities of their
day. On the other hand, as the progress of agri
cultural knowledge had been slow even among the
educated classes, it could not faU to be much more
slow among those who had no education except that
of tradition and routine. It was not possible, and
it would not have been wise, if it had been possible,
to bring about too suddenly the immense changes
which were absolutely required. Nothing but the
free play of individual motive, — of knowledge, of
enterprise, and of personal relations, — could have
worked with the elasticity, and with the variety of
application, which such circumstances eminently
demanded. And never, perhaps, in the history of
any country was a more signal Ulustration given of
the inestimable value, on the one hand, of a strict

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 215
and clear definition of aU legal rights, and, on the
other hand, of perfect individual freedom in the
handling of them. In the beginning of the century,
by far the largest part of the country, not only in
the Highlands and in the Borders, but also in the
Lowlands, was unenclosed, unimproved, and culti
vated, or rather wasted, by groups of Tenants whose
relations with each other were an insuperable ob
stacle to every reform. At the end of the century
aU this had been reversed. By far the largest part
of the country had been or was being enclosed, and
improved, or for the first time reclaimed. The farms
had been generaUy let to individual Tenants, free
to change and to adapt their management without
let or hindrance from slower " neighbours," or from
more ignorant or more obstinate partners.
And aU this great change — great in itself, but
greater stUl from the opening it gave to a continuity
of progress — had been eflPected without any disturb
ance, or commotion, or serious discontent. At one
time in the wdlds of Galloway alone, there is some
record of bands of men going about the country
pulUng down the newly erected dikes, just as in
much later times bands of men in the West of
England went about breaking the new^ machines
which were another of the instruments of advanc
ing agriculture. But this excitement in Galloway
was transitory and local, not unconnected with the
Celtic origin of the " Galwegians," who in the days
of the early Monarchy were always addressed as a
separate people from the Scots. But here, too, as
VOL. IT. P

216 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
elsewhere, the work of improvement was speedily
resumed, and went on with that sure and steady
pace, and wdth that sUent and peaceful develop
ment, which are the sure indications of healthy
organic growth.
And this is exactly what it was, and what the
progress of Nations must always be, if it is to be
great and lasting. It was not a mere burst of
speculation like the South Sea Bubble, or even as
the Darien Scheme. It was a general awakening
of Mind, directing stronger Muscle, and taking
advantage of new and boundless horizons of Oppor
tunity. All ranks and classes — all orders and con
ditions of men — took part in it. It was a general
advance all along the line. The rising industry of
the Towns was ready to absorb the overflowing
idleness of the country. The rising activity and
the increasing knowledge of the agricultural classes
were ready to supply all markets as they had never
been supplied before, and to feed as they had never
been fed before, aU who came from Potato patches
to enlist in the ranks of industry. Many of those
who did so were continually returning to their old
homes with sums of money which enabled them to
take their place among the new Tenants of single,
undivided, and therefore unwasted, Farms. All
values were rising, partly from a change in the
value of money, but mainly from a rising demand
which even an increasing volume of production
could not adequately supply. Muscle was among
the articles which had a rapidly increasing value,

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 217
and this was one of the many simultaneous adjust
ments, due to natural growth, which made aU the
changes fit into each other, and work with so Uttle
friction or disturbance.
Great distress had arisen in the Seventeenth
Century from the displacement of the mUitary
population out of the Border Counties, after
the Union of the Crowns, because at that time
the progress of industry had not, either in
town or country, reached a point which enabled it
to afford employment. But in the Eighteenth
Century, after the Union of the Parliaments, the
ranks of the Industrial Army were never full.
Every recruit was welcome, and every soldier was
paid far better than ever he had been paid before,
even by the most successful raids for cattle. So
early as 1730-35, Captain Burt found that about
Inverness every young feUow with any genius for
his trade or business, and wdth any spirit of enter
prise,^ was looking and going for employment to
England or to the Low Country. AU over the
Western Highlands the rising industries of the
Clyde were the great centre of attraction. They
were like a powerful magnet waved over an area
fuU of particles of iron. Even when smothered in
earth and sand, these particles wiU respond to such
attraction, — heaving aside the inert particles around
them, and moving like Ants in an Ant-biU, until the
whole grainy mass seems alive wdth creatures. Such
was the effect produced, only more slowly and
^ Burt's Letters, vol. i. p. 112,

218 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
more gradually, by the magnetic attraction of the
wages offered in Greenock, Paisley, and Glasgow,
— and aU over the country in works of Reclamation
— to the men who had been gathering in the glens
and hills of Dumbarton and Argyll. The Minister
of one of these Highland Parishes tersely and
graphically describes the condition from which this
great opening relieved them, when in his Statistical
Report he says, " Idleness was almost the only
comfort they enjoyed." ^
It is a striking illustration, too, of the close
inter-communion between aU classes in Scotland
during this great period of national advance, that
when we look into local records we find that Land-
owners had often much to do with the rise of Towns,
whilst there are conspicuous examples of the
dwellers in Towns taking the lead in agricultmal
improvements. Thus, for example, the earliest
germ and nucleus of the present Town of Greenock
lay in a little YUlage called Crawfordsdyke, part of
the Barony of Crawfordsburn, which belonged to a
family of the name of Crawford. Immediately after
the Revolution the Proprietor appointed the grand
father of James Watt to be his Baron-baUie — a
position at that time of great local influence and
importance. In Uke manner, Greenock itself,
then a separate but adjoining vUlage, was on the
property of Sir John Shaw, whose heirs and
representatives are still in possession of the
Estate, and whose interests have ever since been
' Old Statistical Account, Barish of Lochgoilhead, vol. iii. p. 185.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 219
identified with the rising fortunes of this great
Seaport. The quiet bit of sandy shore which is
now covered with its Docks and Quays, was then
known as "Sir John Shaw's little Bay."^ The
new centres of industry which were then rising in
Scotland needed at that time not only the encour
agement of such Landowners, but also their influ
ence and protection in their contests with the
oppressive monopoUes of the older Royal Burghs,
such as Dumbarton and Glasgow.
On the other hand, turning from the West to
the East of Scotland, it seems to have been a Lord
Provost of Edinburgh, who, about 1688, set the first
example of the most fundamental of all agricultural
improvements, in dividing and enclosing his estate
of Prestonfield close to that city.^ This, however,
he did, not in his capacity of Provost dealing with
Burghal Property, or " Common Good," but in his
capacity of a Private Owner, in the exercise of
those full rights which such Ownership always
carried and implied. No doubt those lands, almost
touching the old walls of Edinburgh, must have
been previously grazed by the cows of some definite
or indefinite number of persons, each paying some
"grass mail" for the poor support in summer of
some stiU poorer cattle. But common use did not
constitute common Property. The ignorant usages
of an ignorant time were not stereotyped by
' Smiles's Uves of Boulton and Watt, pp. 83-84.
' Old Statistical Account, Parish of Duddingston, vol. xviii. p. 362.
The name of this gentleman seems to have been Sir Magnus Prince.

220 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
being converted into legal rights standing in the
way of every kind of progress. And yet, in the
result, the exercise by the Provost of his rights of
private Ownership over these lands, was an im
mense gain to the citizens of Edinburgh. The
meat market and the milk market were at once
better supplied. Cows which barely gave two or
three pints a day, during a very small portion of the
year, were replaced by cows which gave perhaps
eight or ten pints a day, and for a much longer
period of time. The measure of this public benefit
was indicated by the correlative share of it which
was secured by the Proprietor. It became gradu
ally known all over Scotland that by vhtue of
enclosure alone, land near Towns rose in rental by
more than a third or 33^ per cent., which meant
that the total produce rose on at least a correspond
ing scale. Land was never so well and so fruitfully
" municipalised " as when it was owned as the
private property of an intelligent and enterprising
Citizen. On the other hand, the not less important
function discharged by individual Ownership in
mitigating the hardness, and modifying the rapi
dity of changes so great, was not less signaUy Ulus-
trated on another Estate contiguous with that
of Prestonfield. This was the Estate of Dudding
ston — embracing the southern slopes of Arthur's
Seat, and the hollow which lies between that hill
and the heights crowned by the Castle of Craig-
millar. The most tragic scenes in the tragic life

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 221
of Mary Queen of Scots make all that land classic
ground in the history of Scotland. It is almost
startling to find that for the long period of sixty
three years after the enclosure of Prestonfield, the
lands of Duddingston, so close to the Scottish
Capital, continued to be held by a number of poor
Tenants, on the Runrig system, with all the pas
tures common and unenclosed, and with all the
arable land miscropped and exhausted under the
same barbarous usages which still linger in the
remotest and poorest Parishes of the Hebrides.
It was not until 1751 that the Estate was brought
under the conditions of agricultural civUisation by
the enclosure of the lands, the separation of the
farms, the erection of better houses, and the intro
duction of a better husbandry. All this was done
at last under the powers and rights of Ownership
by the Abercorn fanoily ; and so weU and wisely
done that the Minister reporting in 1796 could
describe the change as not less happy for the
Tenants than for the Proprietor and the Country.^
We may weU wonder, sometimes, at the stupid
ities of men which so long prevented them from
putting the gifts and opportunities of Nature to
those methods of use which seem to us now so
obvious. But our wonder may well be greater still
when we find that new stupidities, in our own day,
and after all the enlightenments of experience, are
scolding at the knowledge, and at the enterprise, and
at the achievements, by which in our fathers' time
1 Old Statistical Account, vol. xviii. pp. 362-4.

222 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
the older stupidities were replaced. Among these
new stupidities there is none so great as the modern
revolt against enclosures. These are equally neces
sary, and equally the symbol of all improvement,
whatever be the purpose to which land may be
appUed after it has been enclosed. It is equally
necessary to enclose land whether it be used as
Allotments for the poorer classes, or for Farms of all
sizes for men having various amounts of capital, or
even whether it is to be kept wUd and unculti
vated, for the purposes of public recreation. It
may have been one of the stupidities of former
generations not to foresee the importance which
would come to be attached to this last purpose
from the enormous growth of Cities. But their
growdh was so gradual, and the want of open
spaces was for generations so little felt, that this
particular failure in foresight is not really any
great matter of surprise. However this may be,
the preservation of certain areas of ground for
pubUc Parks near great Towns has now become a
most rational and even a most necessary use. It
affords, however, no justification for the denuncia
tion of Enclosures which has become loosely popu
lar. This denunciation rests upon nothing but a
vague jealousy of all individual appropriation, and
against aU the improvement which depends upon
it. As such it is a sentiment more ignorant and
barbarous than any of those that retarded the pro
gress of Agriculture during the stagnant ages.
Some of these had, so far as mere sentiment is

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 223
concerned, a far better justification. The ruinous
customs of Runrig, for example, rested originally
on a sentiment of justice and of fairness as between
the individual shareholders in a Township — a feeling
that every one should have his chance and his turn
of the best and of the poorer bits of soU. Hence
the custom of innumerable sub-divisions, and of the
yearly disposal of them by lot. But though the
sentiment was good, the ignorance was profound.
Men did not then know that the worst land might
be made into the best, if it became the interest of
any individual to make it so. Nor did they con
sider that the very best land would become as bad
as the very worst by the continued cropping of it
by men who had no motive to improve. But none
can plead these ignorances now. In our time,
therefore, any feeling against Enclosures which are
the indispensable foundation of aU agricultural
improvement, is simply a return to barbarism, far
worse than any old faUure of our fathers to rise
above the knowdedge of their times. It is a senti
ment in favour of the right of everybody in general
to keep the country waste, lest anybody in parti
cular should profit by its reclamation.
In 1756 there was published an elaborate and
indeed a sumptuous Work on the Agriculture of
England, which in not a few things is even now
ahead, if not of the science, yet at least of the
practice of our own day.^ Nowhere is there to
1 A Complete Body of Husbandry, by Thomas Hale and others ; a
fine folio.

224 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
be found a more clear and forcible exposition of
the place which Enclosure occupies as the one
preliminary condition of every possible improve
ment, both of the land and of the people who five
upon it. The authors declare as the result of their
own observation and experience that " Whatever
pretences may be made of the oppression of the
poor by the enclosing of Lands, this is certain, that
they nowhere are so happy as where the land in
general is under enclosure, and nowhere so miser
able, poor, ragged, and idle, as in those places where
most of the land lies in common." Again they say,
" Upon the edges of aU great commons we see a set
of miserable cottagers. Hunger is in their laces,
and misery upon their backs : they idle away theh
time in tending their own and other people's cattle,
and breed their children to this poor employment." ^
Most fortunately for Scotland " Commonties," in
the full sense of that word, had almost entirely
disappeared before the close of the last century.
Moors, and " outfield" pastures used as a common
grazing by the joint-tenants of one farm — these,
indeed, remained in abundance aU over the country.
In all the backward parts of it they remain still.
But these are not Commons or " Commonties,"
as they were called in Scotland, in the English
sense of the word. "Commonties" were areas
of land over which an indefinite number of per
sons had various and indefinite rights of use,
founded only on customs of ancient origin. Farm
' A Complete Body of Husbandry, Book in. chap. ii. pp. 100-101.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 225
grazings open to nobody except to the legal Tenants
of the farm, and used by them under no other rights
than those conveyed to them from the Owner by
Lease or otherwise, were indeed, in one sense, "com
mon " grazings. But they were totally different in
their nature from Commonties. They could be
divided, enclosed, reclaimed, planted, or otherwise
dealt with, at the wUl of the Proprietor whenever
an existing Lease expired. And even during an
existing Lease they might be simUarly dealt with
by bargain and agreement between the Owner and
the few Tenants who were exclusively concerned.
"Commonties," on the other hand, could only be
divided and reclaimed by some Judicial process.
But the Judicial process provided by the Law of
Scotland for dealing with them, was less expensive
and troublesome than any which had been provided
in England. They never seem to have existed in
Scotland to anything like the same extent as in
England. The clear and sharp definition of all
rights and tenures, which the system of Leases had
established with the earliest civilisation of the
Kingdom, had tended to keep out confusion. But it
is curious and instructive to observe how, in the
Border Counties, where centuries of continual war
had unsettled everything, and where large areas of
land could not be secured for a twelvemonth from
devastation, the natural results of promiscuous,
hap-hazard, and indefinite usages of Occupation,
had precisely the same effects as those so forcibly
denounced in England by the universal voice of all

226 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
impartial observers. In the excellent Report on
the County of Dumfries, rendered to the Board of
Agriculture in 1794, the strongest language is used
in condemnation of the " Commonties " which had
existed there, and of the impediments which even
the more favourable Law of Scotland had placed in
the way of the abolition of them.^ " Commonage"
is declared in that Report by a competent observer
"to be so inimical to all improvement of land, and
a source of so many moral evUs affecting the whole
community, that they ought to be abolished every
where by a general enactment."^ But this was
quite unnecessary, so far as Scotland was concerned.
All difficulties and impediments disappeared before
the obvious interest of almost all who were locally
concerned. Commonties soon completely vanished
from the map of Scotland ; and nothing remained
to be dealt with that even savoured of the same
evils, except those ignorant methods of cultivation
in Runrig which were pursued by the Tenants of
Township Farms.
It is well to remember, however, that, even in
this very mitigated form, the principle and the
practice of stifling individual interests, and per
sonal aptitudes, in their application to the most
important of all industries, was specially danger
ous in Scotland because of the great amount of
intelligence and of enterprise which were needed
to reclaim her rough and encumbered soU. It is
impossible to read the account, given in the Report
1 Reports, vol. ii., Co. Dumfries, p. 55. ^ Ibid. p. 56.

THE BURST OF INDUSTRY. 227
of 1794 on the County of Aberdeen, of the tremen
dous effect produced by a few "iU years" or bad
seasons at the close of the previous century, with
out seeing that not over the Highlands alone, but
over a very large proportion of the whole of Scot
land, Famine had been always standing at the
door. Very widely indeed that gaunt Figure not
only stood at the door, but entered within the
House. It was said of the " ill years " referred to,
that, in addition to all those who were only kept
from starvation by collections at the churches,
there were more than 200,000 people who were
wandering mendicants begging from door to door.^
This represents a terrible percentage of the then
population of Scotland. The County of Aberdeen
was depopulated. The land was waste ; and not
untU after the new burst of Industry had begun,
and an appeal was made to individual skUl, enter
prise, and capital, in the holding of undivided
farms, was the country redeemed from its desolation.
Neither was it enough that the Tenants should
all be men wdth single holdings, and freed from
the common interest of ignorant partners in the
perpetuation of senseless usages. This was not
enough, unless the new Tenants were fitted to
take advantage of their new position, by having
themselves risen above the old level. Accord
ingly, nothing is more striking in the accounts we
have of the condition of the country before the
Union, than the testimony they bear to the faUure
1 Northern Rural Ufe, p. 46.

228 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
which foUowed the letting of land to men who had
neither knowledge nor capital. Many Proprietors
after the Famine had no opportunity of exercising
any effective power of selection, because there was no
competition. They were glad to let their land to
any applicants who could take it, even in the smallest
portions, and with the poorest qualifications. They
were tempted to break down their farms into minute
holdings at from £2 to £5 Rent. The Occupants
made a little money by knitting stockings. They
could eat potatoes. But they were ignorant of
agriculture. The result was that, in 1794, where-
ever these small holdings prevailed, the condition
of the Occupiers was described as having become
gradually reduced to " the degraded state they held
at present." ^ Next foUowed the great scarcity of
1740, and again the repetition of famine in 1782,
which affected with special severity the County of
Aberdeen.^ But by this time the new knowledge
had begun, and the general rise of Industry had
been well estabUshed. As usual under such con
ditions, both Migration and Emigration followed,
and a race of new Tenants, with the requisite
skiU and capital, — selected by the Owners — holding
undivided Farms, — and encouraged by adequate
Covenants, joined the broad and rapid stream of
national advance.
1 Reports, vol. i., Aberdeenshire, p. 51. ^ Ibid. pp. 57-8.

CHAPTER IV.
THE FRUITS OF MIND.
It was not in Agriculture alone that the great
principle of giving free scope to individual Mind,
and to individual Capital, which is its fruit,
became the prime agent in the advancing pros
perity of Scotland. It was equally conspicuous
and equaUy powerful in the opening of her Trade
and Commerce. In a former chapteri I have referred
to the engrossing MonopoUes which had been given
by early Charters to the old Royal Burghs of the
country. Those who have been accustomed to think
of Fiscal Protection as speciaUy associated with the
interest of Landowners, have Uttle idea how univer-
saUy this system originated with the only popular
Bodies which existed in the Military Ages, or of the
extravagant lengths to which commercial exclusive-
ness was carried on their behalf. For centuries,
and by repeated Statutes, the whole Trade and
Commerce of Scotland were placed in the hands of a
few Communities of ancient date, to the absolute
exclusion not only of the whole agricultural classes,
but to the exclusion also of aU other Towns and
Villages which had arisen from time to time in
situations favourable for some particular kind of
1 Chapter ii. p. 86-88.

230 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
industry. The "liberties" granted to the old Com
munities were Monopolies in the only correct sense
of that word — the sense, namely, in which it means
the absolute prohibition of all selUng and buying
by all persons who do not belong to the privileged
Community, so that even their own money and their
own goods are made useless for purposes of exchange
except through the narrow circle of the Monopohsts.^
Not a single quarter of corn, — not a single beast of
any kind, — not a single cask of wine, — not a single
fleece of wool, nor hide of cattle, could<be lawfully
imported, or even bought and sold, except through
the hands of the privUeged Freemen of the Royal
Burghs. Within the Burghs themselves the Magis
trates assumed and exercised the right of regulat
ing and fixing the prices of all kinds of goods, and
especially of bread and provisions generally. This
was done in the assumed interest of the Community.
Nothing is more remarkable in the History of
Scotland than the manner in which this wide,
deeply rooted, and oppressive system was gradually
invaded and destroyed by the natural action of
individual interests, wdthout any previous change
of abstract opinion against the general policy on
which the system had been ignorantly founded.
So late as the reign of Charles i. in 1633, a fresh
Act was passed renewing, reviving, and enforcing
the older Statutes, and whatever had become
more or less obsolete in these Communal Mono-
1 It is a vulgar error to apply this word to the possession of articles
which are limited in quantity. If all who have such articles are free to
sell them, and all are equally free to buy them, then the possession is not
a monopoly.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 23 1
poUes over the whole Trade and Commerce of
the Nation.^ This was too much. There was
an immediate and strong reaction from the grow
ing energies of individual enterprise and industry.
The first great breach which was effected in the
system, came through the undermining action of
the new Towns and VUlages which had no old
Charters, and were not included within the charmed
circle of the Royal Burghs. The inhabitants of
these places could not practicaUy be prevented from
buying and selUng such articles as they were able
to make, or — if they were near the sea — to import.
Then came the supporting action of the Landowners
on whose Estates these new Towns were rising.
They had risen and were growing under the powers
and rights of Leasing, of Feuing, and of Heritable
Jurisdiction, which these Landowners held by
Charters erecting their Estates into Baronies of
RegaUty, or into simple Baronies with powers only
a little less extensive. Hence these new Towns and
Communities were called Burghs of Barony and of
Regality. For several centuries there had been
more or less of a perpetual struggle on the part of
the Royal Burghs to enforce their monopoly, and to
crush the newer Towms as nests of Smugglers. On
the other hand the great Landowners who held
Baronies and Regalities, were naturaUy interested in
the prosperity of the new Towns which were rising
under them, and thus became insensibly, but very
practicaUy, interested in the extension of individual
1 Act Pari Scot., vol. v. p. 48 (1633), c. 24.
VOL. II. Q

232 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
liberty, and consequently in the freedom of Trade.
Accordingly when legal questions arose, and the
Royal Burghs prosecuted other Towns for violation
of their monopolies, the Landowners sometimes
appeared in support of the defence.
The Act of 1633 was too violent to be borne.
At last, in 1671, a case arose which brought matters
to a head. Falkirk was a Burgh of Regality
buUt on the Estate of the Earl of CaUendar. But
it was within the area of Monopoly claimed by
the Royal Burgh of StirUng. It was prosecuted for
allowing its inhabitants, who were " unfreemen," to
engage in trade. The case attracted great atten
tion. The Barons of Regality took up arms in
a body in favour of a wider liberty. The Duke
of Lauderdale himself, who was interested in
the rising Town of Musselburgh, was induced to
come to Edinburgh to watch the case as it was
argued before the Court of Session. It soon
appeared that the questions raised touched the
whole policy of the Kingdom, and coiUd only be
settled by the Legislature itself A suggestion
to this effect by Sir George Mackenzie was taken
up by the Lords of Parliament, whose duty it
was to prepare Bills ; and the result was the
Act of 1672,^ which effected a temporary compro:
mise between the interests of individual freedom
and the old Monopolies in the hands of a few
popular Bodies. Parliament declared that the Act
of 1633 had extended those monopolies to a degree
1 Act Pari Scot, vol. viii. p. 63 (1672), c. 5.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 233
" highly prejudicial to the common interest and
good of the Kingdom." Nevertheless, the monopoly
of the Royal Burghs was for the future kept up as
regarded both the export and import of many
articles of foreign produce, except in so far as
private persons of aU ranks might import them for
their own domestic use alone. On the other hand,
the export and sale of all agricultural produce and
aU native commodities was made free to all the sub
jects of the Realm. The new Towns, the Burghs
of Regality and of Barony, were made free to trade
in aU manufactures of their own, to export all home
produce, and to import many articles required for
" tUlage or budding ; " whilst the retail trade of
Markets was made absolutely free.
This was a tremendous breach in the exclusive
privUeges of the old Burghal Communities, and
it was the opening of a very wide door for the
free action of all individual interests. Accordingly,
against the ever widening consequences of this Act
the Royal Burghs, which alone were represented
in ParUament, carried on an unceasing struggle
and protest, loudly calling for its repeal. They
did succeed in getting some new Acts passed after
the Revolution, fencing and guarding, by new pro
visions and penalties, the exclusive rights which
stm remained to them as regards the imports of
foreign produce ; and at a later date their interest in
ParUament, backed by the influence of traditional
feeUngs and opmions which were not yet theoreti
cally abandoned, were sufficiently strong to secure

234 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
a Clause in the Treaty of Union with England, pro
viding for the security and continuance of their
privUeges as they then stood. But too much
freedom had now been granted to keep out the
continued and unceasing pressure of individual
Mind. The Courts of Law in aU doubtful cases
ruled in favour of freedom in the true sense of
that word, the sense, namely, of individual liberty.
The natural right of every man to exercise his
own faculties in the free disposal of his own means
and property, became too wide an instiact to be
compatible with even a faint survival of the Com
munist Monopolies. Yet it may weU be regarded
with surprise, that, so far as the Statute-Book was
concerned, they survived down to our own day. It
was not until 1846 that an Act was passed formally
abolishing them, and this was passed as the result
of an inquiry by Royal Commission, which reported
that practicaUy they were afready dead.
Every step in the long process of self-education
through which the Nation passed in this question
of Trade Monopolies, is full of historical and of
poUtical interest. There are two documents which
throw especial light upon that process, which are
separate from each other in date by no more than
35 years. The first belongs to the time of the
Commonwealth — the second belongs to the time of
William iii. The Protector, as is weU known, con
templated and for a time effected, a complete Union
between England and Scotland, both being under
one Government, and represented in one United

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 235
Parliament. It is to the credit of the Royal
Burghs of Scotland that a majority of them seem to
have voted for Cromwell's policy, which included as
one of its main advantages, complete freedom of
commercial intercourse between all citizens of the
Commonwealth. Struck by the poverty of Scot
land and the heavy deficit on its revenue below
the cost of its administration, he sent down an
experienced Commissioner^ to inquire into the
subject, and especially into the condition of the
Royal Burghs. His Report, rendered in 1656, gives
an authentic and a very striking account of the
almost abject poverty of the country, and of the
miserable narrowness of its Commerce. He saw at
once that much of this scantiness of Trade was
directly connected with the backwardness of Agri
culture, and the consequent want of any products
to exchange. This condition of Agriculture again
he ascribed to the ignorance, poverty, and slothful-
ness of the people. With a curious insight and
perspicacity, he pitched on the most striking-
symbol of aU the waste he saw, and pointed to a
"lazy vagrancy of attending and following their
herds up and down in their pasturage." ^ There
was consequently no trade from the inland parts.
There never had been much ; but what re
mained was limited to the seaside, and was
confined to a few Ports on the East coast, and
in or near the Estuary of the Clyde. Glasgow
' A Mr. Tucker from the Office of Excise in London.
• 2 Mtscellany of Scottish Burgh Records Society, 1881 : Tucker's
Report, p. 16.

236 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
had then only twelve vessels, the biggest of
which were 150 tons burden, and most of which
were mere boats. They traded to Ireland with
small coals in open boats of from four to twenty
tons, taking back meal, oats, butter, with barrel
staves and hoops. There was a limited trade
with France and Noi-way — coals, plaiding, salt
herring, and salmon being the chief articles, for
which they got some condiments and prunes.
Dundee had suffered severely from the Wars.
Her trade had declined, but " though not glorious,
yet was not contemptible." She had ten vessels in
all, the biggest 120 tons. Ayr was in a sad con
dition, from the silting up of her river and harbour.
"The place was growing every day worse and worse."^
Newark (now Port-Glasgow) had " some four or
five houses besides the Laird's house of the place."
Greenock was just such another, only a little larger
— the people all fishermen and sailors trading to
Ireland and the Isles in open boats ; yet in spite of
all this leanness in the land, Cromwell's agent had
the perception to see, and did not omit to mention
the " MercantUe genius " of the people.
Such was the description of a stranger, coming
from a wealthier country in 1656. But thirty- five
years later we have the description of the Royal
Burghs of Scotland given by themselves. They
had spent many of the intervening years in vain
endeavours to enforce their monopoly against all
1 Miscellany of Scotti.'ih Burgh Records Society, 1881 : Tucker's
Report, p. 28.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 237
their countrymen, and in alternate contests and
negotiations with the Landowners who were en
couraging the new, unprivileged, individual Traders
who were rising everywhere. The Restoration of
the Monarchy had brought with it the immediate
abandonment and revocation of all Cromwell's
poUcy, including Free Trade with England. This
great outlet was lost to Scotland — to all her Towns
whether "free" or " unfree." All the more was
personal energy and character required for success
in the narrowed and restricted paths of industry.
The old Royal Burghs did not advance. At last,
in 1691, they appointed a Committee to inquire
and report on the condition, revenues, resources,
and difficulties of every one. A tabulated series of
questions were addressed to each. The result was
a series of Reports of the highest interest in History
and in PoUtics. One broad result stares us in the
face — ^that almost everywhere the privileged and
monopoUst Burghs were stagnant or declining,
whUst the new Towns which had no privileges,
and were even heavily handicapped in the race
by having to fight against Communal Monopolies,
were as universaUy prosperous, and were rising
every year in wealth and in importance. Mind, set
upon its mettle, was everywhere triumphing over
routine and usage : — Mind, in the selection of new
sites — Mind, in the advantage taken of special
opportunities — Mind, in seeing new openings — and
everywhere. Mind freed from the stupid levelUng
of arbitrary GuUds.

238 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
Nothing can be more striking than the evidence
to this effect. One of the questions asked of all
the old Royal Burghs concerned the number and
condition of the New Towns of Barony and Regahty
which existed within the area of their Monopoly.
The list given is a list of many of the most im
portant Towns now existing in Scotland. The
Royal Burgh of Renfrew enumerates no less than
nine new Burghs of Barony and Regality within
" their precincts," even the smallest of which had
" a much more considerable trade" than them
selves. Among these nine we find Paisley, Port-
Glasgow, Greenock, and Gourock. The rising
trade of all these places was, if possible, to be
suppressed, and the Royal Burghs universally refer
to it as "highly prejudicial" to their own in
terests and industry. Even Glasgow was at that
time declining — with nearly five hundred houses
"waste," whilst those still inhabited had fallen
nearly one -third in the rents they fetched. The
best houses in Glasgow were at that time worth
no more than £8, 6s. a year in Sterling money.
Glasgow bitterly complained of the same neigh
bouring Towns, and of some others, which so vexed
the soul of Renfrew. In particular, the little vil
lage which was growing up on the shores of " Sir
John Shaw's little Bay," Greenock, was described
as having " a very great trade both foreign and
inland, particularly prejudicial to the trade of
Glasgow." ^
1 Miscellany of Scottish Burgh Records : State of Burghs, etc., p. 72.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 239
And yet in the midst of these stupidities
we have a few evidences that even the Com
munal Mind was opening to the lessons of ex
perience. In a few cases men began to see that
the action of the human Will is subject to cer-
taitt natural laws, and that when enactments
run counter to these, or do not take due note of
them, such enactments, however virtuous in motive,
are purely mischievous. Thus in 1688, the Conven
tion of Royal Burghs had awakened to the fact that
the Sumptuary Laws had been " very prejudicial"
to them.^ It was turning out that what were called
the luxuries of the rich were inseparable from the
comforts and necessities of the poor. Costly things
were only costly because they were much desired,
and because much was consequently given to those
who could find, produce, or make them. And a
great part of this cost went of necessity to the Mus
cular Labour, which was the contribution of the poor.
Again, the Royal Burghs were beginning to find out
that even within their own " precincts," individual
enterprise was breaking through the incubus of their
communal restrictions. Individual citizens and
Burgesses, seeing the success of their neighbours in
the " unfree " Towns, were entering into partnership
with them in various enterprises and speculations.
It is worth while to listen for a moment to the words
in which this conduct of men in the free disposal of
their own faculties, and of their own property, was
denounced by that spirit of tyranny which is never
I Miscellany of Scottish Burgh Records : Preface, p. 32.

240 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
more oppressive than when it is wielded in the sup
posed interest of a local popular majority. "The
Convention being resolved no longer to suffer the
privileges of Royal Burghs to be abused and en
croached upon by their own Burgesses, who, by
joining stocks with unfreemen, inhabitants in the
Burghs of Regality and Barony, and other unfree
places, both in point of trade and shipping, whereby
those unfreemen receive all imaginable encourage
ment from freemen in Royal Burghs to trade, and
that the said freemen do voluntarUy and with
their own hands destroy the privUeges of the
Royal Burghs — therefore " ^ the Convention de
nounced new pains and penalties against aU such
persons — as disloyal to the Community to which
they belonged.
Here was an aperture in the armour of Burghal
monopolies which the irrepressible energies of
individual interests were quite sure to widen.
Partnerships could be easily concealed, and the
only result of enforcing inquisition into the use
to which men might put their own money, would
have been, and doubtless was, that the most enter
prising Minds would seek refuge in the new Towns.
With them, therefore, the contest was hopeless,
and it soon ceased altogether. But for many years
after this date, and even after the Union, the
exclusiveness of the Guilds in the supposed inter
est of the Skilled Labour, and of the RetaU Trade
of the old Burghs, continued unabated. It was
1 Miscellany of Scottish Burgh Records : Preface, p. 40.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 241
reserved for this system as it prevailed in Glas
gow, to afford the most signal Ulustration of its
antagonism to the laws of Nature. The site of
Glasgow had been chosen without any view to in
dustry even of the earUest and rudest kind. It had
not clustered under a Rock Fortress, like Stirling
or Dumbarton. It had not arisen beside a natural
harbour, like Dundee or Aberdeen. It had not
grown up out of a fishing- village, like Greenock or
Rothesay. Its nucleus was not even a feudal
Castle. Its position had been determined by the
Cathedral of St. Mungo, and was originaUy a mere
hamlet of " the Bishop's men " living under the
protection of a great Archiepiscopal See. It was
not among the number of the most Ancient Royal
Burghs of the Kingdom. In the Fifteenth Century
its importance was increased by being made the
seat of a new University. But this was done through
the same influence and agency of the Church to
which the Town owed its own foundation. Glas
gow was itself, therefore, nothing more than one of
the Burghs of Barony on a Church Estate. Two
of the Old Royal Burghs, Rutherglen and Dum
barton, long domineered over it, as now Glasgow
tried to domineer over Greenock and Paisley. It
is true that it stood near the river Clyde, towards
which its houses graduaUy straggled. But the
Clyde at that point was distant from the sea, its
course was very shaUow, and it was being perpetu-
aUy sUted up with shifting sandbanks. This was
one of the causes of its decay in CromweU's time.

242 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
Only through the new openings which came with
the Union did it begin to revive again. But, as
a Seaport, it never could have reached its pre
sent position without the operation of the Steam
Dredge, through which ships of the heaviest burden
have long been able to ascend the river, and to
lie beside its quays. During the last forty-six years
very nearly forty millions of tons of material have
been removed from the bed of the Clyde by the
Steam Dredge — a mass which would form a conical
mountain 513 feet high, with a circumference at the
base of one mile and a half? Yet it is a memorable
fact that when the future Inventor of the new Steam
Engine, without which dredging on this gigantic
scale would have been impossible, came to reside
and to open a shop in Glasgow, he was persecuted
as an interloper and a poacher on the domain of
the Guild of Hammermen. James Watt was then
probably known there as an ingenious Mechanic, but
he must have also been known as the grandson of one
of the earliest Bailies of the " unfree " Town of Green
ock, that most presumptuous union of the vUlages of
the Crawfords and the Shaws. The Hammermen de
clared that from the competition of such an " unfree-
man," the whole Communitv would " suffer skaith."
A man on whom Nature had bestowed, in richer
measure than it had ever been bestowed before,
the very individual and the very special gift of
mechanical genius, and whose discoveries were des-
^ I give these astonishing facts on the authority of Mr. James Deas,
C.E., kindly communicated to me through Dr. Marwick, Town-Clerk
of Glasgow.

THE FRUITS OF MIND, 243
fined, to raise Glasgow to be one of the greatest
Cities of the world, was actuaUy driven from her
Burghal " precincts." Fortunately the University
had precincts of its own which were outside the
" Uberties " of the Guilds. Within that sanctum this
patient and laborious Mind wrought out the great
problem on which its heart, as well as its intellect,
was set. It thought and pondered, and weighed
and measured, and tried and tried again, untU at
last the moment of Inspiration came, and one of the
most tremendous agencies in the material world
became tractable as a little child. It was tamed,
yoked, and bound to every variety of human service
— an immense contribution indeed, not only to the
Common Good of Glasgow, but to the Common
Good of aU Mankind.
The same natural play of instinct and of motive
which had led the Landowners with such immense
success to foster individual Uberty and enterprise,
in the hands of then own Villagers and Feuars, now
led them also to rely more and more on the same
great principle as equally appUcable to their agricul
tural Tenants. For this purpose the first step to be
taken was that, wherever possible, on the expiry of
old Leases, then farms should be re-let to indi
vidual Tenants. Such Tenants became at once freed
from the trammels of Communal Usage, and could
move out of the ruts in which the wheels of progress
were jammed up to the very axletrees. They could
— but were they sure to do so ? Here again there
was an education of experience — analogous to that

244 SCOLLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
which only very slowly and very gradually educated
the Towns in the lessons of the new Industrial Age.
It soon turned out that neither the mere circum
stance of undivided holdings, nor the additional cir
cumstance of very long Leases, were enough of
themselves to secure an improving Agriculture.
The reason is obvious. If the sources of all Wealth
are Mind, Materials, and Opportunity, it is clearly
not enough to have only one, or only two of these
sources opened. Materials are useless, and so is
Opportunity, and so are both together, if the ap
propriate qualities of Mind to make use of them
are wanting. Significant indications are given in
the Reports so often referred to, of the steps of
experience through which the Owners of land were
taught how best to secure the improvement of the
soU. Thus in the Lennox, the perpetual tenure of
Feu for a fixed annual payment, had been given
over various areas of agricultural land to men who
thereby became small Owners, and had all the in
ducements to improvement which Ownership is re
puted to give. But neither the accumulations due
to Mind in the past, nor those aspfrations of Mind
which regard the future, were present to take due
advantage of the Material and of the Opportunity.
These Feuars belonged originally to the old unim-
proving class. They had no conception of educating
their chUdren for any other employment than that
on which they and their fathers had maintained
existence. Consequently they went on sub-dividing
their lands among a progeny as ignorant and unim-

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 245
proving as themselves. " They thought it a disgrace
that their children should be anything but Lairds." ^
This sub-division went on increasing until the little
possessions had become so small, in 1794, that some
of the Owners could not afford to keep a horse.
Then we have the usual sickening detail of constant
over-cropping, of "nothing being laid out on improve
ments, and of the land being scourged to the last
extremity." The whole produce could hardly sup
port the famUies that depended upon it, even with
the addition of what was procured by the unremit
ting labour of the wife and children in spinning and
a httle weaving.^ This is an exact description of
the results of a similar condition of things now
common among the Peasant Proprietors of parts
of France, as described by such eye-witnesses as
Mr. Hamerton, Lady Verney, and many others.
The lesson against feuing agricultural land was
hardly needed. Land feued is land sold. Feuing is
merely one form of total alienation. A " Superior "
parts with aU the powers and rights of Ownership,
except that of receiving a Rent charge. The Feuar
becomes the Proprietor. On the other hand, the
evidence furnished by the Report of 1794 on
Dumbartonshire, is in favour of what are how
caUed Allotments — that is to say, small areas of
land let to Labourers and Tradesmen who were
inteUigent. These were reported to be by no means
ill cultivated or unimproved.^ On the contrary,
1 Agriculture of Dumbartonshire : Reports, vol. ii. p. 14.
2 Ibid. ^ Ibid. p. 15.

246 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
they were reported to be as far advanced as
any part of the County — at a time too, when the
Common Good of the Burgh was lying compara
tively waste. On such Allotments the fuU benefit
of individual interest was at work, coupled often
with knowledge above the average of that possessed
by the old class of Tenants. Feus are an excellent
tenure for purposes of Building, and Scotchmen
generally will not buUd on any tenure less secure
and permanent. But there is no reason which should
induce a Proprietor to give off agricultural land on
this tenure. If he wishes to seU, it is best to sell
out and out. But the example of those old feus to
small Owners in Dumbartonshire is an excellent
illustration of the general principle on which all
improvements depend.
There was, however, another case in which the
teachings of experience were more practically im
portant. Leases of great length are another panacea
amongst those who have had no experience, which
is often recommended wdth much confidence. But
this also was tried, and with the same result,
depending exactly on the same principles. It
appears from Professor Walker's Work, published
in 1808,1 that Archibald, third Duke of ArgyU, the
friend of Culloden, had been induced to give some
very long Leases of large farms in Mull — Leases for
"three nineteens," or a period of fifty-seven years.
He expected the Tenants "to set a pattern of
industry and improvement" on such length and
1 Economic History of the Hebrides, vol. i. p. 68.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 247
security of tenure. But the expectation was not
fulfilled. When the Leases were half expired the
farms were found to be as little improved as any on
the Island. The same experiment had been tried
in the Island of Islay by Mr. Campbell of Shawfield,
who, in 1720, let aU his Estate on Leases of the
same long duration, with the result that in 1764
that Island had undergone no improvement — wdth
one soUtary exception. Flax had been introduced,
and became a source of industry and advantage to
the Island. But this one exception was the result,
not of the long Leases, but of the only compulsory
clause which had been inserted in them by the Pro
prietor, which was a clause binding the Tenants to
cultivate flax.-^ It thus appeared that the only one
item of improvement which had been effected during
more than half a century was due, not to the Mind
of the Tenant, but to the Mind of the Proprietor —
to his forethought, and to his knowledge — in binding
men who were comparatively ignorant, to begin a
new industry, which of themselves they never
would have thought of.
In this one exception to the general result we
see the whole secret and the whole phUosophy of
the only method by which it was then possible to
improve the agriculture of Scotland — to arrest the
increasing impoverishment of her soU, and to lift
her rural population out of the poverty and sloth in
which they Uved. It was the exercise, in a new
direction, of the same Power to which the Parlia-
^ Economic History of the Hebrides, vol. i. p. 68.
VOL. II. R

248 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
ment of Scotland had often appealed before, not only
to secure a Tenantry loyal to the Government, but
also to secure such rural improvements as were then
known. Educated men were to direct the energies
of men less instructed. Mind was to keep its power
over Muscle. Very long terms of Lease, during
which this power was to be suspended, could not
but be mischievous. Most fortunately for the
country, few Proprietors had been induced to try
an experiment which could not be stopped during
the long period of nearly sixty years — although it
might be quite evident before one-half that time had
expired, that it must end in total failure. In the great
majority of cases they had granted no other Leases
than those of the ordinary duration of "one nine
teen," and at the end of every Lease they inserted
stipulations in the new Tacks binding the Tenants
to execute certain specified improvements. These,
of course, expanded with the expanding knowledge
of the day. Proprietors were themselves only in
course of being educated ; and some were before
others in appreciating and accepting the advancing
knowledge of a new science. In some points they
were almost as slow to break with ancient Usages,
and to perceive the mischief of them, as the most
ignorant of their Tenants. The heavy dues exacted
for " Thirlage," or the maintenance of MUls, were a
great evU, and they were not wholly abolished till
recent years. But the stipulations in Leases became
more and more enlightened and important in their
effects. They began generally with stipulations for

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 249
the making of enclosures, and for the buUding of
better Houses than the old hovels, which were as uni
versal in the Lowlands as in the Highlands. But this
rudimentary step of providing for enclosures speedily
involved corresponding stipulations for the uses to
which enclosed land was to be appUed. There were
clauses to forbid old habits which were ruinous.
There were clauses prescribing new methods which
were fruitful — clauses forbidding continuous crop
ping with Cereals — clauses enjoining an alternation
with the new Green Crops — clauses insisting on the
use of Sown Grasses — and on the application of due
quantities of manure. With the growing knowledge
of the cultivating class, and the yearly proofs ex
perienced of increasiag produce and of rising values,
the necessity for such detaUed stipulations graduaUy
abated. The " rules of good husbandry " became a
legal phrase, having a definite meaning, and suscep
tible of judicial interpretation. A class of Tenant
farmers arose having themselves ample knowledge,
sufficient capital, and technical skUl. In proportion
as the permanent accommodation and apparatus re
quired for scientific agriculture became more costly,
it became more and more the universal habit in
Scotland that the Owner should supply that accom
modation and apparatus along with the land itself
In some cases part of this work was done by the
Tenant on stipulated conditions — he making his
own calculations for repayment, either by compara
tive lowness of rent, or by comparative length of
Lease — or by both combined.

250 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
It is not often that we can enjoy in human affairs
the sharp and clear processes of demonstration which
are the glorious reward of Physical Research. Yet
such — and not less certain — are the proofs now
afforded by the history of Scotland in favour of the
Powers and Agencies through which her Agriculture
was reformed during the latter half of the Eighteenth
Century. By all that had happened before the
change — by aU that ceased to happen wherever it was
effected — by all that continued to happen wherever
it was hampered or delayed, — it is proved to demon
stration that terrible evUs and dangers were in
separably bound up with the older system, and with
the ignorant habits in which the whole of it con
sisted. This is one kind of proof. But there is
another kind. By aU the benefits which the change
immediately conferred — by all the increase in these
benefits which arose in proportion as it became
developed — by all the sacrifice of them wherever it
was still delayed, — we can see without the shadow
of a doubt, that the new system was founded on
Natural Laws, on the recognition which they
demand, and on the obedience which they reward.
Nature takes no cognisance of stupidity in the
sense of allowance or of remission. She does take
cognisance of it in the way of punishment. Chronic
poverty and frequent famines had been, as we have
seen, the punishment in Scotland of the ignorant
wastefulness of its traditionary agricultural ^cus
toms. So now when Mind had been awakened,
and when its energies, wielded by individual

THE FRUITS OP MIND. 251
men, had been turned with better knowledge
to the improvement of the soU, Nature took
notice of it by a lavish increase of her fruits.
It is a striking fact that the " Ul years " — the bad
seasons — of 1781-2 were the last which afflicted any
large part of Scotland with severe distress and the
danger of famine. In those years the new know
ledge, and the new class of Tenants who were able
to make any use of it, were as yet established only
in some parts of the country. Everywhere else the
old usages were still supreme — the Runrig culti
vation — the promiscuous grazing — the wretched
Cattle — the not less wretched Oats and Bear. The
consequence was that over no less than fifteen of
the Counties of Scotland, a population of not less
than 111,521 souls were only rescued from starvation
by charitable collections.^ After this date down to
our own times there have been bad seasons again and
again recurring at about the usual intervals — but
never have they had the same effect — except in the
few remaining fastnesses of the ancient ignorance.
These fastnesses have chiefly been in the Hebrides,
and in a few Districts of the Northern Highlands
— always where, only where, and in proportion as,
the old stupidities have resisted and survived.
But the story of this resistance is so curious and
so instructive that it must be shortly told.
We have seen how in 1739, under the advice of
Culloden, the first great step had been taken on the
Hebridean Estates of the Argyll famUy — that of
^ Memoirs of Sir John Sinclair, Bart, vol. i. p. 90.

252 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
redeeming the class of Sub-Tenants from their
servitudes to the Tacksmen under whom they
universally held at Will. In some cases they were
themselves raised to the position of Tacksmen — in
all cases they were freed from indefinite exactions.
We have seen, too, how shocked CuUoden had been
by the wasteful and barbarous husbandry he
witnessed in Tyree. But on the other hand he did
not see his way to any immediate or compulsory
change in these methods of cultivation. He probably
thought that self-interest, now caUed into play
under new conditions of security, would be enough
to bring about reform. Wielding the powers of
Ownership, he had abolished one deeply-rooted and
most ancient custom — the custom of indefinite
Servitudes. He did not know, or perfectly under
stand, that nothing but the same powers, wielded
with like determination and like intelUgence, could
uproot those other Servitudes — as old and as de
structive — under which the people were chained and
bound amongst each other in a perfect tangle of
obstructive usages.
Culloden and aU that generation passed away,
with his two friends, Duke John and Duke
Archibald (Lord Islay). The struggle was unceasing
to get the people to amend their culture. Then
came the Potato — then the Kelp. Subsistence
became comparatively easy, and w^as sometimes
abundant. But all this came to a people unprepared
by previous habits, or by any new aspirations, to
profit by it. Nothing was saved or stored. They

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 253
lived, and ate, and multiplied. From the date of
my Grandfather's succession in 1770, he issued
ceaseless instructions for the improvement of the
people. He insisted in his Leases on enclosures, to
save the arable lands from constant invasion by
whole herds of useless horses and lean cattle. He
insisted on better Houses. He tried his best to
prevent the systematic waste of Barley by illicit dis
tillation. He tried to establish Fisheries. He tried
to stop the destructive habit of breaking up pasture
on Sands which were liable to be blown. When
Kelp became an important resource he left so large a
part of it to the workers that they held their land
practicaUy for nothing, because the whole rent, and
often much more, came out of Kelp. His rent from
13,000 acres of land did not amount to more than the
saleable value of the Barley crop alone. All other
produce, — potatoes, lint, sheep, mUk, butter and
cheese, poultry, eggs, etc., were not counted at all
as contributing to rent, because the Proprietor said
"he wished the Tenants to Uve plentifully and
happUy." It was all in vain — as regards any per
manent improvement. Plenty is a relative term.
Produce which was plenteous for a population of
1676 persons in 1769, would not be plenteous to a
popidation which had risen to 2776 in 1802. In
that year the condition of the Island alarmed his
age"nt, Mr. Maxwell of Aros, an excellent and able
man who was maternal grandfather of the late Dr.
Norman Macleod. His Report is a repetition of the
worst accounts to the Board of Agriculture in 1794.

254 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
Subdivision had reduced the holdings to starvation
point. The Cows did not produce calves above once
in two or three years. Troops of Horses, used only
for dragging seaweed at one time of the year, preyed
aU the rest of the year on the exhausted pastures.
Hosts of Cottars living only on the wages of Kelp-
burning oppressed the unfortunate Tenants. The
quaUty of the Barley was deteriorating rapidly.
Ignorance of all husbandry, and stubborn attach
ment to the old customs, offered " arduous obstacles
to the improvement of the Island." The additional
One Thousand people who had grown up in recent
years could not be supported. My Grandfather had
begun to entertain the proposal to help them to
the Colonies. But in 1803 there arose, as we have
seen, that panic against Emigration described before.
The old Duke seems to have deeply shared in it.
His soldierly spirit was stirred, too, in favour of the
men who had enlisted in the Fencible Regiments
which were about to be disbanded at the Peace.
He determined to try a new plan. He resolved to
break down and cut up several of the larger Farms
falling out of Lease, and to settle as many of the
people as he could on smaller but separate Holdings
of a size calculated to support a FamUy with ease.
But one essential part of this scheme was enclosure
— individual possession — the abolition of promis
cuous waste in the form of Runrig. He employed
a professional Surveyor to lay out the new " Crofts,"
which were to be capable of supporting not less
than 16 Cows.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 255
This most benevolent scheme was met by the
most obstinate resistance on the part of the people.
Rather than give up the wasteful habits of Runrig,
they declared they would rather go to join the
emigration which Lord Selkirk was then leading to
North America. The Duke's agent at the time
was a Highlander himself, intimate with the con
dition and habits of the people. Yet he writes
almost in despair with their infatuated blindness to
their own obvious interests, and to the value of
the reforms which had by that time become accepted
by every educated man. He suggested to the Duke
a postponement of the plan. Yet time was needed
to make even a beginning, and the powers of
Ownership were once more asserted to insist on the
abolition of a system so destructive and so dangerous.
By firmness, and by assistance given in fencing, the
division and individuality of the arable lands was
at last effected. The grazings only continued to
be used in common, but even on these the amount
of stock was carefuUy fixed and apportioned to
each man.
Now followed a most remarkable series of facts.
The old Field-Marshal died in 1806. In one
respect his poUcy was entirely successful. The
separation of holdings — the individualisation of the
arable areas — resulted, almost automatically, in a
great increase of produce. But it had another
result which was not foreseen. It facilitated and
gave a new impulse to further subdivision. Under
the Runrig system the introduction of an additional

256 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
shareholder required assent. In settling this there
were at least some difficulties to be overcome in
the way of subdivision. Under separate holdings
of the arable area these difficulties were much dimi
nished. Increasing produce and a greater freedom
in subdividing, were at once taken advantage
of by a people whose intelligence was not deve
loped in proportion to its opportunities. Nothing
but the continued exercise of the powers of
Ownership in fighting a watchful and uphUl battle
against inveterate habits, could have been success
ful. Instead of this there was an almost complete
abandonment of all control. There came a Reign —
not of Law, or of Mind — but of what in medical
language is called " Amentia." My Grandfather's
Successor ¦' lived for thirty-three years — during the
whole of which time the powers of Ownership may
be said to have been suspended. He was a perfect
type of the kind of Landowner who was adored in
Ireland — one who never meddled or interfered vrith
the stupidities of Custom. Celtic usages were
allowed their course. Subdivision went on at a
redoubled rate, and population kept up even more
than pace. In 1822 the Farms which had been held
by small Tenants ever since Culloden's time were
crowded with a population of 2869 souls ; whilst the
newly divided farms, five in number, held no less
than 1080 more. There had been a bad season in
1821. The Cattle were almost starved, and there
w^ere many cases of great misery among the people.
1 George, Sixth Duke of Argjdl, succeeded 1806, died 1839.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 257
Once more. Kelp came to the rescue. There was an
extraordinary supply of it, and this, with wholesale
insolvency admitted and allowed, tided over the
crisis for a time. Next came another tremendous
blow. The whole Kelp Trade rested on Fiscal
Protection, and on two special taxes alone. One
was upon Spanish BarUla — a Plant growing not
in the sea, but on the land, and rich in the
AlkaUs which seaweed afforded. The other im
post was the tax on Salt — a tax most oppressive
to numberless industries, and speciaUy injurious to
the Highlands, through the impediments thrown
in the way of the trade in fish. From common salt,
which is a salt of Soda, the same important Alkali
could be made into other combinations. Both these
taxes were repealed — one in 1823, the other in 1826.
The trade of the Kingdom as a whole was immensely
benefited. But the special, and the only manu
facture of the Hebrides, and of the adjacent coasts,
was destroyed.
In all other countries when Mines are ex
hausted, or when MUls are closed, or when any
other local industry is extinguished, the people
who had been so employed invariably move off to
other fields where their labour can be made re
munerative to themselves, and useful to the world.
But the Hebrideans never thought of this. There
is, nevertheless, no suspension of the laws of Nature
for the special and exclusive protection of any par
ticular set of men, merely because they belong to
a particular race, or because they live in an Island, or

258 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
because they speak a particular language. Failing
the Kelp trade, they stiU held on by the Potato.
The consequence was that the "ill years," which
must every now and then recur, always smote them
with the misery and famine which had in former
generations smitten the rest of Scotland. In 1886-7
there was terrible misery aU over the Highlands
wherever the old system stiU survived, and especi
aUy in Skye. We have an account of it, and of the
causes which produced it, from an educated High
lander,-' who writes with that high inteUigence of
his race which never fails to be conspicuous where-
ever Highlanders are lifted above the level of the
old Paternal Customs. I need not repeat his story.
It is a mere duplicate of the course of events which
we have followed in Tyree. Everything that had
been done in the panic of 1803 against emigration,
had simply ended in aggravating the evil. Even
the making of the Caledonian Canal, begun in the
same year, from which much was hoped, had
done no permanent good. The Skye men had
indeed worked at it. Whilst the construction of
it had lasted, between 300 and 400 of them had
earned from £3500 to £4000 in the half year
But there was no change of habits — no elevation
in the standard of living. On the contrary, it
was becoming lower and lower from the wretched
husbandry, and from the stimulated growth of
population. The one Parish of KUmuir had in 1736
^ Mr. Alexander Macgregor, Licentiate of the Church of Scotland
Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, No. XLli., vol. ix.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 259
only 1230 souls. Even this was far above the
population it had supported in the Epoch of the
Clans. This is repeatedly and emphatically stated
by Mr. Macgregor, and it reminds us that even
then the population of the old MUitary Ages had
been far exceeded. Yet nineteen years later, the
population had risen to 1572. In 1791 it was
2060. In 1831 it was 3415, and in this year of
renewed famine 1836-7, it amounted to about 4000.
It wdll be observed that this exorbitant in
crease went on after the Kelp trade had been
destroyed. There was nothing whatever to justify,
or account for such increase except an ever-
increasing dependence on the Potato, and a
corresponding lowering of the conditions of life.
There was not the sUghtest advance in agri
cultural knowledge or industry. On the contrary
— no account given by wandering Englishmen
or by Low Countrymen, which may be thought
highly coloured by anti-Celtic prejudices, can
exceed in wretchedness the account by this de
scendant of the Clan Gregor in respect to the
industrial habits of the Skyemen among whom he
Uved so late as 1838. The women alone did all
the harrowing ; whilst every implement and every
method of cultivation were alike barbarous and
ineffective. Next came the final blow — the Potato
disease of 1846. By that time the population of
Tyree had increased to about 5000 souls — an in
crease probably without parallel in any purely rural
district in the world. It may bring this abnormal

260 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
multipUcation more strikingly home to us, when we
observe the fact that this single Hebridean Island
added to its population during about 80 years
a greater number of souls than were added to the
population of the Cathedral City of Glasgow during
all the generations which elapsed between the War
of Independence and the Reformation.-' It did this
under the stimulus of a manufacture which rested
wholly on Protective Duties injurious to the rest of
the community- — under the influence of a mindless
contentment with a very low diet — and of an in
dulgence, not less mindless, in instincts which are
natural in themselves, but which, like all other
natural instincts, require the control of an en
lightened WUl. The love of offspring is a natmal
instinct which we share with all creatures. But
educated men do not anywhere encourage then-
children to buUd hovels round their home, without
reference to adequate means of maintaining a civi
lised existence. Even among the Bfrds of the Air, and
the creatures of the Field, there is a wonderful,
and even a mysterious law by which a wholesome
dispersion is secured, and limited areas of subsist
ence are kept from being overstocked. It is a
curious fact, quite common in the Highlands, that
small areas of arable land which can never be en
larged from the nature of the country, are frequented
by a single pair of Partridges, producing a siagle
covey every year, which, even when never shot,
never remain to multiply. It is true that Man has
' History of Glasgow, by George Macgregor, 1881, Appendix, p. 530.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 261
powers and resources which the lower animals have
not. It is true that with every new mouth that
is born, two new hands are born to feed them.
But it is not true that the two hands have power
in aU circumstances to earn new subsistence. Sus
tenance cannot be sensibly increased upon St. KUda.
Nature intervenes and kiUs off the children by a
horrible and mysterious disease. Even those that
remain Uve largely upon charity ; and are now said
to exhibit the moral deterioration which such de
pendence always causes, when it becomes habitual.
This is an extreme case. But it is very Uttle more
extreme than the case of other Hebridean Islands.
The love of Race is another natural instinct. But
educated men do not cling to spots of birth when
¦wider regions invite to wider duties, and to more
fruitful works.
Sooner or later Nature finds out the sins and
blindnesses of all her chUdren. We know what
were the results of the Potato famine in Ireland,
where it fell on a population which had never been
redeemed from a terrible continuity of Celtic usages,
and had never enjoyed the opportunities afforded
to the people of Tyree, by the abolition of Middle
men, by the formation of separate holdings, and by
rents kept down to a low rate on purpose to let
them Uve with exceptional ease. The same effects
resulted where aU these opportunities had been
afforded, but where they had not been put to the
right use by minds adequately prepared. There
was imminent danger of starvation. It was pre-

262 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
vented by charity — the charity of Proprietors gen
erously aided by the charity of the Public. This
charity w^as rendered effective in the Hebrides by
the comparatively limited area of distress. The
rest of Scotland suffered great losses in one article
of produce and of sale. But no part of Scotland
suffered any danger of famine, except those parts
of it where the old mediseval ignorances had been
suffered to survive. There never was so clear a
lesson. Conviction was forced on the poor people
of the Island of Tyree, and they addressed to Sir
John M'NeiU, who was then at the head of the
Board of Supervision for the Poor, an earnest and
even a passionate petition asking for assistance to
emigrate to Canada. I have nowhere seen a more
forcible and more conclusive plea set forth in favour
of this remedy.-' It feU to the lot of my Father and
myself to respond to it. At great cost we enabled
upwards of a thousand people to go where they
could put to use the admirable elements of char
acter which never faU to be exhibited by High
landers when they move out into the stream of the
world's progress. When I visited Canada and the
United States in 1879, I had the warmest invita
tions from Highlanders who had emigrated ; and
the accounts of success were universal.
I take but little merit to myself, that in the
face of proofs so ample, and of results so terrible,
I determined — with due regard to local circum
stances, and to a past which could not be too
1 See Appendix II. p. 328.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 263
suddenly reversed without hardship — to return to
the principles which — starting everywhere from
the same conditions — had secured the wealth, the
comfort, and the civUisation of the rest of Scot
land. Subdivision was stopped. Existing sub
divisions, when vacant from death, insolvency, or
migrations, were never put up to competition, as
they would have been under Middlemen. They
were invariably added to the holding of the nearest
neighbours who could take them. Some new
Tenants from the Low Country were brought in,
who could show new methods, and introduce some
circulation of ideas into a stagnant air. By the
steady prosecution of this process during forty
years, some approach has been gradually made to
the condition of things which was aimed at by the
old Field-Marshal. With the increasing size of
holdings, comfort and prosperity have steadily
advanced. But the tendency to revert to ancient
habits reappears from time to time ; and the
encouragements of a very ignorant sentiment " out
of doors " has lately led to an attempt to go back
through the paths of violence to the ruinous prac
tices of the past, in spite of all reason, and in spite
of a long and a terrible experience.
I have spoken of the wonder that must often
strike us when we look back on the slowness of
Mankind, in opening their eyes to the most obvious
facts of nature, and to conclusions of the reason
which now appear to us quite as obvious as the
facts. There is one signal example of this connected
VOL. IL s

264 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
with the history of a large part of Scotland, which
appUes not to the poorer, but to the more educated
classes, and especially to the Landowmers. An
immense area of the Western and Northern High
lands is occupied by high and very steep mountains.
We have seen that only little bits of them were
ever put to any use at all under the old system,
and even those bits were used for only about six
weeks in the year. For several generations it had
been known in the Border Highlands that such
mountains were most valuable grazings for sheep,
which could be fed in thousands upon their steepest
surfaces, and could remain on them all the year
round. Yet it was only very slowly and very late —
that it dawned upon Farmers, or upon Landowners,
that the Highland mountains could be put to the
same use, and could be thus redeemed from aU but
absolute waste. The enormous addition made by
this discovery to the natural produce of the country,
is very apt to be forgotten now, because of the
great ignorance prevalent on the extent of area
which was thus, for the first time, made contributory
to the comforts and sustenance of mankind. On
my own estate there is one Mountain which, -with
its spurs and peaks, and shoulders, occupies more
than 20,000 acres. Of this great area only about
500 acres are arable, and many of these have been
reclaimed and enclosed at great cost, within the
last fifty years. Of the rest, probably not more
than 1000 acres would be available for Cattle. All
the remainder, at least 18,500 acres, are very steep,

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 265
and many of them either actually, or almost, pre
cipitous. No other animal except Sheep could,
or ever did, consume the grasses which clothe
these surfaces more or less abundantly. Yet they
can and do feed some 8700 Sheep, wdthout inter
fering wdth the comparatively few Cattle which
were ever reared in the olden time. If, now,
we look at an Orographical Map of the High
lands, we shaU find that this case is the typical
case of the Western Highlands and of the
Northern Highlands, embracing the larger half of
the Counties of Inverness, Ross, and Sutherland.
Sir John Sinclair calculated that before the in
troduction of sheep-farming, the whole produce
exported from aU the Highlands did not exceed
£300,000 worth of very lean and poor Cattle. Under
Cheviot Sheep he shows that the same area would
produce at least twice the value of mutton, or
£600,000, besides aU the Wool, equal to a further
sum of £900,000. This Wool, again, when manu
factured, would represent a value of at least
£3,600,000 of WooUens. The total difference
therefore between the produce of the Country
under the new system as compared with the old,
was as the difference between £600,000, and
£4,200,000 — this difference being all added to the
comfort and resources of Mankind.^
It does seem almost incredible that Highland
Landowners and Tenants should have been so slow
to find out an application and a use for the Moors
1 Agricultural Reports, vol. iv. p. 185 : Northern Counties.

266 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
and Mountains they occupied or possessed, a use
which in reality constituted as much the addition
of a new country as the recovery of the Bedford
Level from the Sea. The Mountains round Moffat
in Dumfriesshire are hardly less steep or less high
than the Mountains round Loch Maree in Ross-shire,
or round Loch Laxford in Sutherland. The Highland
Mountains had even an advantage over the Border
Mountains, that they were nearer to the Gulf-
stream, and snow lay less long upon them. Yet the
stupidities of Custom and Tradition were so difficult
of removal that Sheep-farming spread as slowly
as the Potato, or the manufacture of Kelp. No
doubt the new Sheep-farming involved some local
displacement of population, because Sheep could
not be supported without access to low ground,
which was sometimes occupied by " Clachans,"
liable to periodical distress and famine. But this
displacement of population was far less than that
which had been involved all over the Low
Country by the abandonment of Runrig, and
in the Border Counties by the Sheep-farming
which had superseded the Moss-troopers. Neither
again did it involve necessarUy in all cases very
large farms. The Highland Counties have at
this moment a much greater variety of hold
ings in respect to size, than the most thriving
Lowland Counties. Neither again did it involve
any general substitution of Lowland farmers for
Highlanders. Some of the earliest sheep-farmers
were Highlanders who had acquired capital by

r - H 4-

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 267
industry. Others were Lowlanders who brought
knowledge of management, and imparted it, to the
immense advantage of the country. It remains
therefore a wonderful example of the slow progress
of new ideas that the Highland Proprietors adopted
Sheep-farming on the hUls so slowly and so late as
they actuaUy did. Although it began as soon as
1768, it was not universaUy applied to the wasted
areas tUl as late as 1823.
But there is another phenomenon, even more
wonderful, which is equally common — and that is,
the coming back of old bUndnesses — the revival of
old errors — and even the passionate return to
practices which Nature has condemned. Yet this
phenomenon has its analogue in the material world
as weU as in the World of Mind. It is now uni
versaUy admitted that Development, or Evolution,
does not always work in one direction. It works
downwards as weU as upwards. As Tennyson
expresses it — "Throned races may degrade." ^ There
is even reason to believe in a constant force tending
to revert to earlier and ruder stages of existence.
Whether this be so or not, the fact is certain that
there are many creatures that fall from a com
paratively high, to a comparatively low, orgatiisation.
The freedom — nay the very organs — of locomotion
are abandoned and cast away. Even the noble
faculty of vision is lost. The creature becomes fixed
to a bit of rock, or to the shells and exuviae of dead
things. So it is with Man. At the beginning of this
1 In Memoriam, Canto 128.

268 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
Work I have referred to the influence exerted over
our longings and desires by the pressure of modern
Ufe — the " fumum strepitumque Romse " — the strain
of Work in the pursuit of Wealth — or the not less
trying strain of Mind in a speculative age in the
quest of satisfying Truth. All this tends to throw
a most false glamour on the ages which have passed.
The old tastes for a Wild Life return upon us, in
herited through many generations.
Most of us know the feeling. It is pleasant to
return to chUdhood, and the pleasures of imagina
tion. I never read any detaUed account of so-caUed
" primitive " life in any of the happier climates of
the world, without at least some passing feeUngs of
desire to join in its freedom and pursuits — to live in
Pile Dwellings on the lagoons of a Coral Sea, or in
huts on the tops of trees — to watch the Birds of
Paradise in the Forests of New Guinea — to shoot
reedy arrows at the great Ground Pigeon — or to
hunt for the wondrous hatching-mounds of the
Brush Turkey. Not less attractive to other tastes
would it be to go back to the Epoch of the Clans, —
to sail, and to fight, and to spoil in beautiful
Galleys, with all their bravery of war. It is perhaps
less easy for civilised men to think with any envy
of the old Celtic habits — of the wattled huts, jointly
inhabited with the cows and calves — of the perpetual
atmosphere of Peat-reek — of all the hardest labour
left to women, and of seeing them yoked to Harrows
as described by Mr. Macgregor, writing as late as
1838. But imagination has a wonderful power of

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 269
winnowdng out all facts that are disagreeable, and
of resting only on those which have a flavour of the
picturesque. We have seen that not only the
charm and glamour of these old habits, but the
actual delight of exercising the powers of " Chiefery"
with which they were inseparably connected, had
been strong enough to corrupt the noble chivalry of
Norman Barons, so that even a man near in blood
to Robert the Bruce had descended to the level of
a mere " Wolf of Badenoch." We have seen how,
in a much later day, another conspicuous example of
the same influence had been displayed by Sir James
Macdonald, who was known in the Palaces of the
Kingdom as a most poUshed and accomplished
Knight — but who, when he returned to Islay or
Kintyre, became the bloody and the fierce Macsorlie.
In our own time it has too often an influence not
indeed so formidable in action, but hardly less
corrupting in opinion. Harmless in the form of
mere sentiment and poetry, it ceases to be harmless
when it perverts History and loosens the hold of
Mind over the rights and obUgations upon which
every Society must be buUt.
In this form it acts as a solvent upon Opinion
which is the root of Law. It subordinates the
Eeason to Fancy — it elevates the ignorant Declama
tion of the Platform over the responsible decisions
of the Bench. This is a return to the power of
" Chiefery " not in its ancient and nobler form but
in a new and debased embodiment. It is a reversion,
as Darwin expresses it, in Biology, to an old and

270 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
ruder type. It is however worse than this. It is
a mere travesty and corruption of that violence
against which the Monarchy and the civUisation of
Scotland had to wage for centuries one long con
tinuous war. It is the true modern analogue of
the worst Anarchy of the Clans.
It is curious to observe the different direction
which this kind of sentiment has taken in regard to
the country formerly inhabited by the Border Clans.
That country has been infinitely more changed and
more depopulated than the Celtic Highlands. The
vast stretches of moorland, and the long vista of
vacant Glens which strike the eye on the borders
of Dumfriesshire and the Upper Wards, of Lanark
shire, are far more desolate of human habitation
than any similar areas in the Highlands possessing
equal possibilities of reclamation. But more than
this : the greener and lower VaUeys which are
so beautiful in Selkirk and Roxburgh, are almost
entirely destitute of the smaUer Holdings which are
abundant and successful aU over the Counties of
Argyll and Inverness. How does true Poetic Senti
ment deal with the memory of the days when these
Valleys were full of a miUtary population — when a
few powerful Chiefs could summon at the shortest
notice armies of 10,000 men? It sings of those days
indeed. But the Singer does not pretend to wish that
they should return. Let us listen for a moment to
the melodious words in which the great Minstrel of
the Borders recalled the Military Ages of that pas
toral land in which, when a child, he lifted his little

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 271
hands to the Ughtning in a raging Thunderstorm,^
and shouted with excitement " Bonny, Bonny ! ": —
" Sweet Teviot ! On thy silver tide
The glaring bale-fires blaze no more :
No longer steel-clad warriors ride
Along thy wild and willowed shore ;
Where'er thou wind'st, by dale or hill,
All, all is peaceful, all is still.
As if thy waves, since Time was born.
Since first they rolled upon the Tvreed,
Had only heard the shepherd's reed.
Nor started at the bugle-horn." ^
This is deUghtful and legitimate. But more than
this would be childish. Scott himself became a
Landowner in that very country — and latterly he
possessed no inconsiderable Estate. He buUt a
Baronial HaU. But he did not restore a Cottier
Tenantry. He enclosed and planted. But he
planted Larches. He did not invite the Workmen
making high wages in Hawick or Galashiels to
come back to starve on patches of corn and of
potatoes along the once populous " Haughs " of
Tweed. The unreaUty on which much of this
kind of sentiment is founded was never more
curiously Ulustrated than when the Government
chose as the Head of a Commission appointed
to inquire into the Small Tenants of the North
and West, a Scotch Peer^ whose own Estate is
situated among the long "cleared" sheep pastures
of the Southern Highlands, and in a locaUty
1 Lockhart's Ufe of Scott, vol. i. p. 83.
^ Lay of the Last Minstrel : Canto Fourth, i.
' Lord Napier and Ettrick.

272 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
which is speciaUy described by Sir Walter Scott
in Marmion as a perfect picture of solitude and
depopulation.-^ This distinguished Scotchman has
given elaborate advice to Highland Proprietors
for the extension — not merely of smaU Holdiags
— but of the special form of these which is
least advantageous — that of Joint or' Township
Farms. There is nevertheless not the sUghtest
reason to beUeve that he himself or any of his
brethren, would consent to cut up any portion of
their great sheep grazings, or of their comfortable
and single arable Farms, for the purpose of re
storing the population of the MUitary Ages. Many
Owners in the Lowland Counties now wish that
they had, as the Highland Counties have, more
small Farms, and fewer of the largest class. But
no man who knows anything of Agricidture, or
of the influences which promote its progress, would
ever recommend the revival of the old Township
System. In my own experience I have always
found that the moment any " Crofter " becomes
exceptionally industrious and exceptionaUy pros
perous, he earnestly desires, above all things, that
his grazings as well as his arable land, should be
fenced off from those of his neighbours, so that he
may have the exclusive use of his own faculties in
the better tillage of his land and in the better
breeding of his stock. The multiplication of small
Farms, indeed, such as will profitably employ the
whole industry and capital of individual men, is
' Marmion : Introduction to Canto Second. St. Mary's Lake.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 273
an object most desirable. But the conditions of
success vary with every locaUty, and can only be
determined by local knowledge. It cannot be
settled by a vague desire to revive the usages of
a time which has passed away for ever.
Sentiment, however, must never be surrendered
to those who have little knowledge and no balance.
Such are the men who are very apt to claim it as
their own, whilst instructed men are too apt to
leave it in their hands. Sentiment can be strong
as weU as weak — healthy as well as sickly, manly as
weU as mawkish. It can fix its enthusiasms on
what is reaUy good, as it too often does on what
is only picturesquely bad. The cruelties, treach
eries, disloyalties, and brutalities of the Clans
were mere developments of corruption, due to the
divorce between them and all settled Government
and Law. They represented nothing but anarchy
ia their relations with the Nation and the King
dom, and nothing better in their relations with
each other. But the root and the principle of their
organisation was that of a MUitary Tribe, recruit
ing from all directions, — practising obedience, —
acknowledging authority, — and loving its heredi
tary transmission from those who had first afforded
guidance, conduct, and protection. This is a con
structive, and not a destructive or anarchic principle.
It needed only to be turned in a right direction to
become one of the steadiest of all foundation-stones
for the buUding up of a great structure in the light
and air of a higher civUisation. It was thus that

274 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
in the transition between the two Ages, the broken
fragments of a hundred Septs enlisted under the
Banner of the Black Watch, and began the im
mortal services of the Highland Regiments. Yet
this is only a late and picturesque incident in a
long series of events. Nothing is more striking or
more poetic in the history of Scotland than the
slow and arduous processes by which the rough
energy of the Military Ages was transformed under
the ages of industry and of peace. Malcolm
Canmore had begun the transformation by his own
Union with the Daughter of another blood. Robert
the Bruce continued it by the welding of broken
Races in the heat and fire of Battle. Between the
War of Independence and the Union of the Crowns
it was one long, continuous, constant, struggle. But
by slow and steady steps the work was done, and
Scotland became a Nation with a noble and a
settled Jurisprudence. Our Kings became our only
Chiefs : our Country became our only Clan. Her
Law, the best symbol of her History, and the best
expression of her Mind, became the only authority
to which we bowed, and the only protection to which
we trusted. Under its shelter man could have con
fidence in man, because there was no fear of that
which even the old Celts ranked with Pestilence
and Famine — the breaking of the Bonds of Cove
nant. In this high field of Human Energy, — the
establishment of that confidence in Law which is
the nearest approach we can ever make to the
methods of the Divine Government, — Scotland may

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 275
weU be proud of the old beginnings, and of the
steady growth, of aU her National Institutions.
Among these Institutions there is one of purely
native origin which, perhaps, as much as any other,
is a striking embodiment of this principle, and a
splendid iUustration of its effects. I refer to her
Banking system. Barter, as we all know, is the
earUest form of Exchange, and under that system
if the SeUer can bring his produce to a market,
and the Buyer can carry it away in safety, no
higher kind of security is required. Then comes
Money as an abstract representative of Value,
unmensely facUitating Exchange, by providing an
article with which, and for w^hich, everything can
be got from somebody. Lastly comes Credit, the
highest and the most powerful of all agencies for
promoting the intercourse of men. It is the highest
because it is most purely the work of Mind — the
most absolute expression of confidence in the
universal authority of Law. In other countries
the intervention of the State has been required to
establish Banks, and the work assigned to them
has been lauded as among the highest efforts of
Statesmanship. In Scotland an immense network of
Institutions for the universal diffusion and organi
sation of Credit, has been spread, as it were, by a
natural growth indigenous to the soU. In Scotland
there is a Bank for about every 4000 souls of the
total population. Ten of them represent a paid-up
capital of above Nine Millions sterling, and Deposits
to the amount of more than Eighty MUUons ; their

276 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
Branches are aU over the country. Thus everywhere
men are able to take advantage, not only of their
savings, but of the credit in which they stand for
their character in business — that is for their honesty,
their industry, and for all the mental aptitudes
which give promise of success. The whole of this
vast system of Credit is founded upon confidence
in the Law— constituting a Wages Fund co-ex
tensive with the possibilities of Industry and of
Knowledge. It would aU crumble at the touch of
Anarchy. Under the confidence which this Reign
of Law ensures. Mind in all its forms, whether
of enterprise, or of invention, or of ¦ organisation,
or only of patient perseverance, has made an
entirely new world of Scotland. It has reclaimed
her soil, it has deepened her rivers, it has
built her commercial navies, it has brought into
her harbours the products of the most distant
regions, and it has redeemed her own people,
immensely multiplied, from chronic poverty and
frequent famines.
There must be something wrrong with our
selves, and not with the Order of Nature, or
with the Designs of Providence, if we can find
none of the pleasures of the Imagination, and
none of the gratifications of Sentiment, in changes
such as these. Nothing can be more certain than
that we are but accomplishing part at least, and an
essential part, of our mission in the world when we
turn the desert into the fruitful field. Nothing
can be more certain than that it is our duty to put

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 277
our Talents out to Use, and not to hide them in
a napkin. Most of these Talents have their poetic
side. Slothfulness is not one of the Christian
virtues, even when it is passed amidst picturesque
surroundings. The Hebrew People were not
devoid of Poetry or of Sentiment, and yet their
Songs and their Prophecies are full of the imagery
derived from the improvement of the soil, as weU
as of the precious and beautiful things which were
brought in Commerce by the ships of Tarshish.
With them the Olive, and especially the Vine,
were the symbols of cultivated fertUity ; and in
connection wdth the Vineyard, in particular, we
have the most touching and passionate allusions to
all the care and labour bestowed upon Enclosures
as the best type and symbol of the work needed in
the higher cultivation of the soul. The "fencing"
of land, and the " gathering out the stones
thereof," and the " planting " of it, and the build
ing " in the midst of it,"^ are as apposite a descrip
tion of the work of Reclamation in Scotland as it
was of the same work in Palestine. The taking
away the "Hedge thereof," and the "breaking
down the waU thereof" are used as the best Images
of utter Desolation,^ whUst the ravages of the wUd
creatures which fences are intended to exclude are
sunUarly used to typify the invasions of the sacred
fields by the arms of Heathendom.^ There is too,
m the Book of Proverbs, a striking description
of the ignorant and lazy habits which had afflicted
1 Isaiah v. 2. ^ Ibid. v. 5. ' Psalm Ixxx. 12, 13.

278 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
Scotland : " 1 went by the field of the slothful, and
by the vineyard of the man void of understanding ;
and, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and
nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone
w^all thereof had been broken down. Then I saw, and
considered it well : I looked upon it, and received
instruction. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a
Uttle folding of the hands to sleep : so shaU thy
poverty come as one that traveUeth ; and thy
want as an armed man."^ Yet, beyond aU question,
the " pruned vine " is a much less picturesque object
than the Briers and the Thorns which ignorance or
violence may allow to choke it. On the other hand,
the clustered grapes, — and the winds passing over
fields of corn, — and the flocks browsing in perspective
upon great plains, — and the sheep herded on the
mountains — are all pictures fuU of poetry — far
higher than that which circles round the deeds and
the pursuits of half- barbarian Man.
We cannot go back to the Primitive Ages,
whatever else we do. We must Uve in our own
time, and we must put to culture and to use, such
talents as come to us from the inheritance of the
Past, and from the opportunities of the Present.
It is a delusion to suppose that the sin of covet-
ousness belongs specially to the later ages of the
world. The naked Savage covets more of his beads,
or of his bits of iron, as much as the civUised Man
covets some new indulgence. Modern Industry
has its own dangers, and its own evUs, but the
' Proverbs xxiv. 30-34.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 279
truth is that the pursuit of Wealth under the con
ditions of civiUsation, having in it more of Mind
than the same pursuit under conditions of Bar
barism, tends to be better and higher in its moral
character. There is less in the mere getting, and
more in the inteUectual interest belonging to the
processes through which the getting comes. The
Machine Maker thinks as much of the perfection
and accuracy of his work, as of the price he gets
for it. The ShipbuUder thinks most of the fine
"lines" — of the speed, and capacity, and strength
of his ships. The SkiUed Workman rejoices in his
manual dexterity, and takes a pleasure, purely in
tellectual, in the triumph of his hands — in the
straightness of his furrow — in his mastery over
some difficult and intractable material. One of
my earliest recollections is of the laborious and
conscientious pains bestowed by my Father, as a
Mechanic, on the high finish of the articles he
produced — on the perfect symmetry of form — on
the joinings which the finest touch could not detect
— on the harmonies of colour and of substance.
Throughout aU the Kingdom of Labour — using
that word, not in its vulgar but in its highest
meaning, as including above all the Labour of the
Brain — ^there Is a Hierarchy or Gradation of rank
corresponding to the degree in which the mere
getting of Value is subordinate, and the produc
tion of excellence is predominant. The lowest rank
must be assigned to the most purely mechanical —
such as Commission Agencies — in which there is no
VOL. II. '^

280 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
skill, although the work may be useful, or even
necessary, as part of the machinery of Distribution.
And most assuredly in this Hierarchy of Labour
the work of the Improver and Reclaimer of Land
stands very high in the variety and dignity of
the motives which come before the mere love of
gain. Time may be on his side, but generally It
is time belonging to a somewhat distant future.
A single successful voyage, one single turn of the
market, may make and has often made the fortune
of a Merchant. One happy thought flashing on
the Brain of the Inventor, may reward him at
a stroke with abundant wealth. But the fruits
of the Earth cannot generaUy be multiplied so
quickly, and we see by the history and experience
of the past, how difficult it has been to exercise
the foresight, and to submit to the immediate
sacrifices, which the laborious steps of a reformed
Husbandry have demanded of those who Uve by
it. The love of Agriculture is among the ori
ginal instincts of our nature — as distinct from
others as. In early ages, is the love of the Chase,
or, in all ages, the love of Decoration. And
amongst these original instincts it Is unquestion
ably the highest and the best, both from the
simplicity of its character and from the beneficence
of its effects. With advancing education it suffers
no decay. On the contrary, it charms and elevates
the mind in proportion as it exercises us in our
great commission over Nature, and brings us into
closer contact with those " abodes where self-dis-

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 281
turbance hath no part." ^ The sentiment which pre
fers to these attractions the far off echoes of the
Spear and Shield, or the alternating indulgence of
fierce activity and of selfish idleness, is a sentiment
unworthy alike of true Poetry, of true ReUgion,
and of true Philosophy.
I have spoken of the natural causes which lead
to forgetfulness of the work of Ownership in the
Agricidtural Improver — causes connected with the
very completeness of that work, and with the total
obUteration of the older surfaces which have been
reclaimed. These are causes which lie in mere
ignorance and want of thought. But, strange to
say, this ignorance or forgetfulness has been stereo
typed, and as it were enshrined, in doctrines which
profess to be scientific. In this matter the Formulae
of Political Economists have been even more feeble
than in the definitions of Wealth and of its Sources.
Ricardo's famous definition of Rent is a perfect
example of that delight which men are apt to have
in formal propositions spun out of their own brains,
which have little or no correspondence with the
facts of Nature. Abstract ideas are the high pre
rogative of Man, and he could not get on for a
single day without them. All Language is built
upon them, and the rudest Savage who can convey
inteUigence to his fellow is exercising the same
power which may one day lead on his descendants
to the peaks of science. Men practised Logic before
the days of Aristotle, and the Inductive PhUosophy
^ Wordsworth.

282 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
before the days of Bacon. Political Economists are
quite right to reduce within the terms of some
abstract definition, if they can, those facts of human
history and the nature of human transactions, which
are the sources of Rent. But there are bad abstrac
tions as well as good, — abstractions which do not
take in more than a fraction of the facts, and that
fraction perhaps the least significant of all. They
may be true in a sense, and yet be valueless.
That is to say, they may reproduce and represent
with vividness some mere circumstance connected
with particular results, and yet miss completely
the essential conditions on which these results
depend. Ricardo's definition of Rent, as pruned and shaped
under the fire of criticism by later writers, is not
only true, but it is a truism. The Rent which any
given piece of land wUl fetch is precisely the excess
of its value over another piece of Land which is too
poor to fetch any rent at all.^ But we may well
ask, like Eliphaz, the Temanite, when we hear such
a definition as this, " Should a wise man utter vain
knowledge, and fill his belly with the East wind ? " *
This definition is true, not only of the rent of land,
but of the rent of all other things which fetch a
price for hire. The admirers of it sometimes boast
that the mere statement of it has all the force of
1 Professor Fawcett expresses it thus : — " The rent of any land is the
difference between its net produce and the net produce of land which
pays a merely nominal rent."— Manual of Political Economy, 6th Ed.
p. 117. ' Job XV. '_>.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 283
a self-evident proposition.^ This, however, becomes
very doubtful praise when we observe that the same
self-evident character follows the definition when it
is appUed to the hne of a Costermonger's Donkey
as much as when it is applied to the hire of a Farm.
The value for hire of any particular Donkey is obvi
ously the value of its labour above that of any other
Donkey which wUl fetch no price at aU for hire, but
which works just enough to pay for its own feeding.
So in like manner the Rent of any given House is the
excess of its value for hire above that of some other
House which would fetch no rent at all, but which
is used by Paupers as a Hovel. In this form the
proposition Is true, but it is also barren. All the
corollaries which have been drawn from it in later
speculations, are not logical consequences at all, but
are buUt up on verbal fallacies imported into the
definition by the careless use of ambiguous words.
It certainly does not prove, or tend to prove, that the
Rent of agricidtural land is no element in the cost
of Production,^ because whatever may be the truth
In this matter, the Formula gives us no analysis of
Rent, and teUs us nothing of its sources or of its
composition. It is not very easy to see how the
hhe of a Steam-Plough would be part of the cost
of Production, whUst the hire of a drain or of a
fence would not. Yet the hire of such improve
ments is a large element in Rent. StUl less does
the Formula prove that all the growing values
1 Progress and Poverty, Book iii. ch. ii.
- Fawcett's Manual, p. 126.

284 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
In all the Products of Labour, tend to become
absorbed in the Rent of land — a proposition in
itself absurd, and opposed to all observation and
experience.^ The proportion of gross or total pro
duce which goes to Rent is not greater, but, on the
contrary, it is smaller, as Agriculture becomes more
scientific. Nothing like one-third — the old Scotch
proportion in rude ages — of the gross produce, now
goes to Rent. One-sixth or one-eighth is more
near the average proportion. More than before goes
to Muscular Labour ; more goes to the breeder of
Horses ; more goes to the maker of machines ; more
goes to the seller of manures, and, in average times,
more to the Farmer. The increase of Rent arises
entirely from the enormous increase of total produce,
and from a corresponding increase of demand. This
is the reason why high rents are a sign of general
prosperity.^ If the sixth or the eighth of the total
produce be only ten shUUngs, then the total pro
duce per acre must be as low as £3 per acre or £i.
This indicates wretched crops, or a poor market, or
both. If, on the other hand, the rent of land be
sixty or eighty shiUings an acre, it proves that the
total produce must be at least £18 an acre or £24
— indicating abundant crops, and a good market.
Both of these are the signs of general activity and
increasing wealth among all classes. " A low rent,"
says a well-informed wudter, " is always an index of
the poverty of the land, a thriftless and unscientific
^ Henry George, passim.
'^ I speak, of course, of Rents freely offered by free men, and usually
paid.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 285
method of culture, or a want of enterprise on the
part of both Landlord and Tenant." ^ The inference
that aU values are absorbed in Rent is absurd.
But whether true or false, such inferences as these
have no foundation whatever in the Ricardo For
mula, in so far as that Formula expresses a self-
evident proposition. It has this self-evident char
acter only when it is kept strictly to a purely
quantitative relation. It defines Rent only as
regards its amount or quantity, and in no other
relation whatever. The moment it pretends to
explain Rent In any other of its many relations
to the Past, or to the Present, the Ricardo Formula
passes beyond its province. It is a definition deal
ing with quantity alone — and dealing with that
element in Rent in a form so elementary that its
boasted self-evidence may freely be conceded. It
measures even quantity by a standard of compari
son which is of no practical use whatever. It
assumes a Zero line — the existence of land which
wUl afford no Rent at aU, or only a Rent which
is nominal. It then announces the profound con
clusion that all higher Rents are to be measured in
respect to quantity by their elevation above this
Zero line. This is a theoretical but a self-evident
truth, even if we dispute as a fact (as well we may)
that there is any land except naked rock, which
wUl yield no Rent whatever.^ But this self-evident
truth is as naked as the only land which answers to
'¦ Judicial Records of Renfrewshire, by W. Hector, 1876, p. 319.
'' The most naked mountains in Scotland will hold a few sheep, and
every sheep affords a rent.

286 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
its description. It tells us nothing of any practical
or even of any speculative value.
By a curious coincidence I first heard this
Ricardo Formula for defining Rent, set forth,
many years ago, by Lord Macaulay — the only illus
trious descendant and representative of the Clan on
whose reclaimed lands I had been born and bred.
He had evidently very little practical knowledge
of the many economic elements which determine
Rent, nor probably had he ever thought of tracing
the Historical elements which explain its origin in
the Past. On the other hand , at that time I had
not myself studied the subject theoreticaUy ; whilst,
practically, I had a good deal of Instructive and
significant experience. I recoUect noticing the evi
dent intellectual pleasure with which he expounded
a Doctrine which can be so neatly expressed, and
which assumes to set forth in so small a compass
one of the most complicated of all the facts of
History and of Life. Not less distinctly do I
remember the sense of emptiness — the painful con
trast, as it struck me, between the self-evidence of
the Definition, and the sterility of it — not only
as regarded any practical application, but even as
regarded any satisfying theoretical analysis.
This is but one example out of many of those
methods of handling which have brought Political
Economy into its present disrepute, as not only a
" Dismal Science " but as a Body of Doctrine either
actually deceptive or at least to a very large extent
misleading. No doubt part of this eclipse in

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 287
popular estimation, arises from nothing but Ignorant
rebellion against some truths which are as certainly
ascertained as any other truths whatever. For this
evU the only remedy, other than discussion, will be
found in those practical results of evil which must
always follow, sooner or later, from kicking against
the pricks of Nature. This was the teaching, for
example, as we have seen, which led men at last, in
Scotland, to recognise the folly of Sumptuary Laws
— of Laws forbidding men to sell or buy except
through certain Corporate Monopolies, — and of Laws
which pretended to regulate the price of anything.
But Ignorances and Rebellions of this kind, affect
ing our obedience to those Supreme Enactments
which are enforced by the high pains and penalties
of Natural Consequence, are not the only cause of
the wide revolt which now assails the teaching
that passes under the name of Political Economy.
Another cause is to be found in the fact that this
teaching has been often most defective, and, not
seldom, even thoroughly erroneous. One grand
defect in it has been the comparative neglect, and
sometimes even the complete elimination, as not
belonging to its Province, of those agencies of Mind
which are In reality the ultimate sources of all that
is done, or enjoyed or suffered, in Societies of Men.
In undertaking to reduce the growrth of Nations,
and the progress of Mankind, to causes as rigid and
mechanical as those which govern the Material
World, it has missed the highest offices which it is
its duty to discharge. Political Economy, properly

288 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
treated, ought not to be a Dismal Science. It
ought not to present results emptied of all adequate
recognition of the work done by Mind, and Heart,
and WUl. To pretend to explain the origin, or the
growth, or the distribution of Wealth — to explain
anything, indeed, of the past history or present
condition of Man, without fiiU recognition of these
great moving Forces, is like pretending to explain
the cylinders, and the tubes, and the valves
of a Steam Engine wdthout any reference to the
properties of Steam, and without any reference to
the mechanical Invention by which its pressures are
generated, concentrated, and brought to bear on
Use. Against this kind of science, falsely so caUed,
continual resistance and revolt is both inevitable
and just. On the other hand, when the Science
which deals with all these things, comes — if it ever
does come — to be properly handled, and when all
the facts of our complicated nature are marshalled
in their due rank and order, it wiU be a Science
full of all the interest, and of aU the poetry, and of
all the pure intellectual delight, which must belong
to the contemplation and the analysis of Nature
In the noblest of all her Provinces.
Nothing, for example, can be more interesting
or instructive than to trace in the light of History
the sources and the origin of those relations between
men which directly or indirectly exist In all regions
of the civilised world between Owners and Occupiers
of the Soil. We need not fill our bellies with East
Wind in artificial definitions of Rent which have

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 289
nothing to do with either its origin or its nature.
There Is really no difficulty in arriving at a defini
tion which is not artificial, but natural, — a simple
description of facts, — and one which nevertheless
immediately suggests questions leading up to higher
and higher aspects of the truth. Rent Is that
which one man pays for the temporary possession,
or exclusive use, of anything that is not his own,
but is the permanent property of another. Rent
Is the price of Hire. As regards this essential and
definite characteristic, it matters nothing what the
thing thus hired may be. In common parlance
Rent is iisuaUy appUed to the Hire of land, or
of Houses, or of Mines, or of Fishings, but is
not usually applied to the Hire of Horses, or of
Carriages, or of other moveable property. Each
of these different things has its own peculiar kind
of use, and each special use holds out to us some
special inducement to hfre it. But no peculiarity In
the nature of the use constitutes any distinction in
the principle of Hire. That principle is the same in
aU cases in which we pay for the temporary pos
session of anything that belongs to another. What
we pay for, when we hire anything, is the Exclusive
Use or Possession of it, for a time. And the price
we pay for this Exclusive Use Is paid to the man
who himself possesses it, and has the power of
lending it. What we owe to him In the form of
Hire, or Rent, is due to him because of his exer
cising in our favour his right and power of lending.
If we want to have the Exclusive Use of a Horse,

290 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
or of a Cow, or of a Cabbage Garden, or- of a Vine
yard, or of a Farm, we must hire this exclusive
right for a time, if we cannot buy it out and out.
If we go further and ask how the Owner
came to have that right of Exclusive Use which
many other men can only afford to Hire, we shall
find that there Is no difference in principle be
tween the different things over which this right
has been acquired. It is true that the land of
the Cabbage Garden, or of the Vineyard, or of
the Farm has not been the creation of Muscular
Labour. But neither have Cattle, nor Sheep, nor
Horses been the work of Muscle. The breeding of
them is the work of Nature, under the direction to
some extent of a selecting Mind, and even this only
rendered possible by the right of Exclusive Use over
at least some grazing land. And so, although land
is not in itself the produce either of Muscular or of
Mental Labour, yet the Exclusive Use of any part of
it has always been originaUy acquired by the work
of Mind. To seek the origin of this exclusive Right
of Use we must go back to the Conquering Tribes
from which we are aU descended. And then, again,
to explain how they came to conquer, we must
always go back to some time, whether withm the
area of History or beyond it, when the Men of
Muscle surrounded some Man of Mind, lifted him
perhaps on their shields and shouted, " Be thou our
acknowledged Strongest." ^ In our own coimtry
^ I borrow this from Thomas Carlyle, but I do not recollect the Work
in which it occurs.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 291
this tracking of the ultimate sources of Owner
ship leads us along no doubtful path — no mere
faint indications interpreted by theory and specu
lation. The footprints are revealed to us in no
dim light of mere tradition, but in the full blaze
of History. We see men crowding under the
banner of powerful Chiefs, and seeking " rooms "
of land under their protection, because of the secu
rity it held out to them for Exclusive Use. We see
our early Kings, with the consent of Barons, Clergy,
and People, acknowledging the power of those
Chiefs as a Power which had been estabUshed long
before, and tendering to those who held it a new
Form of Record as a reward for new, but immortal,
services. Poetry and Sentiment could hardly have
a better subject. The Recording Instruments may
have been long lost — ^they may be now reduced to
pulp in damp cellars, or in neglected Charter- Chests
— or they may have been happily preserved with
their old Parchments, and their old stately Seals.
But whether surviving in this form or not, they
Uve in the continuous transactions of perhaps a
thousand years. That which men have been hold
ing — that which they have been buying and selling
during aU these centuries — has been the Tenure
which these Instruments record. Over the wdiole of
Scotland every morsel of land which is owned or hired
for the exclusive use of any man, is held by him in
virtue of the Rights of Predecessors in Title dating
from before the times of Malcolm Canmore, or from
the years of contest that were closed at Bannockburn.

292 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
The aptitudes of Mind are infinite — or at least as
various as all the varieties of circumstance in which
the Human Species has been placed since it was bom
into the world. Nothing can be done without it —
everything that has been done, has been done by it.
In early ages, courage and conduct in War has
been the form of mental energy most effective.
But this is generally a compound of many qualities.
The influence of some men cannot be explained.
It is magnetic. In their presence other men be
come excited with a fire which is not their own.
Without such Minds, mere numbers are of no avail
— for the units become as incoherent as grains of
sand. Such men become the Founders of Nations
because of the confidence they inspire — of the ideas
they represent — and of the Institutions which they
inaugurate. One of the very first works which
they accomplish is, the establishment of supreme
and exclusive dominion over some portion of the
Earth's surface for themselves and for their Im
mediate followers. This right of Exclusive Use
is subdivided and partitioned in a thousand ways.
But In its essence and in its principle it is every
where the same. It is, in its very inception, the
fruit of Mind, and it affords the only fulcrum on
which Mind can exert its higher powers over the
Increase of the Earth during the more peaceful ages
which follow, and are the rewards of. Conquest.
Examples have not been wanting in our own
day, which exhibit the pow^er of one gifted
Mind so to disciphne the forces of mere Muscle,

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 293
and the labour of comparatively mindless men,
as to lay the foundations of a civilised State.
General Gordon was unquestionably one of those
men — whose heroic nature represents, as Muscle
never can represent, those supreme forms of
" Labour " on which all Wealth, and Comfort, and
Law depend. And it is remarkable that when
he was first ruling as Governor of Khartoum,
one of the most immediate and striking effects of
his dominion, was a revival of that cultivation of
the soU which is inseparable from individual appro
priation, or Exclusive Use. Tracts of land which
had been desolate for generations, became cultivated
again, simply because the Owners were secured
under his dominion against the inroads of men
who would not respect the rights of Exclusive Use.
If General Gordon had been a Native Ruler, or a
Native Chief, having extensive Territorial rights
over the Soudan, and depending for the mainten
ance of his power upon native revenues, the private
Owners to whom the fruits and rights of Ownership
had been thus restored, would have been only too
glad to yield to him no inconsiderable share of these
fruits, which could not be enjoyed except under
the protection he afforded.
There may be other cases in which the indi
vidual appropriation of land, and the acknowledged
right to its Exclusive Use, has arisen from other
causes. Indeed, it may be said with truth to be a
universal and apparently a necessary fact in every
portion of the Globe, and with every branch of the

294 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
human family. One of the most prominent Social
istic theorists^ who now denounce it, is himself
one of a small group of men — less than one
quarter of the population of London — who claim
Exclusive Use over the whole State of California,
embracing about ninety-nine millions of acres, or
156,000 square miles of plain and valley, of moun
tain and of hill. No part of this vast territory
is open to all mankind — except upon the conditions
Imposed by this small community. But like all
other communities in like circumstances — Uke all
the colonies of our own Empire — they not only
practise the individual appropriation of land among
their own citizens, but they recognise it as the
foundation of their prosperity. What they all want
is Settlers ; and what all Settlers want is land on
which they can exercise their industry for then-
own benefit and the benefit of the world. Some
evidence of truth is always afforded by the universal
instincts of Mankind. The celebrated test which
has been put to very doubtful use In Theology, has
nevertheless its own sphere of legitimate applica
tion — " Quod semper — quod iibique — quod ab
omnibus." ^ The most experienced travellers In
Africa tell us that there is no portion of that vast
Continent which is not claimed in Ownership by
some Tribe, and the invasion of which by others
would not be resented and resisted by those who
thus claim its Exclusive Use. If there be any
1 Mr. Henry George of San Francisco.
- What has been held always — everywhere — and by all men ; — the
test of Catholic orthodoxy, laid down by St. Vincent of Lerins, a.d. 434.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 295:
portions of the Earth's surface where individual
appropriation might be less absolutely necessary
than another, as regards the means of subsistence, it
would seem to be in those happy Islands of the
Eastern Archipelago where wUd and native trees
bear the most nutritious fruits, and the vegetable
world holds out the most lavish inducements to
an idle commimal existence. Yet I find in an
interesting account of New Guinea by a Highlander
who has devoted himself to Missionary Work in the
Pacific, the foUowdng instructive passage respecting
that immense Island : — "Far up the distant moun
tain sides, in the clear atmosphere of morning, we
saw the smoke made in the Bush by cultivators
of yams. The Teachers assert that every acre of
soU along this part of New Guinea has its
Owner." ^
There is no PoUtical Economist, to whatever
School he may belong, however narrow may be his
formulge, and however narrower stiU may be his
use and his interpretation of them, who does not
at least confess with his Ups that " Labour " must
be held to include every kind and form of Human
Energy. Yet very few writers have reaUy digested
this truth, — have taken adequate account of it in
their reasonings, — or have attempted to foUow it to
aU its consequences. The great difference between
the wages of SkiUed and of Unskilled Labour is one
1 Work, and Adventures in New Guinea. By James Chalmers, 1885.
This distinguished missionary is a native of Argyllshire, and was educated
in the Parish of Inveraray.
VOL. II. U

296 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
of the most rudimentary facts of Life which indicate
the value of the mental element even in its simplest
forms. The simplest of these forms is that in which
some special faculty of Perception is united in the
same person with the Labour of the Hands. But all
the higher forms of Mental Energy are, for the most
part, not united in the same person with the Labour
of the Hands. It is the value and effect of these
higher Energies of Mind which are most habitually
forgotten, and in almost all Treatises on questions
of human Progress the word Labour graduaUy slips
down — and down — in its use and signification, imtU
practically it means nothing but the Labour of the
Hands, with the more or less implicit addition, only
of the various degrees of mere technical or manipu
lative skill. " The producing Classes " — " The pro
duce of Labour," and many other simUar phrases, are
perpetually used as if Muscle only were concerned in
the sources, or in the increase, or in the diffusion, of
Wealth. Nothing can be more erroneous, and yet
the error has never been sufficiently exposed. The
Modern Socialist School are especiaUy forgetful of
Mind in all its highest and most operative powers,
and are especially jealous of those facts — the most
certain perhaps of all facts — which estabUsh the
natural, ineradicable, and far-reaching inequalities
with which these powers have been bestowed by
Nature on individual men. All the writers of this
School dislike and avoid the subject, and, when
they do deal with it, show how very little they
recognise or appreciate the real facts of Nature.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 297
The most signal example I have seen of the
measureless difference between these facts and
the Socialist appreciation of them, is the example
to be found in some words of Mr. Henry George :
"I doubt if any good observer wUl say that
the mental differences of men are greater than
the physical differences." ^ Here we have a com
parison made between two things which are abso
lutely incommensurable. It may be quite true
that the taUest Giant ever known is scarcely
more than four times as tall as the smaUest
Dwarf. It may be true that the average difference
in height between men does not exceed one-sixth,
or one-seventh of the whole stature. It may be
true that the scale of difference in muscular
strength — in the lifting of weights, for example —
is a scale not much wider in its extremes. But
most certainly it is not true that even in those
lower manifestations of Mind which constitute
mere manual dexterity and skill in handicrafts,
the differences between men, are like mere bodily
differences, either in kind or in degree. A short
man may be as good for all manly work as a tall
man — or an ugly man as a man of the most per
fect form. But in Mechanics, or in Chemistry,
or in Art, the corresponding differences of skUl
make the whole contrast between work which is
useless or effective — healing or poisonous — hideous
or of surpassing beauty. To Be, or Not To Be —
this, and no less, is the question which may depend,
1 Social Problems, p. 69.

298 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
and often does depend, upon the degrees of Faculty
with which the eyes are directed, or the hands are
moved. StiU more futUe is this comparison of
physical distinctions as any illustration of the
differences which separate one man from another in
the higher faculties of the Mind. The difference
between a dull man and a man of genius — whatever
the particular line of that genius may be — is a differ
ence so immense as to be immeasurable. The scale
is one which reaches from Zero to a practical Infinity.
Moreover, it is a scale of difference appUcable above
all to those kinds of Work on which Society is
founded, and by which its progress is determined.
There is no scale that can measure the difference, in
actual working value, between the Mind of James
Watt and the Mind of the most skilled Workmen
whom he employed to make, first, his Models,
and then, his Engines. But great as this differ
ence is, it is perhaps exceeded by the differ
ence between the average faculties of ordinary
men, and those rarer gifts which in the early
stages of Society are concerned in founding its
Organic Structures, and in establishing its Oppor
tunities of Growth. Yet as regards physical powers,
there is often little or nothing to distinguish be
tween such men ; and certainly no physical differ
ence could even be a symbol, however imperfect, of
the differences of level on which they stand.
It is one of the regrets of my life that I
once had a long interview with General Gordon
when I did not even know who he was. It was

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 299
before the time of his greatest fame, but when In a
very distant region he had done enough to indicate
what manner of man he was. There was, however,
nothing in his outward appearance to arrest atten
tion. There was no aspect of command. There
was no look of genius in his almost cold, grey eye.
There was no indication in his calm manner, of the
Fires of God that were slumbering underneath- — of
the powerful yet gentle nature which was equally
at home in the " confused noise " of Battle, in the
teaching of poor children, or in the comforting of a
deathbed. Yet General Gordon was one who even
then had saved an Empire, and had rescued, by his
own individual example and force of character, a
whole popidation from massacre and devastation.
Not, perhaps, very tractable in council — sometimes
almost incoherent in speculative opinion — he was,
beyond aU question, a born Ruler and King of men
— one who in early ages might have been the
founder of a Nation — the Chosen Leader of some
Chosen People on the way from intertribal wars
.and barbarism to peace, and Government, and Law.
To say of such men as Gordon that the difference
between them and the common herd, is no greater
than the difference between men of the biggest
and the smallest size of body that may be picked
off the street, is to betray a profound ignorance of
the causes and the forces which have governed the
history of Mankind. Nor does it need such an ex
treme case to Ulustrate the fallacy. The varieties
of Mind are infinite, and the pre-eminence of one

300 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
over another in some special faculty — some single
gift — may, and often does, make the whole differ
ence between victory and defeat — between tri
umphant success and total failure, in the race of
Individual life, and in the struggle between Tribes
and Nations.
The protection of the Powerful has been in aU
ages the earliest shelter for the beginnings of in
dustry and of wealth. In our own country we have
traced these beginnings from before the dawn of His
tory — when Power was estabUshing itself through
all the various gifts and aptitudes which made some
men Kings, and Chiefs, and Leaders, by clustering
round them all who could not otherwise defend
themselves. The Exclusive Use of land, whether by
small groups or by individual men, has always been
absolutely necessary for the production and enjoy
ment of even the simplest of its fruits ; and this
Exclusive Use could not be had without coming
under the protection of those who had become
Owners, who could defend their Ownership, and
who could defend also those to whom they let it,
or lent it, for a time. Rent, originally and his
torically, was the price men were too glad to pay
for this protection. This element in Rent is stUl
expressed in every Lease by words which in one
form or another have been continuously used for
700 years, and which embodied In language under
standings which were necessary and universal.
They are words which convey the promise that
Tenants will be protected in their Exclusive Use

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 301
"at aU hands, and against all mortals." Some
times the words were shorter — " against all deadly."
This was the Occupier's Tenure. This was his
Security. This was the one fundamental advantage
for which men owed, and gladly paid, some portion
of Produce, or of their own Muscular Labour, or of
both. But from very early times another element was
added to the benefits for which Produce and Ser
vices were paid. Owners lent not only the Exclu
sive Use of land, but also the cattle by which
the land was stocked. We have seen that this
form of what on the Continent is caUed " Metayer,"
was common over the whole of Scotland under
the name of " Steelbow." ^ Next came a further
change- — another addition, or rather another great
group of additions, to the benefits for which
Rent was paid. These additions included, in the
first place, aU those exercises of Mind and of
Authority by which ignorant and wasteful Usages
were abolished, and all those by which the new
methods of husbandry were taught and first estab
lished. They included, in the second place, all that
we now know under the head of Reclamation and
Permanent Improvements, — operations which have
in all cases far exceeded the capital value of the
Land before they began. The Burst of Industry
^ Among the Celts of Ireland this footing seems to have been equally
common, and the Landlord's share of produce was two-thirds, one-third
representing Rent for use of land, and another third for the stock also
lent. Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, by Professor O'Curry,
vol. i. Introd. p. 122.

302 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
which I have described as having begun to trans
form the face of Scotland during the latter half of
the last century, did not end with a Burst, but has
been continuous and increasing ever since. On this
point I can speak from personal experience. Some
parts of the " Old Coast Line " on which I have de
scribed the operations of Lord Frederick CampbeU,
were stUl left unreclaimed when I began the work of
Ownership forty years ago. I found that the cost of
bringing them into the condition of arable land was
not less, and sometimes exceeded, £25 an acre. As
in its unreclaimed state the land was not worth
5 s. an acre of the coarsest pasture, this outlay re
presents one hundred years' purchase of its original
value. Sentiment, — of one kind, — has often led me
to desire to see, even if it were only for a moment,
the aspect of our country when, before the days
even of the Picts and Scots, it was covered by mag
nificent and continuous Forests — where not a stick
has grown within the memory of Man, or within
the records of authentic History. But as this re
vival cannot be. Sentiment — of another kind — has
led me lately to dig up the trunks of the Caledonian
Forest, and to cover with corn-fields some areas
which have been for many centuries under bog.
One of these seems to have been a glade shaded by
giant Oaks. Here again my experience has been
that the outlay is far beyond — sometimes forty and
fifty times beyond — the capital value of the land as
it stood when I began. But reclamations effected
thus suddenly, and by one single operation, are few

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 303
in comparison with those other reclamations which
have been gradual and continuous during many
generations — each successive work bringing up
the condition of the land to the standard of
knowledge existing at the time. I have found
that in the West of Scotland, where there is
a very heavy rainfall, and where great areas of
country are far from Tileworks, the mere re-drain
age of old cultivated land cannot be thoroughly
done, at the present or recent prices of Muscular
Labour and of Material, at a less cost than from
£10 to £12 per acre ; and this alone is very fre
quently more than twenty years' purchase of the
former rent.
But there is another kind of outlay connected
with modern husbandry which has been on an
enormous scale, the work of Ownership in Scotland,
especiaUy during the last forty years. Up to about
that time, over the greater part of the country,
it had been one of the customary stipulations in
Leases that the Tenants should erect new Houses,
with such assistance as in each case might be
agreed upon. This stipulation was connected with
the abandonment of Township Hovels, and of
Runrig Tillage. The new class of Houses, although
an Immense advance on the old huts of Wattles
and turf, were generally built of stone without
lime and with roofs of thatch. Comfortable and
commodious as these Houses often were when com
pared with the squalid dwellings which had pre
ceded them, they still left much to be desired when

304 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
compared with the advancing tastes and know
ledge of the day. Accordingly, in almost aU cases.
Tenants taking farms during later years, have
offered their new rents upon condition of getting
the farms furnished with new Houses, both for
themselves and for their Cows and other stock.
On this branch of the Work of Ownership, I can
also speak from a somewhat large and long ex
perience. It is quite impossible to graduate the
outlay on Houses according to the scale of Rent.
Certain requirements apply equally to a Farm of
£100 a year, and to a farm of £500 a year. I have
rarely succeeded in building a " Steading " or com
plete set of Farm Buildings, under at least five
years' outlay of the improved rent. Nine and ten
years' outlay is common ; and in the case of small
Farms of between £100 and £200, the outlay has
been as high as sixteen years of the rent. The
general result is that the capital represented by
Ownership in Scotland is seldom less than from
forty to fifty years' rental, and is very often a great
deal more. The average capital of Tenants is cer
tainly less than five years of the rental per acre.
I have elsewhere ^ specified the case of one farm In
which the capital of the Owner represents the sum
of £7046, whilst that invested by the Tenant would
represent, on a liberal computation, not more than
£966. The results of any improvement which such
a Tenant can make upon his farm must be always
1 Nineteenth Century, No. 106, Dec. 1885. " Capital and the Improve
ment of Land."

THE FRUITS OF MIND, 305
in greatest measure due to sources which he did not
contribute. He is trading on the capital, on the
previous improvements, and on the ancient Owner
ship, of other men. Yet there are poUticIans and
economists who recommend that a Tenant who
buUds a new Piggery or a new Silo, at the cost of
some fraction of a year's rent, should be allowed to
deprive Owners of the rights which flow from cen
turies of Tenure and of outlay, by selling the occu
pancy which has been lent to them for a time upon
stipulated conditions.
These facts, and a host of others correlative to
these, open up an immense subject. If writers on
PoUtical Economy and on Social problems of any
kind, woidd not only say, but would practically
remember that Labour means every form and kind
and degree of Human Energy, and most especially
aU those kinds which were the earliest and are the
highest, their "Science" would not be the dismal,lean
and erroneous teaching which too often it has been
found out to be. Abstractions from which every
thing has been subtracted that ought to have been
included — arbitrary selections and as arbitrary re
jections among the elements contributing to great
results — slovenly analysis, and complete forget
fulness of essential things which are by way of
being left to be understood, — all these sources of
error leave but a poor and beggarly account of the
inexhaustible riches and Poetry of Nature, in the
true history and progress of Man. The multitude
of mental agencies, and of powers — the complexity

306 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
of the sources, and of the opportunities of work
— dating back through many centuries, with which,
and upon which, every man trades in Scotland
who hires any land belonging to another — but none
of which are due to the hirer — are but the type of
a general truth, affecting more or less aU callings
or employments. When Men are taught that
they ought to have the " whole value of their own
Labour," they are never taught to count and
estimate all the factors which go to make up the
total value of results to which, perhaps, their
own contribution may be the smallest. They do
not think of the Capital which is the savings of
Mind, of the Organisation which is the invention
of Mind — of the Enterprise and Confidence which
are the expectations of Mind — of the Law which
is the embodiment of Mind, — on aU of which the
whole of their own opportunities have absolutely
depended. And yet these considerations are
not founded on theory or speculation. They are
founded on indisputable facts, and are brought
to light as facts by the very simple process of
analysing with care and accuracy the conditions of
our own life, and the meaning of the commonest
words in which we instinctively express them.
The great interest and value of the history of
Scotland regarding all these matters, lie in its
splendid continuity. Like the days of the Poet,
our generations have been " bound each to each by
natural piety." ^ From the days when her early
^ Wordsworth.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 307
Sovereigns, in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centu
ries, gathered round them the Barons and Knights
and the Burgesses of the Kingdom, and gave
them new Instruments recording and defining the
rights and powers which they had even then
immemoriaUy enjoyed — from the time when Robert
the Bruce emerged triumphant from the War of
Independence, and transferred these rights and
powers from men who had been faithless, to men
who had been faithful to their Country — from the
time when he rewarded by a fresh and noble
Tenure those who had stood by his side from
Methven Bridge to Bannockburn, — the history of
Scotland has been one long and steady develop
ment of the Reign of Mind In Government and in
Law. The amalgamation of Races — the blending
of interests — the fusion of Classes — the .freedom of
trade — the local movements of population in the
rise of new industries, — these have been the lines
of its long rough but steady march from extreme
poverty and rudeness, to great wealth, and great
achievements in every walk of inteUectual
exertion. There are drawbacks and limitations to progress
in aU Nations, and it would be aUke foolish and
dangerous to forget them. But It is certainly not
true that the immense increase of Wealth in Scot
land since the Union has been an increase not widely
distributed over the bulk of her population. The
wages of her artificers, by no means the highest in
skiU, who are now employed on the Industries of

308 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
the Clyde, amount very often in a single month to
more money, with ten times the purchasing power,
than the whole yearly income enjoyed by their
fathers a hundred years ago. The same contrast is
presented in every walk of life. The Houses and
Cottages which all Owners have been building for
Tenants during the last fifty years, are palaces
compared — not only with the huts of the corre
sponding classes in the Military Ages, but com
pared even with the Houses Uved in by power
ful Chiefs not longer than a century and a half
ago. The multiplication of VUlas and Houses of a
high class along all our shores, and round the old
centres of our great cities, represents an immense
aggregate of comfortable means among all the classes
engaged in Trade and Commerce. The condition
of our great cities is justly attracting attention,
and much remains to be done for them in lines of
action which cannot be too earnestly considered.
But the more carefuUy we look into the Past, the
more we shall be thankful for the general direction
of the path in which, as a Nation, we have been led.
No man was more deeply versed in the literature
of the Past — in the details of life during the Military
Ages — than the late Mr. Cosmo Innes. He did
not escape altogether from that curious form of
Sentiment which tempts us all at times to long for
a Wild Life, and to wish that our wild land had re
mained for ever unreclaimed — that our mountains
had remained for ever waste. Under the influence
of this strange glamour, which, as we have seen.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 309
never has any power as regards the Lowlands, he
has aUowed himself in one passage to take strange
Uberties with History and with Logic, He suggests
that all the wild surfaces of our Country were not
really intended to be conveyed by Charter, because
in those days they were not really thought of Yet
in another passage of the same Essay, when dealing
with the express words of these Charters, which care
fuUy and exhaustively enumerated every variety of
surface within the boundaries of an Estate, he ex
plains that these enumerations were introduced ob
majorem cautelam^ — or, in other words, from the very
excess of thoughtfulness. Of course this — the only
irrational passage in aU the writings of a very learned
man — is the only one ever quoted by the irrational
and the sentimental. Yet I know few writings
more rich in evidence of aU the leading facts and
inferences which have been set forth in the preced
ing chapters — those especially which show us at once
the connection and the contrast between the past
and the present condition of our country. The ori
ginal identity of Celtic Institutions with those of
the other Northern Nations — differing only in the
longer survival of early customs, and in the want
of any code to define or fix ; ^ the gradual adoption
of Saxon Laws, not ss alien or as the result of
conquest, but because there was nothing definite to
be displaced, and because those laws were in then-
nature " the most approved — the most civil ; " ' the
1 Scotch Legal Antiquities, compare p. 45 with p. 155.
2 lb. pp. 97-8. ^ n. pp. 95-6.

310 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
extent of exactions imposed upon the people during
the Military Ages ; ^ the fractionally small portion
of the country which was cultivated at all, this
portion being confined to a narrow strip on the
river bank, or beside the sea ; - the miserable use
to which even those small areas were put that
were grazed at all — just serving to keep the cattle
from starvation ; the constant quarrels arising out
of the common use of pastures ; ^ the great excess
of population which arose in the Glens over the
number which the country could support wdth its
own produce "or honestly ;"* the enormous waste
involved in the neglect and utter vacancy of vast
areas of mountain land — stretching, on one Estate,
across the whole of Scotland from sea to sea, and
yielding literally nothing to represent " the thou
sands and mUlions of sheep which graze them now;"'
the beginnings of improvement in the obUgatory
stipulations imposed on Tenants by Owners in the
terms of Leases, so early as 1511 ;^ the enforce
ment of all such stipulations by the penalty of re
moval or dismissal from the Estate ; '' the safety
of the evidence that the small cultivators and sub
tenants, now called Crofters, were then Tenants at
Will ; ^ — all these, and many other kindred facts,
testify, first, to the rude and barbarous condition
of our ancestors, and, next, to the powers and pro
cesses by which their children have been raised
1 Scotch Legal Antiquities, p. 276. ^ lb. pp. 154-5.
' lb. p. 268. * lb. p. 269. 5 /j. p. 263.
e lb. pp. 250-2. T /J. p. 252. 8 lb. p. 251.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 311
to an acknowledged place among the most civilised
nations in the world. The contrast is indeed
astonishing. " Always on the verge of famine and
every few years suffering the horrors of actual star
vation " — such are the words in which this careful
Historian describes the old condition of the High
lands.^ There is no wonder that he is roused to
something like enthusiasm when In the case of a
particular Estate, — that of the Campbells of Cawdor
in Nairn, — he sees and describes all the poetry of a
most blessed change : — "The woods now wave over
the grey Castle with a luxuriance of shade which
Its old inhabitants never thought of Above all, the
country round, of old occupied by a half-starving
people, lodged in houses of ' faUe,' ^ disturbed by
plundering neighbours, and ever and anon by the
curse of CivU War, Is now cultivated by an active
and thriving Tenantry, with the comforts which
increasing inteUigence and wealth require and
supply." ^ This is a beautiful vignette. But, again,
this is only a Uttle bit out of a wide landscape,
which carries into the mind, through the eye, cer
tain convictions in which we cannot be deceived.
And so it happens again that Mr. Cosmo Innes
when, in another Work, he finds himself in contact
Avith the actual records of old times, and with
the picture they present of Ufe and manners, was,
as we aU must be, recalled to the realities of historic
truth. In closing his Preface to that instructive
1 Sketches of Early Scotch History, p. 424.
2 " Faile," turf. ^ Sketches, p. 436.
VOL. II. X

312 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
record of life on a great Highland Estate during
three Centuries, which Is contained in the Book of
Taymouth, he expresses his general conclusion In
these remarkable words : — " While there is enough
of romance in the gUmpses here opened of the rough
life of the ' good old time,' it is pleasant to think
that while much is changed, every change has been
for the better; The country which these papers
show us in so wUd a state of lawless insecurity has
for the last two centuries steadily improved, and
the process has not been more marked in the face
of the country than in the moral and physical con
dition of the people and their social happiness."
Yet this is spoken of a district in the Highlands
from which there was as large a movement of
population, in connection wdth the Industrial Age,
as from any other portion of the country.
Among the many delusions which a false senti
ment has promoted there has, perhaps, never been
a delusion more complete than that which imagines
that in early Celtic Customs or traditions, as dis
tinguished from the corresponding Customs and
traditions of the Teutonic Nations, there was any
element which, if it had been left alone, would
have built up some Polity better for the mass of
the people than the Polity which actually arose, out
of the amalgamation of the races, in England and
in Scotland. As it so happens, we have historical
evidence on this subject, more ancient, more con
tinuous, and more conclusive, than on any other
subject whatever connected with the rise of civilisa-

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 313
tion in any part of Europe. In an earlier chapter
I have already referred to the curiously narrow and
local, but attractive culture of the early Celtic
Church. It is beyond question that the Monks ¦
and Priests of that Church had some culture and
some letters in a literature purely Celtic, at a time
when the other modern European nations were
either sunk in utter 'barbarism, or at least were
so little advanced as to have nothing of the same
kind. But from this very fact we have an amount
of evidence in respect to the condition and habits
of these Celts, which we do not possess in respect to
any other European race whatever at the same date.
In the Annals of Ireland by the Four Masters we
have a continuous Chronicle which is supposed, on
good grounds, to be substantially authentic from
the Second Century of the Christian Era. Even if
this very early date be doubted, there seems to be
no doubt whatever that these Annals are authentic
from at least the Fourth Century, and they are
continuous down to the middle of the Seven
teenth. They present to us all the chief incidents
of each year which were considered worthy of
record by men of the most educated and inteUigent
class in Ireland. The result is to show that not
only were the whole conditions of Society barbar
ous in the sense of being rude, rough, and violent —
but that they were barbarous in the sense of being
exceptionally savage, and without a trace of ameUora-
tion or of progress towards better things.
There may be a high interest attaching to War-

314 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
like Tribes — if their Wars have in them even the
germ of contests animated by nobler passions than
the mere thirst for blood, or the mere triumphs of
revenge. But we may turn over page after page of
these Annals without seeing even one solitary
symptom of the crystallising forces which begin the
Organic Structures of Civilisation. Every page is a
sickening repetition of intertribal battles, murders,
and devastations. Taking only the period before the
English Conquest by Henry Plantagenet, we have
the record of about 700 years. Not one single
step can be traced through all those centuries in
the path of progress. On the contrary, the country
was getting worse and worse. And yet there was
Poetry and Sentiment — of a kind. One of the
most curious features of the Monkish Journals is
the constant bursting of the narrative into verse —
couplets and quatrains of rhythmic utterance. Few
of us can judge of any beauty which may belong to
them in the Erse. But we can aU judge of the
meanings and passions which inspired them. There
are some allusions to Nature — to the Sea — to
Rivers — to Mountains — which are poetic. But the
animating spirit is almost purely ferocious — with
nothing of the higher sentiments which we under
stand as Patriotism. No deeds of massacre, how
ever dreadful, are ever narrated with rebuke — stUl
less any acts of mere plunder — unless, perchance,
any of these should have been directed against
Ecclesiastics. Then indeed the culprit " King " or
Chief is denounced as a monster, and some rival

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 315
King or Chief is incited — in piteous or in furious
appeals — to punish him with death and with the
devastation of his country. Thus in the year 733
we are told in the Annals that a Celtic King had
ventured to practise upon some Church or Convent
one of those exactions, " Coigny," which were
universally practised against aU the laity. He had
forcibly taken some " refection " from a Church
caUed " Cill-Cunna." For this offence another King
was incited by " Congus, successor of Patrick," to
take bloody vengeance on his too hungry rival.
As usual there was a great battle. On the way to
it the avenging King bursts into this characteristic
poetical effusion : —
" For Cill-Cunna, the Church of my Confessor,
I take this journey on the road ;
Aedh Koin shall leave his head with me,
or I shall leave mine with him."
And then we have the result chronicled thus : —
" The slaughter of the Ulidians with Aedh Eoin by
Aedh Allan, King of Ireland,
For their Coigny at Cill-Cunna he placed soles to necks."
This last image may be very beautiful and poetic
in Erse, but in Anglo-Saxon it requfres explana
tion. Accordingly the meaning is given In a note
by the learned Editor, as foUows : — " This is an
Idiom expressing indiscriminate carnage, in which
the sole of the foot of one body was placed 'over
against or across the neck or headless trunk of
another."^ 1 Annals, vol. i. p. 331.

316 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
It would be easy to fiU whole chapters with
extracts of the same kind. Many of them would
exhibit the misery of the people. One of them
celebrates a battle of which It is speciaUy recorded
" Great the carnage of Fir Feini," which is ex
plained to be the " Farmers " ^ or Cultivating
Class. Down to the very latest date in these
Annals the same spirit is exhibited. The glory
of a great Irish Chief who died in Rome so late
as 1616, is celebrated in the last pages of the last
volume. He is praised as " a warlike, valorous,
predatory, enterprising Lord." ^ The truth is, that
the Celtic race, Uke many others, were first Ufted
above themselves by contact and mixture with
other blood. By themselves they had not only
faded to advance, but they had fallen back. They
had declined from the doctrines and the practice
even of their own Brehon Laws. The Colony
which they sent out to Scotland in the Sixth
Century, rose, and has risen, in exact proportion
as it became thoroughly mixed and fused wdth the
Teutonic people. England gained immensely by
both the Conquests which were effected over her.
Scotland gained quite as much by the more peace
ful but equally effective processes through which
Saxon and Norman blood established itself even in
the remotest Highlands. Ireland has suffered not
from the Conquest, but because the higher Rule
and Law were so long Umited to the Pale. No
corner of Europe needed so much that work of com-
1 Annals, vol. i. p. 334. 2 /jj^; yol. yi. p. 2375.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 317
plete amalgamation which has given all its strength
and power to the British people.
There is, however, one fruitful branch of the
national life of Scotland to which I cannot now direct
any adequate attention, but to which I must shortly
refer in closing. This fruitful branch is that which
consists in the life and labours of men of the Celtic
race, who have moved out from their native hUls
and glens, and have given the benefit of high
cultui-e, or of a rich and imaginative character, to
their country and to the world. Two examples of
this kind are impressed upon my memory by cir
cumstances which have left an indelible impression.
Many years ago I was speaking to Lord Macaulay
on the subject of the Indian Code of Criminal
Law, to which, in his own earlier life, he had devoted
his learning and his genius. He had occasion to
mention the difficulties of the work — the deep
questions of Jurisprudence which it involved, and
the sources from which he had sought and found
assistance. Amongst these he mentioned especially
the name of a man of whom at that time I had
never heard — one of those who work unseen in our
CivU Services, and to whom the Nation very often
is indebted for far more than it ever comes to know.
This was Sir John M'Leod, a native of Skye, and
one of the smaller Proprietors in that Island. Lord
Macaulay was not a man to lavish praise indiscri
minately. His mind was critical, and he had of
necessity in his own nature a very high standard
in judging of Intellectual powers. It was therefore

318 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
with some surprise that I heard Lord Macaulay
speak in almost enthusiastic praise of this little-
known descendant of the old MacLeods of Skye, as
having one of the most profound, sagacious, and
phUosophic minds he had ever met with.^ When
I came to know Sir John M'Leod as I afterwards
did, I found in him the perfect type of a highly
cultured son of the Celtic race — modest, refined,
dignified, — and speaking English, after some forty
years' service abroad, wdth as strong a Gaelic tone
and accent as if he had never left his Estate in
Skye. But I recall another example somewhat different
in kind. A curious habit of the Highland people
serves to conceal sometimes the part they have
played in the highest walks of human enterprise.
This is the habit of changing their name — dropping
one and assuming another. During the MUitary
Ages they did so perpetuaUy, as we have seen,
when they enlisted under some new Chief, and
joined some other Clan. In assuming the name of
their new associates they kept up that theory and
flavour of blood-relationship V7hich in nine cases
out of ten had no other foundation whatever. Sh
Walter Scott tells us that one of his friends, shoot
ing in the North, had a native guide assigned to
him under the name of Gordon. But he recognised
the man as having served him in a simUar capacity
some years before in another place under the name
1 "The very rare talents " of J. M'Leod is the expression used by
Macaulay on another occasion, as quoted in Trevelyan's Life, vol. i. p. 413.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 319
of MacPherson. On asking the man whether he
was not the same, and whether his name had not
then been MacPherson, the composed reply was,
" Yes, but that was when I lived on the other side
of the hUl."^ It is less known, however, that this
habit has always been very general when High
landers leave the hills and settle in the Low Coun
try. The native Celtic name Is dropped, and some
Lowland form is adopted which is supposed to be a
translation or an equivalent. It was thus that
during the scarcities and distress which afilicted
the Hebrides during the last years of the last
century — about 1792 — a famUy of the name of
MacLeay migrated from the Islet of Ulva, one of
the broken fragments of the volcanic Island of MuU,
and settled at Blantyre, near Glasgow. The name
they took was Livingstone, and their Ulustrious
grandchUd was the great African TraveUer and
Missionary. The purity of the true old Celtic race
cannot be safely determined by name or language.
Long centuries of foreign dominion, and of inter
course and inter-marriage, leave it very doubtful
where we can find, even in the Hebrides, any
thing like an unmixed descent. But having had
the honour of a somewhat intimate friendship
with David Livingstone, I always regarded him
as an example of the purest Celtic type. Rather
below the medium stature, broad, sturdy, and
with an evident capacity for great endurance,
the special feature which attracted notice was his
1 Quarterly Review, vol. xiv. p. 301.

320 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
very dark hazel eye — an eye so dark as almost
to suggest a Southern or an Eastern origin.
Great self-possession and dignity of manner were
blended with a curious mixture of gentleness
and determination. Nothing in Nature escaped
his observation ; and shortly before his death I
had a letter from him, written in Central Africa,
alluding to a peculiarity of growth in a tree at
Inveraray which I had not before noticed, but
which he must have noticed in silence when we
were together. He was another instance of a
man like General Gordon, with a special gift and
a special inspiration, which in all human probabi
lity would never have been developed if he had
been born in the Ufe passed by the old Sub-tenants
in Ulva. Burning a little Kelp, digging a few
Potatoes, or even herding Cattle in the summer
Shealings which looked down on
" all the group of Islets gay
That guard old Staffa round," ^
Is a life which it is difficult to rank at its proper
level as compared with that which he actuaUy led
- — a Ufe in which he became to mUUons of the human
race the first Pioneer of CivUisation, and the first
Harbinger of the Gospel.
The blood and the race which in our own
day have produced two such men — one from
the class of Chiefs, and another from the class
of ordinary Clansmen, must have the very best
stuff of human nature in it. But that blood
1 The Lord of the Isles. Fourth Canto, x.

THE FRUITS OF MIND. 321
and race is not confined to those who. still re
tain the Gaelic speech. The larger and the more
cultivated part of it is spread over the wide
Domuiipns of the British Crown. It is one of the
many sources of our Imperial strength and wealth.
The Low Country of Scotland is fuU of it. The
Colonies are full of it. The Indian Services have
always been friU of it. The Army and the Navy
have had abundant reason to be proud of it. It
was trusted by The Bruce in the thickest of the
Fights he fought. But its whole pride, and aim,
and object must continue to be those which that
great King promoted — the object of Uving and
working in harmony with the other elements which
have buUt up the Scottish Nation, and in obedience
to those Natural and Moral Laws which are the
only soUd foundation of all Human Institutions.
The progress that Scotland made after union
with England, was a progress without a parallel in
any of the older Nations of the World. Yet that
progress was not due to anything she derived from
England in the way of Laws and Institutions.
These were aU her owm. She kept them at the
Union, and guarded them, with a noble, because a
grateful, care. We were jealous about them, not
from any narrow or provincial feeling, — but because
our fathers had told us of the noble works done in
their days, and in the old times before them. The
one great benefit which Scotland did owe to the
last and happiest of her many unions, was nothing
more than access to larger fields of exercise — to

322 SCOTLAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.
wider openings of Opportunity. She rose to the
immense prospects of this new horizon because of
the Mind and Character which had been developed
under the long discipline, and through the fiery
trials, of her own stormy history. The wonderful
start she made in the race of intellectual and indus
trial Life, was due to that history — to the older
unions effected during it — to the doctrines it had
embodied — to the energies it had developed — to the
great principles of Jurisprudence which had worked
under the sanctions, and with the authority, of Law.
Scotland, therefore, at the Union, did not break
with her own Past. On the contrary, she kept
it, and cherished it, as the richest contribution she
could make to the growth of One Great Empire,
and to the Polity of One United Kingdom. Let
her keep it still — and always in the same spirit,
and with the same great end in view.

APPENDIX.

APPEND rx I.
VOL. II. CH. I. P. 35.
LEASE OF FAEM IN MULL, signed' by Duncan Forbes
of Culloden, as Commissioner for John Duke of Argyll and
Greenwich, 1739.
Att Stony hill the Eighteenth day of Aprile one thousand
seven hundred and thirty-nine years. And
It is contracted, agreed, and finaUy ended betwixt the partys
following, viz. : — Duncan fforbes of Culloden, Esquire, Lord Presi
dent of the Session, as having power from his Grace John Duke
of Argyle and Greenwich, Heretable Proprietor of the Lands and
others after specified. To the effect after mentioned. Conform to
Commission dated the twenty-fourth day of March one Thousand
Seven hundred and Therty-eight nine years, Eegistrat in the
Books of Session the ffourth day of Aprile and year foresaid,
on the one part, and Hugh McLean, Eachell M'Carter, Donald
M'^Donald, John McLean, Duncan Beaton, and Archibald
M'^Carter, all present possessors of the Lands and others under
written,^ on the other part, in manner following — That is to say.
The said Duncan fforbes, as having power in manner forsaid,
has sett and in Tack and assedation Letton, Like as He by thir
presents, loith and under the conditions and for payment of the
Tack Duty after mentioned, Setts and in Tack and assedation
Letts to them and their heirs and such partners as they shall
from time to time assume upon the Death or ffaillure of any of
them in manner herein after mentioned'^ {Secluding all other
Assigneys and Subtennents), All and Haill The one penny half
penny Land of Bunessan, with houses, biggings, yeards, parts,
pendicles, and universall pertinents thereof whatsomever used
and wont,^ lying in the Division of Koss, Island of Mull and
¦• Showing that the new Leaseholders were of the old class of
cultivators, prohably sub-tenants.
^ Showing that new Lease regulated, and strictly limited any admis
sion of co-partners in the farm.
' Showing admission of " use and wont " in ascertaining facts.

326 APPENDIX I.
Sheriifdom of Argyle, hy the proportions following, viz. : — To
the said Hugh McLean one-half ; To the said Eachael M'Carter
one-sixth; To the said Donald McDonald one-twelvth ; To the
said John M'^Lean one-twelvth. To the said Duncan Beaton
one-twehth; and to the said Archibald M'Carter one-twelvth;^
And That for the space of nineteen full and compleat years ^ from
and after their entry thereto, which is hereby Declared to have
been and begun at the term of Whitsunday one Thousand and
Seven hundred and Therty-eight years ; and so furth to continue
in the peaceable possession of the said Lands during the space
foresaid ; Which Tack above written The said Duncan fforbes,
as having power in manner foresaid. Binds and obliges the said
Duke, his heirs and successors, to warrand to them and their
foresaids att all hands and against all deadly as Law will :^ For
the which Causes and on the other part the haill forenamed
persons Bind and oblige them Conlly. and Sevally., their heirs,
Exetrs. and Successors whatsomever. Thankfully to content and pay
to the said Duke and his above written, or to his or their assig
neys or Chamberlains in his or their names, the Sum of One
Hundred and Seventy-Six pound Scots money * at the term of Mar
tinmas yearly. AND THAT IN FULL SATISFACTION OP
ALL HEREZELDS, CASUALITYS, AND OTHEE PRES
TATIONS AND SERVICES WHATSOMEVER, WHICH
ARE HEREBY DISCHARGED,^ Except the Services of Tennents
for Repairing Harbours, mending Highways, or making or Repairing
Milnleads for the generall Renefite of the Lsland,^ with Therty
pound money foresaid of penalty for ilk term's failled and
annual rent of the said Tack-duty from and after the term
of payment during the not payment : Declaring The first
year's Tack-duty was payable at the term of Martinmas one
Thousand seven hundred and therty-eight years, and that the
Tack-duty is to be paid yearly at the term of Martinmas for all
the years contained in this present Tack : And furder. The
haill forenamed persons Bind and oblige them and their foresaids
to possess the Lands and others above tvritten with their oivn
proper stock allenarly,'^ As also To ffree and Releive the s'^Duke
and his foresaids of all Cesses, Ministers' Stipends, School-
' Showing great inequality in shares — recognising facts.
" Showing fixed limit of time.
^ The usual clause of Warrandice — conveying security for Exclusive
Use. * Showing fixed rent in money.
^ Showing the terms in which Servitudes were abolished.
" Showing the specific services retained, as of public utility.
'^ To prevent Debt, and secure Tenants with sufficient means.

APPENDIX I. 327
masters' Sallarys, and all other burdens imposed or to be im
posed upon the lands above mentioned : And it is hereby
expressly Provided and Declared That in case one year's rent
or any part thereof shall remain unpaid when another year's
rent becomes due. Then and in that case this present Tack
shall ipso facto become void and null without any process of
Declarator to follow on the said Contravention : And it shall be
Leisume and Lawfull to the said Duke and his foresaids to Lett
the Lands above written of new as if this present Tack had
never been made or granted ; Providing also that in case any one
or more of the Tennents above named shall faill in their Circum
stances so as they shall not be able to hold their proportions of the
said Lands, Or if wpon the Death of any of them there shall not be a
fitt person to take Up their possession. The remaining tennents shall
either take the share or shares of the person or persons so failling
amongst them during the residue of this present Tack, Or shall find
and assume a fitt Successor or Successors to him or them, for whose
answering the prestations Incumbent on them as Succeeding to a Share
or Shares of this present Tack the remaining tennents shall be answer
able: In performance of which the haill forenamed persons not
only bind and oblige them and their foresds.. But also in payment
of the above rent at the terms and in manner above mentioned :
And both partys Bind and oblige them and their foresaids to
perform the premisses hinc inde to others, under the penalty of
Eighty-five pounds money foresd., to be paid by the party
ffaillier to the party performer or willing to perform by and attour
performance : And Consent To the Registration hereof in the
Books of CounciU and Session or others Competent to have the
strength of a Decreet of any of the Judges thereof Interponed
thereto, That Letters of Horning on six days' charge and all
other Exect^ needful! may pass hereon in form as effeirs, & yrto.
Constitute
Their proct', etc. In witnes whereof their presents, consist
ing of this and the two proceeding pages of Stamped paper,
written by David Marshall, writter in Edinburgh, are Sub
scribed as follows, viz* : By the said Duncan Forbes Att Stoney-
hill the said Eighteenth day of Aprile one thousand Seven
hundred and thirty-nine years Before these witnesses, Ronald
Dunbar, Writer to the Signet, and David Forbes his Serviter,
Inserter of the place. Date, Witnesses' names and Designations
to the said Duncan Forbes his subscription.
(Signed) (Signed)
Ronald Dunbar, Witness. Dun. Foebes, Crnnr.
David Forbes, Witness.
VOL. II. Y

APPENDIX IL
VOL. IL CH. IV. P. 262.
PETITION FROM Poor Persons in Tyree for Aid
TO Emigrate.
Unto Sir John M'Neill. 1847.
The Petition of the undersigned Cottars and small Crofters
on the Island of Tyree,
Humbly sheioeth.
That since the making of kelp ceased, and particularly since
the failure of the potato crop, the inhabitants of this island
have been in a state of great destitution ; and, were it not for
the benevolence of the proprietor, and the aid afforded by the
relief board, they would inevitably have starved. That hitherto
they have been employed by the proprietor at drainage and
other works, during the winter and spring months, before the
land was cropped, and during the summer they were supported
by the funds of the relief board. That this latter resource being
now at an end, your petitioners' prospects, on looking forward
to the ensuing summer, are in the extreme dismal, and the
more so, as the only prospect of ultimate relief to which they
so fondly cling is denied them — that of emigration — which
your petitioners neglected to take advantage of while in their
power, probably supposing that the relief funds were to last, or
that the potato would be restored. That, to add to their fur
ther grievance, your petitioners are led to understand that those
averse to emigration from the West Highlands are using every
possible means to prevent it, and that statements are made pub
licly that the poor can be supported by employing them in the
improvement of waste land. Those who advocate such are cer
tainly actuated by other motives save that of philanthropy, and
display the grossest ignorance as to the resources of the coun
try, particularly as regards this isolated island, where there is
no fuel, and not an inch of waste land which the inhabitants

APPENDIX IL 329
could not drain and trench in a few months. That your peti
tioners would now most earnestly request, that if possessed of the
bowels of compassion, such as were your forefathers, or value
the lives of your countrymen, you will not credit the statement
of those inimical to our best interest, but examine individually
into oui- circumstances, and the condition of the island, when
they have no doubt you will have sufficient proof afforded of
the fallacy of such statements, and the injury and cruelty done
us by such misrepresentations, which may perhaps be the means
of the Duke's withholding his bounty, and depriving us of the
power of participating in the enjoyments and comforts, they are
from day to day informed, their friends in Canada enjoy to such
an extent. May it therefore please your honour to take the miserable
consideration of your petitioners into consideration,
and use your influence with Her Majesty's Govern
ment, or His Grace the Duke of Argyll, to provide
for them the means of emigrating ; and your peti
tioners shall ever pray.
(Signed by 136 heads of families representing 825 souls.)

FINIS.

PRINTED BY T. AND A. CONSTAELE, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY
AT THE Edinburgh university press.

?feS :jr;iv==.3ITY LIBRARY