They
are strangers to the language and the manners, to the advantages
and wants of the people, whose life they would model, and whose
evils they would remedy.
Nothing is less difficult than to procure one convenience by the
forfeiture of another. A soldier may expedite his march by
throwing away his arms. To banish the Tacksman is easy, to make a
country plentiful by diminishing the people, is an expeditious mode
of husbandry; but little abundance, which there is nobody to enjoy,
contributes little to human happiness.
As the mind must govern the hands, so in every society the man of
intelligence must direct the man of labour. If the Tacksmen be
taken away, the Hebrides must in their present state be given up to
grossness and ignorance; the tenant, for want of instruction, will
be unskilful, and for want of admonition will be negligent. The
Laird in these wide estates, which often consist of islands remote
from one another, cannot extend his personal influence to all his
tenants; and the steward having no dignity annexed to his
character, can have little authority among men taught to pay
reverence only to birth, and who regard the Tacksman as their
hereditary superior; nor can the steward have equal zeal for the
prosperity of an estate profitable only to the Laird, with the
Tacksman, who has the Laird's income involved in his own.
The only gentlemen in the Islands are the Lairds, the Tacksmen, and
the Ministers, who frequently improve their livings by becoming
farmers. If the Tacksmen be banished, who will be left to impart
knowledge, or impress civility? The Laird must always be at a
distance from the greater part of his lands; and if he resides at
all upon them, must drag his days in solitude, having no longer
either a friend or a companion; he will therefore depart to some
more comfortable residence, and leave the tenants to the wisdom and
mercy of a factor.
Of tenants there are different orders, as they have greater or less
stock. Land is sometimes leased to a small fellowship, who live in
a cluster of huts, called a Tenants Town, and are bound jointly and
separately for the payment of their rent. These, I believe, employ
in the care of their cattle, and the labour of tillage, a kind of
tenants yet lower; who having a hut with grass for a certain number
of cows and sheep, pay their rent by a stipulated quantity of
labour.
The condition of domestick servants, or the price of occasional
labour, I do not know with certainty. I was told that the maids
have sheep, and are allowed to spin for their own clothing; perhaps
they have no pecuniary wages, or none but in very wealthy families.
The state of life, which has hitherto been purely pastoral, begins
now to be a little variegated with commerce; but novelties enter by
degrees, and till one mode has fully prevailed over the other, no
settled notion can be formed.
Such is the system of insular subordination, which, having little
variety, cannot afford much delight in the view, nor long detain
the mind in contemplation. The inhabitants were for a long time
perhaps not unhappy; but their content was a muddy mixture of pride
and ignorance, an indifference for pleasures which they did not
know, a blind veneration for their chiefs, and a strong conviction
of their own importance.
Their pride has been crushed by the heavy hand of a vindictive
conqueror, whose seventies have been followed by laws, which,
though they cannot be called cruel, have produced much discontent,
because they operate upon the surface of life, and make every eye
bear witness to subjection. To be compelled to a new dress has
always been found painful.
Their Chiefs being now deprived of their jurisdiction, have already
lost much of their influence; and as they gradually degenerate from
patriarchal rulers to rapacious landlords, they will divest
themselves of the little that remains.
That dignity which they derived from an opinion of their military
importance, the law, which disarmed them, has abated. An old
gentleman, delighting himself with the recollection of better days,
related, that forty years ago, a Chieftain walked out attended by
ten or twelve followers, with their arms rattling. That animating
rabble has now ceased. The Chief has lost his formidable retinue;
and the Highlander walks his heath unarmed and defenceless, with
the peaceable submission of a French peasant or English cottager.
Their ignorance grows every day less, but their knowledge is yet of
little other use than to shew them their wants. They are now in
the period of education, and feel the uneasiness of discipline,
without yet perceiving the benefit of instruction.
The last law, by which the Highlanders are deprived of their arms,
has operated with efficacy beyond expectation. Of former statutes
made with the same design, the execution had been feeble, and the
effect inconsiderable. Concealment was undoubtedly practised, and
perhaps often with connivance. There was tenderness, or
partiality, on one side, and obstinacy on the other. But the law,
which followed the victory of Culloden, found the whole nation
dejected and intimidated; informations were given without danger,
and without fear, and the arms were collected with such rigour,
that every house was despoiled of its defence.
To disarm part of the Highlands, could give no reasonable occasion
of complaint. Every government must be allowed the power of taking
away the weapon that is lifted against it. But the loyal clans
murmured, with some appearance of justice, that after having
defended the King, they were forbidden for the future to defend
themselves; and that the sword should be forfeited, which had been
legally employed.
