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The late Rev. Dr.
Maclachlan, Edinburgh, wrote a series of articles in the Witness, during
its palmy days under the editorship of Hugh Miller. These were
afterwards published in 1849, under the title of "The Depopulation
System of the Highlands," in pamphlet form, by Johnston and Hunter. The
rev, author visited all the places to which he refers. He says:-
"A complete history of
Highland clearances would, we doubt not, both interest and surprise the
British public. Men talk of the Sutherland clearings as if they stood
alone amidst the atrocities of the system; but those who know fully the
facts of the case can speak with as much truth of the Ross-shire
clearings, the Inverness-shire clearings, the Perthshire clearings, and,
to some extent, the Argyllshire clearings. The earliest of these was the
great clearing on the Glengarry estate, towards, we believe, the latter
end of the last century. The tradition among the Highlanders is (and
some Gaelic poems composed at the time would go to confirm it), that the
chief's lady had taken umbrage at the clan. Whatever the cause might
have been, the offence was deep, and could only be expiated by the
extirpation of the race. Summonses of ejection were served over the
whole property, even on families the most closely connected with the
chief; and if we now seek for the Highlanders of Glengarry, we must
search on the banks of the St. Lawrence.
"To the westward of
Glengarry lies the estate of Lochiel —a name to which the imperishable
poetry of Campbell has attached much interest. It is the country of the
brave clan Cameron, to whom, were there nothing to speak of but their
conduct at Waterloo, Britain owes a debt. Many of our readers have
passed along Loch Lochy, and they have likely had the mansion of
Auchnacarry pointed out to them, and they have been told of the Dark
Mile, surpassing, as some say, the Trossachs in romantic beauty; but
perhaps they were not aware that beyond lies the wide expanse of Loch
Arkaig, whose banks have been the scene of a most extensive clearing.
There was a day when three hundred able, active men could have been
collected from the shores of this extensive inland loch; but eviction
has long ago rooted them out, and nothing is now to be seen but the
ruins of their huts, with the occasional bothy of a shepherd, while
their lands are held by one or two farmers from the borders.
"Crossing to the south of
the great glen, we may begin with Glencoe. How much of its romantic
interest does this glen owe to its desolation? Let us remember, however,
that the desolation, in a large part of it, is the result of the
extrusion of the inhabitants. Travel eastward, and the footprints of the
destroyer cannot be lost sight of. Large tracks along the Spean and its
tributaries are a wide waste. The southern bank of Loch Lochy is almost
without inhabitants, though the symptoms of former occupancy are
frequent.
"When we enter the
country of the Frasers, the same spectacle presents itself—a desolate
land. With the exception of the miserable village of Fort-Augustus the
native population is almost extinguished, while those who do remain are
left as if, by their squalid misery, to make darkness the more visible.
Across the hills, in Stratherrick, the property of Lord Lovat, with the
exception of a few large sheep farmers, and a very few tenants, is one
wide waste. To the north of Loch Ness, the territory of the Grants, both
Glenmoriston and the Earl of Seafield, presents a pleasing feature
amidst the sea of desolation. But beyond this, again, let us trace the
large rivers of the east coast to their sources.
"Trace the Beauly through
all its upper reaches, and how many thousands upon thousands of acres,
once peopled, are, as respects human beings, a wide wilderness! The
lands of the Chisholm have been stripped of their population down to a
mere fragment ; the possessors of those of Lovat have not been behind
with their share of the same sad doings. Let us cross to the Conon and
its branches, and we will find that the chieftains of the MIackenzies
have not been less active in extermination. Breadalbane and Rannoch, in
Perthshire, have a similar tale to tell, vast masses of the population
having been forcibly expelled. The upper portions of Athole have also
suffered, while many of the valleys along the Spey and its tributaries
are without an inhabitant, if we except a few shepherds. Sutherland,
with all its atrocities, affords but a fraction of the atrocities that
have been perpetrated in following out the ejectment system of the
Highlands. In truth, of the habitable portion of the whole country but a
small part is now really inhabited. We are unwilling to weary our
readers by carrying them along the west coast from the Linnhe Loch,
northwards; but if they inquire, they will find that the same system has
been, in the case of most of the estates, relentlessly pursued.
"These are facts of
which, we believe, the British public know little, but they are facts on
which the changes should be rung until they have listened to them and
seriously considered them. May it not be that part of the guilt is
theirs, who might, yet did not, step forward to stop such cruel and
unwise proceedings?
"Let us leave the past,
however" he continues, "and consider the present. And it is a melancholy
reflection that the year 1849 has added its long list to the roll of
Highland ejectments. While the law is banishing its tens for terms of
seven or fourteen years, as the penalty of deep-dyed crimes,
irresponsible and infatuated power is banishing its thousands for life
for no crime whatever. This year brings forward, as leader in the work
of expatriation, the Duke of Argyll. Is it possible that his vast
possessions are over-densely peopled? "Credat Judceus appelles." And the
Highland Destitution Committee co-operate. We had understood that the
large sums of money at their disposal had been given them for the
purpose of relieving, and not of banishing, the destitute. Next we have
Mr. Bailie of Glenelg, professedly at their own request, sending five
hundred souls off to America. Their native glen must have been made not
a little uncomfortable for these poor people, ere they could have
petitioned for so sore a favour. Then we have Colonel Gordon expelling
upwards of eighteen hundred souls from South Uist; Lord Macdonald
follows with a sentence of banishment against six or seven hundred of
the people of North Uist, with a threat, as we learn, that three
thousand are to be driven from Skye next season; and Mr. Lillingston of
Lochalsh, Maclean of Ardgour, and Lochiel, bring up the rear of the
black catalogue, a large body of people having left the estates of the
two latter, who, after a heart-rending scene of parting with their
native land, are now on the wide sea on their way to Australia. Thus,
within the last three or four months' considerably upwards of three
thousand of the most moral and loyal of our people—people who, even in
the most trying circumstances, never required a soldier, seldom a
policeman, among them, to maintain the peace—are driven forcibly away to
seek subsistence on a foreign soil."
Writing in 1850, on more
"Recent Highland Evictions," the same author says "The moral
responsibility for these transactions lies in a measure with the nation,
and not merely with the individuals immediately concerned in them. Some
years ago the fearful scenes that attended the slave trade were depicted
in colours that finally roused the national conscience, and the nation
gave its loud, indignant, and effective testimony against them. The
tearing of human beings, with hearts as warm, and affections as strong
as dwell in the bosom of the white man, from their beloved homes and
families—the packing them into the holds of over-crowded vessels, in the
burning heat of the tropics—the stifling atmosphere, the clanking chain,
the pestilence, the bodies of the dead corrupting in the midst of the
living—presented a picture which deeply moved the national mind; and
there was felt to be guilt, deep-dyed guilt, and the nation relieved
itself by abolishing the traffic. And is the nation free of guilt in
this kind of white-slave traffic that is now going on—this tearing of
men whether they will or not, from their country and kindred—this
crowding them into often foul and unwholesome vessels with the
accompanying deaths of hundreds whose eyes never rest on the land to
which they are driven. Men may say that they have rights in the one case
that they have not in the other. Then we say that they are rights into
whose nature and fruits we would do well to enquire, lest it be found
that the rude and lawless barbarism of Africa, and the high and boasted
civilisation of Britain, land us in the same final results. . . . It is
to British legislation that the people of the Highlands owe the relative
position in which they stand to their chiefs. There was a time when they
were strangers to the feudal system which prevailed in the rest of the
kingdom. Every man among them sat as free as his chief. But by degrees
the power of the latter, assisted by Saxon legislation, encroached upon
the liberty of the former. Highland chiefs became feudal lards—the
people were robbed to increase their power—and now we are reaping the
fruits of this in recent evictions."
At a meeting of the
Inverness, Ross, and Nairn Club, in Edinburgh, in 1877, the venerable
Doctor referred to the same sad subject amid applause and expressions of
regret. We extract the following from a report of the meeting which
appeared at the time in the Inverness Courier:-
"The current that ran
against their language seemed to be rising against the people
themselves. The cry seemed to be, Do away with the people: this is the
shorthand way of doing away with the language. He reminded them of the
saying of a queen, that she would turn Scotland into a hunting field,
and of the reply of a Duke of Argyll it is time for me to make my hounds
ready, and said he did not know whether there was now an Argyll who
would make the same reply. But there were other folks—less folks than
queens—who had gone pretty deep in the direction indicated by this
queen. He would not say it was not a desirable thing to see Highlanders
scattered over the earth—they were greatly indebted to them in their
cities and the colonies; but he wished to preserve their Highland homes,
from which the colonies and large cities derived their very best blood.
Drive off the Highlander and destroy his home, and you destroy that
which had produced some of the best and noblest men who filled important
positions throughout the empire. In the interests of great cities, as a
citizen of Edinburgh, he desired to keep the Highlanders in their own
country, and to make them as comfortable as possible. He only wished
that some of the Highland proprietors could see their way to offer
sections of the land for improvement by the people, who were quite as
able to improve the land in their own country as to improve the great
forests of Canada. He himself would rather to-morrow begin to cultivate
an acre in any habitable part of the Highlands of Scotland than to begin
to cultivate land such as that on which he had seen thousands of them
working in the forests of Canada. What had all this to do with Celtic
Literature? Dr. Maclachlan replied that the whole interest which Celtic
Literature had to him was connected with the Celtic people, and if they
destroyed the Celtic people, his entire interest in their literature
perished. They had been told the other day that this was sentiment, and
that there were cases in which sentiment was not desirable. He agreed
with this so far; but he believed that when sentiment was driven out of
a Highlander the best part of him was driven out, for it ever had a
strong place among mountain people.
He himself had a warm
patriotic feeling, and he grieved whenever he saw a ruined house in any
of their mountain glens. And ruined homes and ruined villages he, alas!
had seen—villages on fire the hills red with burning homes. He never
wished to see this sorry sight again. It was a sad, a lamentable sight,
for he was convinced the country had not a nobler class of people than
the Highland people, or a set of people better worth preserving.
The Gaelic Songs of the Late Dr MacLachlan - Rahoy
With Prefatory Biography by H. C. Gillies (1880) (pdf) |
