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[From enlarged edition of
"Gloomy Memories," published in Canada in 1857.]
From the year 1812 to
1820, the whole interior of the county of Sutherland—whose inhabitants
were advancing rapidly in the science of agriculture and education, who
by nature and exemplary training were the bravest, the most moral and
patriotic people that ever existed—even admitting a few of them did
violate the excise laws, the only sin which Mr. Loch and all the rest of
their avowed enemies could bring against them—where a body of men could
be raised on the shortest possible notice that kings and emperors might
and would be proud of; and where the whole fertile valleys and straths
which gave them birth were in due season waving with corn; their
mountains and hill-sides studded with sheep and cattle; where rejoicing,
felicity, happiness, and true piety prevailed ; where the martial notes
of the bagpipes sounded and reverberated from mountain to glen, from
glen to mountain. I say, marvellous! in eight years converted to a
solitary wilderness, where the voice of man praising God is not to be
heard, nor the image of God upon man to be seen ; where you can set a
compass with twenty miles of a radius upon it, and go round with it full
stretched, and not find one acre of land within the circumference which
has come under the plough for the last thirty years, except a few in the
parishes of Lairg and Tongue,—all under mute brute animals. This is the
advancement of civilization, is it not, madam?
Return now with me to the
beginning of your elaborate eulogy on the Duchess of Sutherland, and if
you are open to conviction, I think you should be convinced that I never
published nor circulated in the American, English, or Scotch public
prints any ridiculous, absurd stories about her Grace of Sutherland. An
abridgment of my lucubrations is now in the hands of the public, and you
may peruse them. I stand by them as facts (stubborn chiels). I can prove
them to be so even in this country (Canada), by a cloud of living
witnesses, and my readers will find that, instead of bringing absurd
accusations against her Grace, that I have endeavoured in some instances
to screen her and her predecessors from the public odium their own
policy and the doings of their servants merited. Moreover, there is
thirty years since I began to expostulate with the House of Sutherland
for their shortsighted policy in dealing with their people as they were
doing, and it is twenty years since I began to expose them publicly,
with my real name, Donald MacLeod, attached to each letter, sending a
copy of the public paper where it appeared, directed by post, to the
Duke of Sutherland. These exposing and remonstrating letters were
published in the Edinburgh papers, where the Duke and his predecessors
had their principal Scotch law agent, and you may easily believe that I
was closely watched, with the view to find one false accusation in my
letters, but they were baffled. I am well aware that each letter I have
written on the subject would, if untrue, constitute a libel, and I knew
the editors, printers, and publishers of these papers were as liable or
responsible for libel as I was. But the House of Sutherland could never
venture to raise an action of damages against either of us. In 1841,
when I published my first pamphlet, I paid $4 50c., for binding one of
them, in a splendid style, which I sent by mail to his Grace the present
Duke of Sutherland, with a complimentary note requesting him to peruse
it, and let me know if it contained anything offensive or untrue. I
never received a reply, nor did I expect it; yet I am satisfied that his
Grace did peruse it. I posted a copy of it to Mr. Loch, his chief
commissioner; to Mr. W. Mackenzie, his chief lawyer in Edinburgh; to
every one of their underlings, to sheep farmers, and ministers in the
county of Sutherland, who abetted the depopulators, and I challenged the
whole of them, and other literary scourges who aid and justified their
unhallowed doings, to gainsay one statement I have made. Can you or any
other believe that a poor sinner like Donald MacLeod would be allowed
for so many years to escape with impunity, had he been circulating and
publishing calumnious, absurd falsehoods against such personages as the
House of Sutherland? No, I tell you, if money could secure my
punishment, without establishing their own shame and guilt, that it
would be considered well-spent long ere now,—they would eat me in penny
pies if they could get me cooked for them.
I agree with you that the
Duchess of Sutherland is a beautiful, accomplished lady, who would
shudder at the idea of taking a faggot or a burning torch in her hand to
set fire to the cottages of her tenants, and so would her predecessor,
the first Duchess of Sutherland, her good mother ; likewise would the
late and present Dukes of Sutherland, at least I am willing to believe
that they would. Yet it was done in their name, under their authority,
to their knowledge, and with their sanction. The dukes and duchesses of
Sutherland, and those of their depopulating order, had not, nor have
they any call to defile their pure hands in milder work than to burn
people's houses; no, no, they had, and have plenty of willing tools at
their beck to perform their dirty work. Whatever amount of humanity and
purity of heart the late or the present Duke and Duchess may possess or
be ascribed to them, we know the class of men from whom they selected
their commissioners, factors, and underlings. I knew every one of the
unrighteous servants who ruled the Sutherland- estate for the last fifty
years, and I am justified in saying that the most skilful phrenologist
and physiognomist that ever existed could not discern one spark of
humanity in the whole of them, from Mr. Loch down to Donald Sgrios, or
Damnable Donald, the name by which the latter was known. The most of
those cruel executors of the atrocities I have been describing are now
dead, and to be feared but not lamented. But it seems their chief was
left to give you all the information you required about British slavery
and oppression. I have read from speeches delivered by Mr. Loch at
public dinners among his own party, " that he would never be satisfied
until the Gaelic language and the Gaelic people would be extirpated root
and branch from the Sutherland estate; yes, from the Highlands of
Scotland." He published a book, where he stated as a positive fact,
"that when he got the management of the Sutherland estate he found 408
families on the estate who never heard the name of Jesus,"--whereas I
could make oath that there were not at that time, and for ages prior to
it, above two families within the limits of the county who did not
worship that Name and holy Being every morning and evening. I know there
are hundreds in the Canadas who will bear me out in this assertion. I
was at the pulling down and burning of the house of William Chisholm. I
got my hands burnt taking out the poor old woman from amidst the flames
of her once-comfortable though humble dwelling, and a more horrifying
and lamentable scene could scarcely be witnessed. I may say the skeleton
of a once tall, robust, high-cheek-boned, respectable woman, who had
seen better days ; who could neither hear, see, nor speak ; without a
tooth in her mouth, her cheek skin meeting in the centre, her eyes sunk
out of sight in their sockets, her mouth wide open, her nose standing
upright among smoke and flames, uttering piercing moans of distress and
agony, in articulations from which could be only understood, "Oh, Dhia,
Dhia, teine, Leine---Oh God, God, fire, fire." When she came to the pure
air, her bosom heaved to a most extraordinary degree, accompanied by a
deep hollow sound from her lungs, comparable to the sound of thunder at
a distance. When laid down upon the bare, soft, moss floor of the
roofless shed, I will never forget the foam of perspiration which
emitted and covered the pallid death-looking countenance. This was a
scene, madam, worthy of an artist's pencil, and of a conspicuous place
on the stages of tragedy. Yet you call this a specimen of the ridiculous
stories which found their way into respectable prints, because Mr. Loch,
the chief actor, told you that Sellar, the head executive, brought an
action against the sheriff and obtained a verdict for heavy damages.
What a subterfuge; but it will not answer the purpose, "the bed is too
short to stretch yourself, and the covering too narrow and short to
cover you." If you took the information and evidence upon which you
founded your Uncle Tom's Cabin from such unreliable sources (as I said
before), who can believe the one-tenth of your novel? I cannot. I have
at my hand here the grandchild of the slaughtered old woman, who
recollects well of the circumstance. I have not far from me a
respectable man, an elder in the Free Church, who was examined as a
witness at Sellar's trial, at the Spring Assizes of Inverness, in 18x6,
which you will find narrated in letters four and five of my work. Had
you the opportunity, madam, of seeing the scenes which I, and hundreds
more, have seen—the wild ferocious appearance of the infamous gang who
constituted the burning party, covered over face and hands with soot and
ashes of the burning houses, cemented by torch-grease and their own
sweat, kept continually drunk or half-drunk while at work; and to
observe the hellish amusements some of them would get up for themselves
and for an additional pleasure to their leaders! The people's houses
were generally built upon declivities, and in many cases not far from
pretty steep precipices. They preserved their meal in tight-made boxes,
or chests, as they were called, and when this fiendish party found any
quantity of meal, they would carry it between them to the brink, and
dispatch it down the precipice amidst shrieks and yells. It was
considered grand sport to see the box breaking to atoms and the meal
mixed with the air. When they would set fire to a house, they would
watch any of the domestic animals making their escape from the flames,
such as dogs, cats, hens, or any poultry; these were caught and thrown
back to the flames—grand sport for demons in human form!
As to the vaunted letter
which his "Grace received from one of the most determined opposers of
the measures, who travelled in the north of Scotland as editor of a
newspaper, regretting all that he had written on the subject, being
convinced that he was misinformed," I may tell you, madam, that this man
did not travel to the north or in the north of Scotland, as editor; his
name was Thomas Mulock; he came to Scotland a fanatic speculator in
literature in search of money, or a lucrative situation, vainly thinking
that he would be a dictator to every editor in Scotland. He first
attacked the immortal Hugh Miller of the Witness, Edinburgh, but in him
he met more than his match. He then went to the north, got hold of my
first pamphlet, and by setting it up in a literary style, and in better
English than I, he made a splendid and promising appearance in the
northern papers for some time ; but he found out that the money expected
was not coming in, and that the hotels, head inns, and taverns would not
keep him up any longer without the prospect of being paid for the past
or for the future. I found out that he was hard up, and a few of the
Highlanders in Edinburgh and myself sent him from twenty to thirty
pounds sterling. When he saw that that was all he was to get, he at once
turned tail upon us, and instead of expressing his gratitude, he abused
us unsparingly, and regretted that ever he wrote in behalf of such a
hungry, moneyless class. He smelled (like others we suspect) where the
gold was hoarded up for hypocrites and flatterers, and that one
apologising letter to his Grace would be worth ten times as much as he
could expect from the Highlanders all his lifetime ; and I doubt not it
was, for his apology for the sin of misinformation got wide circulation.
He then went to France
and started an English paper in Paris, and for the service he rendered
Napoleon in crushing republicanism during the besieging of Rome, etc.,
the Emperor presented him with a gold Pin, and in a few days afterwards
sent a gendarme to him with a brief notice that his service was not any
longer required, and a warning to quit France in a few days, which he
had to do. What became of him after I know not, but very likely he is
dictating to young Loch, or some other Metternich.
No feelings of hostile
vindictiveness, no desire to inflict chastisement, no desire to make
riches, influenced my mind, pourtraying the scenes of havoc and misery
which n those past days darkened the annals of Sutherland. I write in my
own humble style, with higher aims, wishing to prepare the way for
demonstrating to the Dukes of Sutherland, and all other Highland
proprietors, great and small, that the path of selfish aggrandisement
and oppression leads by sure and inevitable results, yea to the ruin and
destruction of the blind and misguided oppressors themselves. I consider
the Duke himself victimised on a large scale by an incurably wrong
system, and by being enthralled by wicked counsellors and servants. I
have no hesitation in saying, had his Grace and his predecessors
bestowed one-half of the encouragement they had bestowed upon strangers
on the aborigines--a hardy, healthy, abstemious people, who lived
peaceably in their primitive habitations, unaffected with the vices of a
subtle civilization, possessing little, but enjoying much ; a race
devoted to their hereditary chief, ready to abide by his counsels; a
race profitable in peace, and loyal, available in war ; I say, his
Grace, the present Duke of Sutherland, and his beautiful Duchess, would
be without compeers in the British dominions, their rents, at least
doubled; would be as secure from invasion and annoyance in Dunrobin
Castle as Queen Victoria could, or can be, in her Highland residence, at
Balmoral, and far safer than she is in her English home, Buckingham
Palace; every man and son of Sutherland would be ready, as in the days
of yore, to shed the last drop of their blood in defence of their chief,
if required. Congratulations, rejoicings, dancing to the martial notes
of the pipes, would meet them at the entrance to every glen and strath
in Sutherlandshire, accompanied, surrounded, and greeted, as they
proceeded, by the most grateful, devotedly attached, happy, and bravest
peasantry that ever existed; yes, but alas! where there is nothing now,
but desolation and the cries of famine and want, to meet the noble
pair—the ruins of once comfortable dwellings—will be seen the landmarks
of the furrows and ridges which yielded food to thousands, the
footprints of the arch-enemy of human happiness, and ravager—before,
after, and on each side, solitude, stillness, and the quiet of the
grave, disturbed only at intervals by the yells of a shepherd, or
fox-hunter, and the bark of a collie dog. Surely we must admit that the
Marquises and Dukes of Sutherland have been duped and victimised to a
most extraordinary and incredible extent; and we have Mr. Loch's own
words for it in his speech in the House of Commons, June 21st, 1845: "I
can state, as from facts, that from 1811 to 1833, not one sixpence of
rent has been received from that county; but, on the contrary, there has
been sent there for the benefit and improvement of the people a sum
exceeding sixty thousand pounds sterling." Now think you of this immense
wealth which has been expended. I am not certain, but I think the rental
of the county would exceed £60,000 a year; you have then from 1811 to
1833, twenty-two years, leaving them at the above figures, and the sum
total will amount to £1,320,000 expended upon the self-styled Sutherland
improvements; add to this £60,000 sent down to preserve the lives of the
victims of those improvements from death by famine, and the sum total
will turn out in the shape of £1,380,000. It surely cost the heads of
the house of Sutherland an immense sum of money to convert the county
into the state I have described it in a former part of this work (and I
challenge contradiction).
You should be surprised
to hear and learn, madam, for what purposes most of the money drained
from the Duke's coffers yearly are expended since he became the Duke and
proprietor of Sutherland, upholding the Loch policy. There are no fewer
than seventeen who are known by the name of water bailiffs in the
county, who receive yearly salaries, what doing, think you? Protecting
the operations of the Loch policy, watching day and night the freshwater
lakes, rivers, and creeks, teeming with the finest salmon and trout fish
in the world, guarding from the famishing people, even during the years
of famine and dire distress, when many had to subsist upon weeds,
sea-ware, and shell-fish, yet guarded and preserved for the amusement of
English anglers ; and what is still more heartrending, to prevent the
dying by hunger to pick up any of the dead fish left by the sporting
anglers rotting on the lake, creek, and river sides, when the smallest
of them, or a morsel, would be considered by hundreds, I may say
thousands, of the needy natives, a treat; but they durst not touch them,
or if they did and were found out to jail they were conducted, or
removed summarily from his Grace's domains; (let me be understood, these
gentlemen had no use for the fish, killing them for amusement, only what
they required for their own use, and complimented to the factors; they
were not permitted to cure them).
You will find, madam,
that about three miles from Dunrobin Castle there is a branch of the sea
which extends up the county about six miles, where shell-fish, called
mussels, abound. Here you will find two sturdy men, called mussel
bailiffs, supplied with rifles and ammunition, and as many Newfoundland
dogs as assistants, watching the mussel scalps, or beds, to preserve
them from the people in the surrounding parishes of Dornoch, Rogart, and
Golspie, and keep them, to supply the fishermen, on the opposite side of
the Moray Firth, with bait, who come there every year and take away
thousands of tons of this nutritive shell-fish, when many hundreds of
the people would be thankful for a diet per day of them, to pacify the
cravings of nature. You will find that the unfortunate native fishermen,
who pay a yearly rent to his Grace for bait, are only permitted theirs
from the refuse left by the strangers of the other side of the Moray
Firth; and if they violate the iron rule laid down to them, they are
entirely at the mercy of the underlings. There has been an instance of
two of the fishermen's wives going on a cold, snowy, frosty day to
gather bait, but on account of the boisterous sea, could not reach the
place appointed by the factors; one took what they required from the
forbidden ground, and was observed by some of the bailiffs, in ambush,
who pursued them like tigers. One came up to her unobserved, took out
his knife, and cut the straps by which the basket or creel on her back
was suspended ; the weight on her back fell to the ground, and she, poor
woman, big in the family way, fell her whole length forward in the snow
and frost. Her companion turned round to see what had happened, when she
was pushed back with such force that she fell; he then trampled their
baskets and mussels to atoms, took them both prisoners, ordered one of
them to call his superior bailiff to assist him, and kept the other for
two hours standing, wet as she was, among frost and snow, until the
superior came a distance of three miles. After a short consultation upon
the enormity of the crime, the two poor women were led, like convicted
criminals, to Golspie, to appear before Lycurgus Gunn, and in that
deplorable condition were left standing before their own doors in the
snow, until Marshall Gunn found it convenient to appear and pronounce j
udgment,----verdict: You are allowed to go into your houses this night;
this day week you must leave this village for ever, and the whole of the
fishermen of the village are strictly prohibited from taking bait from
the Little Ferry until you leave; my bailiffs are requested to see this
my decree strictly attended to. Being the middle of winter and heavy
snow, they delayed a week longer: ultimately the villagers had to expel
the two families from among them, so that they would get bait, having
nothing to depend upon for subsistence but the fishing, and fish they
could not without bait. This is a specimen of the injustice to and
subjugation of the Golspie fishermen, and of the people at large ;
likewise of the purposes for which the Duke's money is expended in that
quarter. If you go, then, to the other side of the domain, you will find
another Kyle, or a branch of the sea, which abounds in cockles and other
shell-fish, fortunately for the poor people, not forbidden by a Loch
ukase. But in the years of distress, when the people were principally
living upon vegetables, sea-weeds, and shell-fish, various diseases made
their appearance amongst them hitherto unknown. The absence of meal of
any kind being considered the primary cause, some of the people thought
they would be permitted to exchange shell-fish for meal with their more
fortunate neighbours in Caithness, to whom such shellfish were a rarity,
and so far the understanding went between them, that the Caithness boats
came up loaded with meal, but the Loch embargo, through his underling in
Tongue, who was watching their movements, was at once placed upon it;
the Caithness boats had to return home with the meal, and the Duke's
people might live or die, as they best could. Now, madam, you have
steeped your brains, and ransacked the English language to find refined
terms for your panegyric on the Duke, Duchess, and family of Sutherland.
(I find no fault with you, knowing you have been well paid for it.) But
I would briefly ask you (and others who devoted much of their time and
talents in the same strain), would it not be more like a noble pair—if
they did merit such noble praise as you have bestowed upon them—if they
had, especially during years of famine and distress, freely opened up
all these bountiful resources which God in His eternal wisdom and
goodness prepared for His people, and which should never be intercepted
nor restricted by man or men. You and others have composed hymns of
praise, which it is questionable if there is a tune in heaven to sing
them to.
So I returned, and
considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold
the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter: and on
the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no
comforter.—Ecclesiastes iv. i.
The wretch that works and
weeps without relief
Has one that notices his silent grief.
He, from whose hands all pow'r proceeds
Ranks its abuse among the foulest deeds,
Considers all injustice with a frown,
But marks the man that treads his fellow down.
Remember Heav'n has an avenging rod
To smite the poor is treason against God.—Cowper.
But you shall find the
Duke's money is expended for most astonishing purposes ; not a little of
it goes to hire hypocrites, and renowned literary flatterers, to
vindicate the mal-administration of those to whom he entrusted the
management of his affairs, and make his Grace (who is by nature a
simple-minded man) believe his servants are innocent of all the charges
brought against them, and doing justice to himself and to his people,
when they are doing the greatest injustice to both; so that instead of
calling his servants to account at any time, and enquiring into the
broad charges brought against them—as every wise landlord should do—it
seems the greater the enormities of foul deeds they commit, and the
louder their accusations may sound through the land, the farther they
are received into his favour. The fact is, that James Loch was Duke of
Sutherland, and not the "tall, slender man with rather a thin face,
light brown hair, and mild blue eyes," who armed you up the
extraordinary elegant staircase in Stafford House.
The Duchess of Sutherland
pays a visit every year to Dunrobin Castle, and has seen and heard so
many supplicating appeals presented to her husband by the poor fishermen
of Golspie, soliciting liberty to take mussels from the Little Perry
Sands to bait their nets---a liberty of which they were deprived by his
factors, though paying yearly rent for it; yet returned by his Grace
with the brief deliverance, that he could do nothing for them. Can I
believe that this is the same personage who can set out from Dunrobin
Castle, her own Highland seat, and after travelling from it, then can
ride in one direction over thirty miles, in another direction forty-four
miles, in another, by taking the necessary circuitous route, sixty
miles, and that over fertile glens, valleys, and straths, bursting with
fatness, which gave birth to, and where were reared for ages, thousands
of the bravest, the most moral, virtuous, and religious men that Europe
could boast of; ready to a man, at a moment's warning from their chiefs,
to rise in defence of their king, queen, and country; animated with
patriotism and love to their chief, and irresistible in the battle
contest for victory? But these valiant men had then a country, a home,
and a chief worth the fighting for. But I can tell her that she can now
ride over these extensive tracts in the interior of the county without
seeing the image of God upon a man travelling these roads, with the
exception of a wandering Highland shepherd, wrapped up in a grey plaid
to the eyes, with a collie dog behind him as a drill sergeant to train
his ewes and to marshal his tups. There may happen to travel over the
dreary tract a geologist, a tourist, or a lonely carrier, but these are
as rare as a pelican in the wilderness, or a camel's convoy caravan in
the deserts of Arabia. Add to this a few English sportsmen, with their
stag hounds, pointer dogs, and servants, and put themselves and their
bravery together, and one company of French soldiers would put ten
thousand of them to a disorderly flight, to save their own carcases,
leaving their ewes and tups to feed the invaders!
The question may arise,
where those people, who inhabited this country at one period, have gone?
In America and Australia the most of them will be found. The Sutherland
family had no need of their services; hence they did not regard their
patriotism or loyalty, and disregarded their past services. Sheep,
bullocks, deer, and game, became more valuable than men. Yet a remnant,
or in other words a skeleton, of them is to be found along the sea
shore, huddled together in motley groups upon barren moors, among cliffs
and precipices, in the most impoverished, degraded, subjugated, slavish,
spiritless, condition that human beings could exist in. If this is
really the lady who has "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth,
and good will to men," in view, and who is so religiously denouncing the
American statute which "denies the slave the sanctity of marriage, with
all its joys, rights, and obligations—which separates, at the will of
the master, the wife from the husband, the children from the parents," I
would advise her in God's name to take a tour round the sea-skirts of
Sutherland, her own estate, beginning at Brora, then to Helmsdale,
Portskerra, Strathy, Barr, Tongue, Durness, Eddrachillis, and Assynt,
and learn the subjugated, degraded, impoverished, uneducated condition
of the spiritless people of that sea-beaten coast, about two hundred
miles in length, and let her with similar zeal remonstrate with her
husband, that their condition is bettered; for the cure for all their
misery and want is lying unmolested in the fertile valleys above, and
all under his control ; and to advise his Grace, her husband, to be no
longer guided by his Ahitophel, Mr. Loch, but to discontinue his
depopulating schemes, which have separated many a wife from her husband,
never to meet—which caused many a premature death, and that separated
many sons and daughters, never to see each other; and by all means to
withdraw that mandate of Mr. Loch, which forbids marriage on the
Sutherland estate, under pains and penalties of being banished from the
county; for it has already augmented illegitimate connections and issues
fifty per cent above what such were a few years ago—before this
unnatural, ungodly law was put in force.
Let us see what the
character of these ill-used people was! General Stewart of Garth, in his
"Sketches of the Highlands" says: In the words of a general officer by
whom the 93rd Sutherlanders were once reviewed, "They exhibit a perfect
pattern of military discipline and moral rectitude. In the case of such
men disgraceful punishment would be as unnecessary as it would be
pernicious." "Indeed," says the General, "so remote was the idea of such
a measure in regard to them, that when punishments were to be inflicted
on others, and the troops in garrison assembled to witness their
execution, the presence of the Sutherland Highlanders was dispensed
with, the effects of terror as a check to crime being in their case
uncalled for, as examples of that nature were not necessary for such
honourable soldiers. When the Sutherland Highlanders were stationed at
the Cape of Good Hope anxious to enjoy the advantages of religious
instruction agreeably to the tenets of their national church, and there
being no religious service in the garrison except the customary one of
reading prayers to the soldiers on parade, the Sutherland men formed
themselves into a congregation, appointed elders of their own number,
engaged and paid a stipend (collected among themselves) to a clergyman
of the Church of Scotland, and had divine service performed agreeably to
the ritual of the Established Church every Sabbath, and prayer meetings
through the week." This reverend gentleman, Mr. Thom, in a letter which
appeared in the Cayistian Herald of October, 1814, writes thus: "When
the 93rd Highlanders left Cape Town last month, there were among them
156 members of the church, including three elders and three deacons, all
of whom, so far as men can know the heart from the life, were pious men.
The regiment was certainly a pattern of morality, and good behaviour to
all other corps. They read their Bibles and observed the Sabbath. They
saved their money to do good. 7000 rix dollars, a sum equal to £1200,
the non-commissioned officers and privates saved for books, societies,
and for the spread of the Gospel, a sum unparalleled in any other corps
in the world, given in the short space of eighteen months. Their example
had a general good effect on both the colonists and the heathen. If ever
apostolic days were revived in modern times on earth, I certainly
believe some of those to have been granted to us in Africa." Another
letter of a similar kind, addressed to the Committee of the Edinburgh
Gaelic School Society (fourth annual report), says: "The 93rd
Highlanders arrived in England, when they immediately received orders to
proceed to North America; but before they re-embarked the sum collected
for your society was made up and remitted to your treasurer, amounting
to seventy-eight pounds, sterling." "In addition to this," says the
noble-minded, immortal General, "such of them as had parents and friends
in Sutherland did not forget their destitute condition, occasioned by
the operation of the fire and faggot, mis-improved state of the county."
During the short period the regiment was quartered at Plymouth, upwards
of £500 was lodged in one banking-house, to be remitted to Sutherland,
exclusive of many sums sent through the Post Office and by officers;
some of the sums exceeding £20 from an individual soldier. Men like
these do credit to the peasantry of a country. "It must appear strange,
and somewhat inconsistent," continues the General, "when the same men
who are so loud in their profession of an eager desire to promote and
preserve the religious and moral virtues of the people, should so
frequently take the lead in removing them from where they imbibed
principles which have attracted the notice of Europe and of measures
which lead to a deterioration, placing families on patches of potato
ground as in Ireland, a system pregnant with degradation, poverty, and
disaffection." It is only when parents and heads of families in the
Highlands are moral, happy, and contented, that they can instil sound
principles into their children, who in their intercourse with the world
may become what the men of Sutherland have already been, "an honourable
example, worthy the imitation of all."
I cannot help being
grieved at my unavoidable abbreviation of these heart-stirring and
heart-warming extracts, which should ornament every mantel-piece and
library in the Highlands of Scotland; but I could refer to other authors
of similar weight; among the last (though not the least), Mr. Hugh
Millar of the Witness, in his "Sutherland as it was and is: or, How a
country can be ruined;" a work which should silence and put to shame
every vile, malignant calumniator of Highland religion and moral virtue
in bygone years, who in their sophistical profession of a desire to
promote the temporal and spiritual welfare of the people, had their own
sordid cupidity and aggrandisement in view in all their unworthy
lucubrations.
At the commencement of
the Russian war a correspondent wrote as follows: "Your predictions are
making their appearance at last, great demands are here for men to go to
Russia, but they are not to be found. It seems that the Secretary of War
has corresponded with all our Highland proprietors, to raise as many men
as they could for the Crimean war, and ordered so many officers of rank
to the Highlands to assist the proprietors in doing so—but it has been a
complete failure as yet. The nobles advertised, by placards, meetings of
the people; these proclamations were attended to, but when they came to
understand what they were about, in most cases the recruiting
proprietors and staff were saluted with the ominous cry of `Maa! maa!
boo! boo!' imitating sheep and bullocks, and, 'Send your deer, your
roes, your rams, dogs, shepherds, and gamekeepers to fight the Russians,
they have never done us any harm.' The success of his Grace the Duke of
Sutherland was deplorable; I believe you would have pitied the poor old
man had you seen him.
"In my last letter I told
you that his head commissioner, Mr. Loch, and military officer, was in
Sutherland for the last six weeks, and failed in getting one man to
enlist; on getting these doleful tidings, the Duke himself left London
for Sutherland, arriving at Dunrobin about ten days ago, and after
presenting himself upon the streets of Golspie and Brora, he called a
meeting of the male inhabitants of the parishes of Clyne, Rogart, and
Golspie; the meeting was well attended; upwards of 400 were punctual at
the hour; his Grace in his carriage, with his military staff and factors
appeared shortly after ; the people gave them a hearty cheer; his Grace
took the chair. Three or four clerks took their seats at the table, and
loosened down bulky packages of bank notes, and spread out platefuls of
glittering gold. The Duke addressed the people very seriously, and
entered upon the necessity of going to war with Russia, and the danger
of allowing the Czar to have more power than what he holds already; of
his cruel, despotic reign in Russia, etc.; likewise praising the Queen
and her government, rulers and nobles of Great Britain, who stood so
much in need of men to put and keep down the tyrant of Russia, and foil
him in his wicked schemes to take possession of Turkey. In concluding
his address, which was often cheered, the Duke told the young
able-bodied men that his clerks were ready to take down the names of all
those willing to enlist, and everyone who would enlist in the 93rd
Highlanders, that the clerk would give him, there and then, £6 sterling;
those who would rather enter any other corps, would get £3, all from his
own private purse, independently of the government bounty. After
advancing many silly flattering decoyments, he sat down to see the
result, but there was no movement among the people ; after sitting for a
long time looking at the clerks, and they at him, at last his anxious
looks at the people assumed a somewhat indignant appearance, when he
suddenly rose up and asked what was the cause of their non-attention to
the proposals he made, but no reply; it was the silence of the grave.
Still standing, his Grace suddenly asked the cause; but no reply; at
last an old man, leaning upon his staff, was observed moving towards the
Duke, and when he approached near enough, he addressed his Grace
something as follows: "I am sorry for the response your Grace's
proposals are meeting here to-day, so near the spot where your maternal
grandmother, by giving forty-eight hours' notice, marshalled fifteen
hundred men to pick out of them the nine hundred she required, but there
is a cause for it, and a grievous cause, and as your Grace demands to
know it, I must tell you, as I see no one else are inclined in this
assembly to do it. Your Grace's mother and predecessors applied to our
fathers' for men upon former occasions, and our fathers responded to
their call; they have made liberal promises, which neither them nor you
performed ; we are, we think, a little wiser than our fathers, and we
estimate your promises of to-day at the value of theirs, besides you
should bear in mind that your predecessors and yourself expelled us in a
most cruel and unjust manner from the land which our fathers held in
lien from your family, for their sons, brothers, cousins, and relations,
which were handed over to your parents to keep up their dignity, and to
kill the Americans, Turks, French, and the Irish ; and these lands are
devoted now to rear dumb brute animals, which you and your parents
consider of far more value than men. I do assure your Grace that it is
the prevailing opinion n this county, that should the Czar of Russia
take possession of Dunrobin Castle and of Stafford House next term, that
we could not expect worse treatment at his hands, than we have
experienced at the hands of your family for the last fifty years. Your
parents, yourself, and your commissioners, have desolated the glens and
straths of Sutherland, where you should find hundreds, yea, thousands of
men to meet you, and respond cheerfully to your call, had your parents
and yourself kept faith with them. How could your Grace expect to find
men where they are not, and the few of them which are to be found among
the rubbish or ruins of the county, has more sense than to be decoyed by
chaff to the field of slaughter; but one comfort you have, though you
cannot find men to fight, you can supply those who will fight with
plenty of mutton, beef, and venison.' The Duke rose up, put on his hat,
and left the field."
Whether my correspondent
added to the old man's reply to his Grace or not, I cannot say, but one
thing is evident, it was the very reply his Grace deserved.
I know for a certainty
this to be the prevailing feeling throughout the whole Highlands of
Scotland, and who should wonder at it? How many thousands of them who
served out their 21, 22, 25, and 26 years, fighting for the British
aristocracy, and on their return—wounded, maimed, or worn out—to their
own country, promising themselves to spend the remainder of their days
in peace, and enjoying the blessings and comfort their fathers enjoyed
among their Highland, healthy, delightful hills, but found to their
grief, that their parents were expelled from the country to make room
for sheep, deer, and game, the glens where they were born, desolate, and
the abodes which sheltered them at birth, and where they were reared to
manhood, burnt to the ground; and instead of meeting the cheers,
shaking-hands, hospitality, and affections of fathers, mothers,
brothers, sisters, and relations, met with desolated glens, bleating of
sheep, barking of dogs; and if they should happen to rest their worn-out
frame upon the green sod which has grown upon their father's hearth, and
a gamekeeper, factor, or water bailiff, to come round, he would very
unceremoniously tell them to absent themselves as smart as they could,
and not to annoy the deer. No race on record has suffered so much at the
hands of those who should be their patrons, and proved to be so
tenacious of patriotism as the Celtic race, but I assure you it has
found its level now, and will disappear soon altogether; and as soon as
patriotism shall disappear in any nation, so sure that nation's glory is
tarnished, victories uncertain, her greatness diminished, and decaying
consumptive death will be the result. If ever the old adage, which says,
"Those whom the gods determine to destroy, they first deprive them of
reason," was verified, it was, and is, in the case of the British
aristocracy, and Highland proprietors in particular. I am not so void of
feeling as to blame the Duke of Sutherland, his parents, or any other
Highland absentee proprietor for all the evil done in the land, but the
evil was done in their name, and under the authority they have invested
in wicked, cruel servants. For instance, the only silly man who enlisted
from among the great assembly which his Grace addressed, was a married
man, with three of a family and his wife; it was generally believed that
his bread was baked for life, but no sooner was he away to Fort George
to join his regiment, than his place of abode was pulled down, his wife
and family turned out, and only permitted to live in a hut, from which
an old female pauper was carried a few days before to the churchyard;
there the young family were sheltered, and their names registered upon
the poor roll for support ; his Grace could not be guilty of such low
rascality as this, yet he was told of it, but took no cognisance of
those who did it in his name. It is likewise said that this man got a
furlough of two weeks to see his wife and family before going abroad,
and that when the factor heard he was coming, he ordered the ground
officer of the parish of Rogart, named MacLeod, to watch the soldier,
and not allow him to see nor speak to his wife, but in his (the
officer's) presence. We had at the same time, in the parish, an old
bachelor of the name of John Macdonald, who had three idiot sisters,
whom he upheld, independent of any source of relief; but a favourite of
George, the notorious factor, envied this poor bachelor's farm, and he
was summoned to remove at next term. The poor fellow petitioned his
Grace and Loch, but to no purpose; he was doomed to walk away on the
term day, as the factor told him, "to America, Glasgow, or to the devil
if he choosed." Seeing he had no other alternative, two days before the
day of his removal he yoked his cart, and got neighbours to help him to
haul the three idiots into it, and drove away with them to Dunrobin
Castle. When he came up to factor Gunn's door, he capsized them out upon
the green, and wheeled about and went away home. The three idiots
finding themselves upon the top of one another so sudden, they raised an
inhuman-like yell, fixed into one another to fight, and scratched,
yelled, and screeched so terrific that Mr. Gunn, his lady, his
daughters, and all the clerks and servants were soon about them ; but
they hearkened to no reason, for they had none themselves, but continued
their fighting and inharmonious music. Messenger after messenger was
sent after John, but of no use; at last the great Gunn himself followed
and overtook him, asked him how did he come to leave his sisters in such
a state? He replied, "I kept them while I had a piece of land to support
them; you have taken that land from me, then take them along with the
land, and make of them what you can; I must look out for myself, but I
cannot carry them to the labour market." Gunn was in a fix, and had to
give John assurance that he would not be removed if he would take his
sisters, so John took them home, and has not been molested as yet.
I have here beside me (in
Canada) a respectable girl of the name of Ann Murray, whose father was
removed during the time of the wholesale faggot removals, but got a lot
of a barren moor to cultivate. However barren-like it was, he was
raising a family of industrious young sons, and by dint of hard labour
and perseverance, they made it a comfortable home; but the young sons
one by one left the country (and four of them are within two miles of
where I sit); the result was, that Ann was the only one who remained
with the parents. The mother, who had an attack of palsy, was left
entirely under Ann's care after the family left; and she took it so much
to heart that her daughter's attention was required day and night, until
death put an end to her afflictions, after twelve years' suffering.
Shortly after the mother's death, the father took ill, and was confined
to bed for nine months ; and Ann's labour re-commenced until his
decease. Though Ann Murray could be numbered among the most dutiful of
daughters, yet her incessant labour, for a period of more than thirteen
years, made visible inroads upon her tender constitution ; yet by the
liberal assistance of her brothers, who did not loose sight of her and
their parent (though upon a foreign strand), Ann Murray kept the farm in
the best of order, no doubt expecting that she would be allowed to keep
it after her parent's decease, but this was not in store for her; the
very day after her father's funeral, the officer came to her and told
her that she was to be removed in a few weeks, that the farm was let to
another, and that Factor Gunn wished to see her. She was at that time
afflicted with jaundice, and told the officer she could not undertake
the journey, which was only ten miles. Next day the officer was at her
again, more urgent than before, and made use of extraordinary threats;
so she had to go. When she appeared before this Bashaw, he swore like a
trooper, and damned her soul, why she disobeyed his first summons; she
excused herself, trembling, that she was unwell; another volley of oaths
and threats met her response, and told her to remove herself from the
estate next week, for her conduct ; and with a threat, which well
becomes a Highland tyrant, not to take away, nor sell a single article
of furniture, implements of husbandry, cattle, or crop; nothing was
allowed but her own body clothes; everything was to be handed over to
her brother, who was to have the farm. Seeing there was neither mercy
nor justice for her, she told him the crop, house, and every other thing
belonging to the farm, belonged to her and her brothers in America, and
that the brother to whom he (the factor) intended to hand over the farm
and effects never helped her father or mother while in trouble; and that
she was determined that he should not enjoy what she laboured for, and
what her other brothers paid for. She went and got the advice of a man
of business, advertised a sale, and sold off, in the face of threats of
interdict, and came to Canada, where she was warmly received by
brothers, sisters, and friends, now in Woodstock, and can tell her tale
better than I can. No one could think nor believe that his Grace would
ever countenance such doings as these; but it was done in his name.
I have here within ten
miles of me, Mr. William Ross, once taxman of Achtomleeny,
Sutherlandshire, who occupied the most convenient farm to the principal
deer-stalking hills in the county. Often have the English and Irish
lords, connected in marriage with the Sutherlands, dined and took their
lunch at William Ross's table, and at his expense; and more than once
passed the night under his roof. Mr. Ross being so well acquainted among
the mountains and haunts of the deer, was often engaged as a guide and
instructor to these noblemen on their deer-stalking and fishing
excursions, and became a real favourite with the Sutherland family,
which enabled him to erect superior buildings to the common rule, and
improve his farm in a superior style; so that his mountain-side farm was
nothing short of a Highland paradise. But unfortunately for William, his
nearest neighbour, one Major Gilchrist, a sheep farmer, coveted Mr.
Ross's vineyard, and tried many underhand schemes to secure the place
for himself, but in vain. Ross would hearken to none of his proposals.
But Ahab was a chief friend of Factor Gunn ; and William Ross got notice
of removal. Ross prepared a memorial to the first and late Duchess of
Sutherland, and placed it in her own hand. Her Grace read it, instantly
went into the factor's office, and told him that William Ross was not to
be removed from Achtomleeny while he lived; and wrote the same on the
petition, and handed it back to Ross, with a graceful smile, saying,"You
are now out of the reach of factors; now, William, go home in peace."
William bowed, and departed cheerfully; but the factor and
ground-officer followed close behind him, and while Ross was reading her
Grace's deliverance, the officer, David Ross, came and snapped the paper
out of his hand, and ran to Factor Gunn with it. Ross followed, but Gunn
put it in his pocket, saying, "William, you would need to give it to me
afterwards, at any rate, and I will keep it till I read it, and then
return it to you," and with a tiger-like smile on his face, said, "I
believe you came good speed to-day, and I am glad of it;" but William
never got it in his hand again. However, he was not molested during her
Grace's life. Next year she paid a visit to Dunrobin Castle, when Factor
William Gunn advised Ross to apply to her for a reduction of rent, under
the mask of favouring him. He did so, and it was granted cheerfully. Her
Grace left Dunrobin that year never to return ; in the beginning of the
next spring she was carried back to Dunrobin a corpse, and a few days
after was interred in Dornoch. William Ross was served with a summons of
removal from Achtomleeny, and he had nothing to show. He petitioned the
present Duke, and his commissioner, Mr. Loch, and related the whole
circumstances to them, but to no avail, only he was told that Factor
Gunn was ordered to give him some other lot of land, which he did: and
having no other resource, William accepted of it to his loss ; for
between loss of cattle, building and repairing houses, he was minus one
hundred and fifty pounds sterling, of his means, and substance, from the
time he was removed from Achtomleeny till he removed himself to Canada.
Besides, he had a written agreement or promise for melioration or
valuation for all the farm improvements and house building at
Achtomleeny, which was valued by the family surveyor at £250. William
was always promised to get it, until they came to learn that he was
leaving for America, then they would not give him a cent. William Ross
left them with it to join his family in Canada; but he can in his old
age sit at as comfortable a table, and sleep on as comfortable a bed,
with greater ease of mind and a clearer conscience, among his own
dutiful and affectionate children, than the tyrant factor ever did, or
ever will among his. I know as well as any one can tell me, that this is
but one or two cases out of the thousand I could enumerate, where the
liberality and benevolence of his Grace, and of his parents, were
abused, and that to their patron's loss. You see in the above case that
William was advised to plead for a reduction of rent, so that the
factor's favourite, Ahab Gilchrist, would have the benefit of Naboth
Ross's improvement, and the reduction he got on his rent, which would
not be obtained otherwise.
The unhallowed crew of
factors and officials, from the highest to the lowest grade, employed by
the family of Sutherland, got the corrupt portion of the public press on
their side, to applaud their wicked doings and schemes, as the only mode
of improvement and civilisation in the Highlands of Scotland. They have
got what is still more to be lamented, all the Established ministers,
with few exceptions, on their side; and in them they found faithful
auxiliaries in crushing the people. Any of them could hold a whole
congregation by the hair of their heads over hell-fire, if they offered
to resist the powers that be, until they submitted. If a single
individual resisted, he was denounced from the pulpit, and considered
afterwards a dangerous man in the community; and he might depart as
quick as he could. Any man, or men, may violate the laws of God, and
violate the laws of heaven, as often as he chooses; he is never heeded,
and has nothing to fear; but if he offends the Duke's factor, the lowest
of his minions, or violates the least of their laws and regulations, it
is an unpardonable sin. The present Duke's mother was no doubt a liberal
lady of many good parts, and seemed to be much attached to the natives,
but unfortunately for them, she employed for her factors a vile,
unprincipled crew, who were their avowed enemies; she would hearken to
the complaints of the people, and would write to the ministers of the
Gospel to ascertain the correctness of complaints, and the factor was
justified, however gross the outrage was that he committed—the minister
dined with the factor, and could not refuse to favour him. The present
Duke is a simple, narrow-minded gentleman, who concerns himself very
little even about his own pecuniary affairs; he entrusts his whole
affairs to his factors, and the people are enslaved so much, that it is
now considered the most foolish thing a man can do to petition his
Grace, whatever is done to him, for it will go hard with the factor, or
he will punish and make an example of him to deter others.
To detail what I knew
myself personally, and what I have learned from others of their conduct,
would, as I said before, fill a volume. I or instance:- When a marriage
in the family of Sutherland takes place, or the birth of an heir, a
feast is ordered for the Sutherland people, consisting of whisky,
porter, ale, and plenty of eatables. The day of feasting and rejoicing
is appointed, and heralded throughout the country, and the people are
enjoined in marshal terms to assemble—barrels of raw and adulterated
whisky are forwarded to each parish, some raw adulterated sugar, and
that is all. Bonfires are to be prepared on the tops of the highest
mountains. The poorest of the poor are warned by family officers to
carry the materials, consisting of peats and tar barrels, upon their
backs; the scene is lamentable to see groups of these wretched,
half-clad and ill-shod, climbing up these mountains with their loads;
however, the work must be done, there is no denial, the evening of
rejoicing is arrived, and the people are assembled at their different
clachans. The barrels of whisky are taken out to the open field, poured
into large tubs, a good amount of abominable-looking sugar is mixed with
it, and a sturdy favourite is employed to stir it about with a flail
handle, or some long cudgel—all sorts of drinking implements are
produced, tumblers, bowls, ladles, and tin jugs. Bagpipers are set up
with great glee. In the absence of the factor, the animal called the
ground officer, and in some instances the parish minister, will open the
jollification, and show an example to the people how to deal with this
coarse beverage. After the first round, the respectable portion of the
people will depart, or retire to an inn, where they can enjoy
themselves; but the drouthies, and ignorant youthful, will keep the
field of revelling until tearing of clothes and faces comes to be the
rule; fists and cudgels supplant jugs and ladles, and this will continue
until king Bacchus enters the field and hushes the most heroic brawlers
and the most ferocious combatants to sound snoring on the field of
rejoicing, where many of them enter into contracts with death, from
which they could never extricate themselves. With the co-operation and
assistance of factors, ministers, and editors, a most flourishing
account is sent to the world, and to the absentee family in London, who
knows nothing about how the affair was conducted. The world will say how
happy must the people be who live under such good and noble,
liberal-minded patrons; and the patrons themselves are so highly-pleased
with the report that, however extraordinary the bill that comes to them
on the rent day, in place of money, for roast beef and mutton, bread and
cheese, London porter and Edinburgh ale, which was never bought, nor
tasted by the people, they will consider their commissioners used great
economy; no cognizance is taken, the bill is accepted, and discharged,
the people are deceived, and the proprietors injured. |
