I
Once Asked, If A Crime Should Be Committed, By What Authority The
Offender Could Be Seized?
And was told, that the Laird would exert
his right; a right which he must now usurp, but which surely
necessity must vindicate, and which is therefore yet exercised in
lower degrees, by some of the proprietors, when legal processes
cannot be obtained.
In all greater questions, however, there is now happily an end to
all fear or hope from malice or from favour. The roads are secure
in those places through which, forty years ago, no traveller could
pass without a convoy. All trials of right by the sword are
forgotten, and the mean are in as little danger from the powerful
as in other places. No scheme of policy has, in any country, yet
brought the rich and poor on equal terms into courts of judicature.
Perhaps experience, improving on experience, may in time effect it.
Those who have long enjoyed dignity and power, ought not to lose it
without some equivalent. There was paid to the Chiefs by the
publick, in exchange for their privileges, perhaps a sum greater
than most of them had ever possessed, which excited a thirst for
riches, of which it shewed them the use. When the power of birth
and station ceases, no hope remains but from the prevalence of
money. Power and wealth supply the place of each other. Power
confers the ability of gratifying our desire without the consent of
others. Wealth enables us to obtain the consent of others to our
gratification. Power, simply considered, whatever it confers on
one, must take from another. Wealth enables its owner to give to
others, by taking only from himself. Power pleases the violent and
proud: wealth delights the placid and the timorous. Youth
therefore flies at power, and age grovels after riches.
The Chiefs, divested of their prerogatives, necessarily turned
their thoughts to the improvement of their revenues, and expect
more rent, as they have less homage. The tenant, who is far from
perceiving that his condition is made better in the same
proportion, as that of his landlord is made worse, does not
immediately see why his industry is to be taxed more heavily than
before. He refuses to pay the demand, and is ejected; the ground
is then let to a stranger, who perhaps brings a larger stock, but
who, taking the land at its full price, treats with the Laird upon
equal terms, and considers him not as a Chief, but as a trafficker
in land. Thus the estate perhaps is improved, but the clan is
broken.
It seems to be the general opinion, that the rents have been raised
with too much eagerness. Some regard must be paid to prejudice.
Those who have hitherto paid but little, will not suddenly be
persuaded to pay much, though they can afford it. As ground is
gradually improved, and the value of money decreases, the rent may
be raised without any diminution of the farmer's profits: yet it
is necessary in these countries, where the ejection of a tenant is
a greater evil, than in more populous places, to consider not
merely what the land will produce, but with what ability the
inhabitant can cultivate it. A certain stock can allow but a
certain payment; for if the land be doubled, and the stock remains
the same, the tenant becomes no richer. The proprietors of the
Highlands might perhaps often increase their income, by subdividing
the farms, and allotting to every occupier only so many acres as he
can profitably employ, but that they want people.
There seems now, whatever be the cause, to be through a great part
of the Highlands a general discontent. That adherence, which was
lately professed by every man to the chief of his name, has now
little prevalence; and he that cannot live as he desires at home,
listens to the tale of fortunate islands, and happy regions, where
every man may have land of his own, and eat the product of his
labour without a superior.
Those who have obtained grants of American lands, have, as is well
known, invited settlers from all quarters of the globe; and among
other places, where oppression might produce a wish for new
habitations, their emissaries would not fail to try their
persuasions in the Isles of Scotland, where at the time when the
clans were newly disunited from their Chiefs, and exasperated by
unprecedented exactions, it is no wonder that they prevailed.
Whether the mischiefs of emigration were immediately perceived, may
be justly questioned. They who went first, were probably such as
could best be spared; but the accounts sent by the earliest
adventurers, whether true or false, inclined many to follow them;
and whole neighbourhoods formed parties for removal; so that
departure from their native country is no longer exile. He that
goes thus accompanied, carries with him all that makes life
pleasant. He sits down in a better climate, surrounded by his
kindred and his friends: they carry with them their language,
their opinions, their popular songs, and hereditary merriment:
they change nothing but the place of their abode; and of that
change they perceive the benefit.
This is the real effect of emigration, if those that go away
together settle on the same spot, and preserve their ancient union.
But some relate that these adventurous visitants of unknown
regions, after a voyage passed in dreams of plenty and felicity,
are dispersed at last upon a Sylvan wilderness, where their first
years must be spent in toil, to clear the ground which is
afterwards to be tilled, and that the whole effect of their
undertakings is only more fatigue and equal scarcity.
Both accounts may be suspected. Those who are gone will endeavour
by every art to draw others after them; for as their numbers are
greater, they will provide better for themselves. When Nova Scotia
was first peopled, I remember a letter, published under the
character of a New Planter, who related how much the climate put
him in mind of Italy.
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