Some method to stop this epidemick desire of wandering, which
spreads its contagion from valley to valley, deserves to be sought
with great diligence. In more fruitful countries, the removal of
one only makes room for the succession of another: but in the
Hebrides, the loss of an inhabitant leaves a lasting vacuity; for
nobody born in any other parts of the world will choose this
country for his residence, and an Island once depopulated will
remain a desert, as long as the present facility of travel gives
every one, who is discontented and unsettled, the choice of his
abode.
Let it be inquired, whether the first intention of those who are
fluttering on the wing, and collecting a flock that they may take
their flight, be to attain good, or to avoid evil. If they are
dissatisfied with that part of the globe, which their birth has
allotted them, and resolve not to live without the pleasures of
happier climates; if they long for bright suns, and calm skies, and
flowery fields, and fragrant gardens, I know not by what eloquence
they can be persuaded, or by what offers they can be hired to stay.
But if they are driven from their native country by positive evils,
and disgusted by ill-treatment, real or imaginary, it were fit to
remove their grievances, and quiet their resentment; since, if they
have been hitherto undutiful subjects, they will not much mend
their principles by American conversation.
To allure them into the army, it was thought proper to indulge them
in the continuance of their national dress. If this concession
could have any effect, it might easily be made. That dissimilitude
of appearance, which was supposed to keep them distinct from the
rest of the nation, might disincline them from coalescing with the
Pensylvanians, or people of Connecticut. If the restitution of
their arms will reconcile them to their country, let them have
again those weapons, which will not be more mischievous at home
than in the Colonies. That they may not fly from the increase of
rent, I know not whether the general good does not require that the
landlords be, for a time, restrained in their demands, and kept
quiet by pensions proportionate to their loss.
To hinder insurrection, by driving away the people, and to govern
peaceably, by having no subjects, is an expedient that argues no
great profundity of politicks. To soften the obdurate, to convince
the mistaken, to mollify the resentful, are worthy of a statesman;
but it affords a legislator little self-applause to consider, that
where there was formerly an insurrection, there is now a
wilderness.
It has been a question often agitated without solution, why those
northern regions are now so thinly peopled, which formerly
overwhelmed with their armies the Roman empire. The question
supposes what I believe is not true, that they had once more
inhabitants than they could maintain, and overflowed only because
they were full.
This is to estimate the manners of all countries and ages by our
own. Migration, while the state of life was unsettled, and there
was little communication of intelligence between distant places,
was among the wilder nations of Europe, capricious and casual. An
adventurous projector heard of a fertile coast unoccupied, and led
out a colony; a chief of renown for bravery, called the young men
together, and led them out to try what fortune would present. When
Caesar was in Gaul, he found the Helvetians preparing to go they
knew not whither, and put a stop to their motions. They settled
again in their own country, where they were so far from wanting
room, that they had accumulated three years provision for their
march.
The religion of the North was military; if they could not find
enemies, it was their duty to make them: they travelled in quest
of danger, and willingly took the chance of Empire or Death. If
their troops were numerous, the countries from which they were
collected are of vast extent, and without much exuberance of people
great armies may be raised where every man is a soldier. But their
true numbers were never known. Those who were conquered by them
are their historians, and shame may have excited them to say, that
they were overwhelmed with multitudes. To count is a modern
practice, the ancient method was to guess; and when numbers are
guessed they are always magnified.
Thus England has for several years been filled with the
atchievements of seventy thousand Highlanders employed in America.
I have heard from an English officer, not much inclined to favour
them, that their behaviour deserved a very high degree of military
praise; but their number has been much exaggerated. One of the
ministers told me, that seventy thousand men could not have been
found in all the Highlands, and that more than twelve thousand
never took the field. Those that went to the American war, went to
destruction. Of the old Highland regiment, consisting of twelve
hundred, only seventy-six survived to see their country again.
The Gothick swarms have at least been multiplied with equal
liberality. That they bore no great proportion to the inhabitants,
in whose countries they settled, is plain from the paucity of
northern words now found in the provincial languages. Their
country was not deserted for want of room, because it was covered
with forests of vast extent; and the first effect of plenitude of
inhabitants is the destruction of wood. As the Europeans spread
over America the lands are gradually laid naked.
I would not be understood to say, that necessity had never any part
in their expeditions. A nation, whose agriculture is scanty or
unskilful, may be driven out by famine. A nation of hunters may
have exhausted their game.
