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Most books published in the
1700's used the letter f to replace the letter s and so are a little
challenging to read. I have taken this short 51 page book and have
edited the first 16 pages to standard English. I have also at the end
provided a link to the whole book if you wish to keep reading it.
WHEN the Highlanders walk’d
the streets here, every body must be sensible that there was more Raring at
them than ever was seen at the Morocco ambassador’s attendance, or even at
the Indian chiefs, who some people would have passed on us for kings. The
amazement expressed by our mob was not greater than the surprise of these
poor creatures; and if we thought their dress and language barbarous, they
had just the same opinion of our manners; nor will I pretend to decide which
was most in the right. But to prevent such staring for the future, and to
give the people a better notion of Highlanders, as well as the Highlanders a
better notion of us (if ever this pamphlet should travel so far North} I
thought it not amiss to lay hold of this opportunity of saying something to
the public, as to the present state of Scotland in general, as well as to
the fortune of the Highland regiment in particular.
That the Highlands of Scotland are wild and uncultivated is a fact not to be
disputed or denied, and whoever has travelled into Wales will not be much
amazed that there are hills at one end of the island as well as the other.
That the people too differ much in their manners and customs from those
about London, will not appear miraculous to any man who has seen Cornwall,
the sea-coast of Lincolnshire, or any other distant county in England. But
though it be true that there is nothing strange in their country’s being
unlike this, or in the inhabitants differing from us, yet methinks it is
pretty strange, that lying at so small a distance we should be so little
acquainted as to wherein this difference consists.
Let me begin then with telling you what sort of a country the Highlands is.
In the first place, I must observe, that taking the word in its usual sense,
and as it is understood in opposition to the Lowlands of Scotland, the
Highlands are very extensive; for when you are once above Perth, the
Highlands have no other bounds but the sea. But though the name be thus
extended, yet a great part of this vast tract of country is far from being
either rocky or mountainous. The North of Scotland is indeed a high country
by situation, but then it is both flat and fruitful, whereas the Highlands,
strictly speaking, are not so. They consist chiefly of long ridges of hills,
in some places bare and barren, in others covered with forests of fir-trees
interspersed with valleys, which they call glens, through which there
generally run trout streams. Where there are rivers they are mostly rapid
and dangerous, but for these rivulets they are very pleasant, as well as
very commodious. I must likewise observe, that the Highlands abound with
lakes or lochs, into which some rivers fall, and out of which others run. In
the glens they have corn of all sorts, but especially barley and oats, the
latter furnshing them with bread, and the former with drink. Their horses
are small but serviceable, their black cattle little but sweet.
After this description of the country, it cannot be expected that you should
find its inhabitants either very wealthy, or extremely polite, and yet it
may be truly affirmed, that they are not indigent to the degree of beggars,
or despicably rude.
On the sea-coast, and in the
neighbourhood of their little ports, you see something like industry, and
the people don’t make a much worse figure than they do in North Wales, or
the Isles of Scilly. Their merchants do not deal for great sums, and yet
they make a shift to live pretty handsomely; and as for the meaner sort who
apply to trade, a few engage in manufactures, and the rest either go to sea,
or transport themselves to Poland, and there turn pedlars. But in the inland
parts, and even on the coast where there is no considerable trade, dwell the
very Highlanders we have to do with, and these are distinguished from the
rest of the people of Scotland, not so much by their dress, as by their
manner of living, which is to this hour in a kind of vassalage, under their
chiefs, and therefore these people are generally known in North-Britain by
the name of the Clans.
This title has been pretty much heard of even in the South, since the
revolution, and a great deal of trouble it hath cost even the English
ministry to keep these Clans quiet, though they lie at such a distance. This
began in king William's time, when a large sum of money was given to a noble
earl, whose son and grandson sit now in both houses, to distribute among the
beads of these Clans, in order to silence their illegal loyalty, and make
them more quiet. This method was found so easy, and withal so effectual,
that it has been pursued ever since. The great earl of Godolphin, though a
great enemy to corruption, was forced to go pretty near it, in order to keep
fair with the Clans, but then he acted upon a true whig principle; he only
gave away English money to prevent the worse effects of French. By this
practice he kept things easy for some time, ’till he suffered the Scots to
arm themselves by law, and then he was compelled to make the union, in order
to disarm them. Upon this occasion it was thought that some method would
have been taken to destroy the power of the Clans, and towards this indeed
something was done, but not much, as we have been sensible since; but to
make this clear, it will be necessary to inform you what these Clans are,
and wherein their power consists. Without this, all that has been hitherto
said, and a great part of what I have still to say, would be absolutely as
unintelligible as if it had been written in the language of the people I am
speaking of, which is Irish, as are indeed the customs that I am about to
explain.
A Clan is pretty much the same thing with what the Tartars call a Hord, and
that is very nearly what we understand by the word tribe, that is a small
body of people under the absolute command of a chief. I shall not pretend to
enquire how ancient this cuslom is in Scotland, because that might carry me
into times of such dark antiquity as might make me lose my way. It is
sufficient for my purpose to observe, that the government of the Highland
chiefs is perfectly patriarchal, the head having the reverence of a parent;
and the power of a prince. Some of the old Scotch kings saw the danger of
this, and would have corrected it, but they generally found their own power
too weak, and that of these chiefs too strong, the people siding with them,
not only against their duty to their prince, but against their own interest.
Which at last brought one of their princes, whose name I think was Malcolm,
to bring in by consent, a kind of new regulation not unlike that of our
copy-hold estates here, by which these chiefs held of the crown under
various kinds of tenures called generally in Scotland by the name of Jews,
which is equivalent to the Norman sees in England, Thus the Clans came to
have a legal establishment, with much more power over their vassals than the
king had over them as subjects.
We commonly mistake in England every laird in the highlands for a chief, but
this is far from being so. A laird is a man of property, which may derive
from purchase as well as descent, but the chieftain is an hereditary honour,
which cannot be taken away. A chieftain, though his property be much
inferior to that of many of the lairds in his family, commands them
absolutely, as they do their tenants; and thus this sort of tyranny prevails
through the Highlands in general, where the people have no wills of their
own, but entirely depend on the humour of their chiefs, to which they are so
bent and fashioned in their childhood, that though they have few principles,
either civil or religious, and would scarce be persuaded to take up arms for
the protection of the government, or even for their own security, yet let
but their chief whittle, and he has all his followings for that is the term
given to those who owe this kind of suit and service, at his heels in an
instant, ready to undertake whatever he commands, and even to burn, spoil
and kill, if the chieftain pleases. The chief reason of their devotion is,
as I have said before, their tenures, which are entirely of a military
nature, and leave all who hold under them so much in the power of the lord,
that it is not worth while making any improvements, as on the other hand,
this necessary poverty keeps the poor people in a fit disposition for
slavery, and binds them fast to the interest of those who mind them no more
than their oxen or sheep.
As the heads of these Clans are the greatest part of them in the Jacobite
interest, it cannot be wondered, that since the revolution the government
has been constantly jealous of them, but as I hinted before, it may seem not
a little strange, that some method has not been taken to strip them
altogether of this extravagant power; and for this, as a very great secret
in government, and which it is certainly the interest of the English nation
to know, I shall endeavour to account. This I think will be doing the
greater service, since it is a matter that few people understand, and those
few that do are for keeping that knowledge to themselves, and making the
most of it. For it must be allowed, to the honour of the great men in that
part of this island, that they have always kept our ministry in the dark, as
to the methods of managing their country-men, and by this artificial
practice they maintain their own power, and accumulate vast estates. Yet it
would be certainly for the interest of both nations to have this mist so
dissipated, as that the strength of Scotland might be thoroughly united to
England, and the good sense and industry of the English spread even to the
Orkneys themselves, where the people are rude and poor, it is true, but not
so much from any natural impediments in their country, as from their not
knowing how to improve its situation; for a multitude of creeks and
sea-ports, and an inexhaustible fishery, are sufficient to enrich any
country that is habitable, and theirs is much more so, I mean the worst and
more northern part of it, than Denmark, Norway, or Sweden.
But to return to the point from which I digresied. The nobility and
chieftains in Scotland having their interests blended by perpetual
intermarriages, have been always alike jealous of their prerogatives, and
forward to extend them at the expence of the crown, as well as of the
people. This was the true source of the seditions in the time of king James
the first, and the several Scotch rebellions against his son king Charles.
Religion and liberty were mere pretences to draw in the presbyterian clergy
and the rabble. The M--------of A--------- was ten times a greater tyrant in
his own country than ever his greatest enemies represented the king to be
against whom he fought; and of this the reader will find indubitable proofs
in the letters of general Monk, published in Thurloe's collection. Nay the
great Montrose himself was only loyal out of spight, and did not serve the
king ’till he found he could not serve himself of the faction, which has
been the case pretty much ever since. Under the rump parliament and Cromwell
indeed things were put into another channel, garrisons were fixed at
Intervals and other places in the North, and the whole government, civil as
well as military, was put into the hands of English commissioners, who
trusted the executive part of it chiefly to Monk, and he managed it with
such wisdom and discretion as made the people not only tame and quiet, but
easy and happy.
After the restoration things returned entirely into their own channel, and
instead of the mild and equal government of the English, the Scotch were
delivered up again to be oppressed as usual by their own countrymen, till
they were so unfortunate as to fall under the dominion of two brothers of
the name of Maitland, viz. the famous duke of Lauderdale and the lord
Hatton. The duke was a thorough statesman of an over-bearing enterprising
genius, which made him equally formidable in his own country, and. uneasy to
the English ministry. The brother again was a lawyer, and seated at the head
of justice; so that between them they had power paramount, and every man who
was not of their faction was sure to be oppressed by it. This excessive
authority is injurious to that of the crown, as well as so oppressively
heavy on the people, was maintained by the persuasion the king and his
ministry had of the duke’s great interest, and his brother’s great parts,
both of which, exclusive of the great weight which their high offices, large
salaries and extensive prerogatives gave them, and would have given any body
else, was very probamatical. This however is certain, that never any man was
more fear’d than the duke, or more hated than his brother, as may be seen at
large in the memoirs of bishop Gurnet who from being their creature became
their enemy, and has very full and clearly shewn, that the arrogance of
these two brothers made that military power neccessary, which rendered the
royal family odious, and diffused a spirit of disaffection through the
antient kingdom of Scotland, which had afterwards such extraordinary
effects.
This sort of government was not extinguished by the revolution, king William
was forced to be served as his predecessors had been, by such great men as
undertook to manage their parliaments, and keep under the friends of his
father-in-law; with this view, sometimes one man, sometimes another was at
the head of affairs, but whoever was at the head of them there remained a
constant opposition, and every parliament naturally divided it felt into
three factions. The courtiers, who went through such with whatever orders
came down from London; the country party, which, to say the truth, was there
generally speaking Jacobites; and the squadrone volante, or the flying
squadron, which made many fair pretences; but were at the bottom nearly
akin, to a certain generation of political virtuosi known here lately by the
appellation foxes whose leading principle it was to gnaw a hole through any
minister’s scheme, ’till they found it big enough to let themselves in.
But all these factions were in the zenith of their power under queen Anne,
and as it is natural for men in the heighth of prosperity to grow wanton, so
some of these great men pushed matters to such a length, that the union
became absolutely necessary, since neither themselves in Scotland, nor the
government in England, could be safe without it. How it was brought about
the histories of those times shew, and what odd revolutions there happened
in parties about that time, may be known from this notorious fact, that a
noble duke, a little after it took place, was made prisoner in his own
house, for intending to bring down an army of the Clans to prevent that
measure, and being soon after sent for up to London, was made secretary of
state, and had a large share in the government.
In the reign of king George the first, the rebellion revived the fame of the
Highlanders. All the world knows how deeply they were engaged on both sides;
the marquis of Tullibardine, the earls Marschal, Mar, South Esk; the lords
Kenmure, Drummond, With the lairds of Glengary, Glenderule, Glencoe,
Glenlyon, Struan, &c. on the one side; and the great earl of Sutherland, the
famous lord Lovat, the laird of Grant, not to mention the dukes of Argyll,
Douglas and Montrosse were on the other; so that things were pretty equally
divided, and this, I suppose, made the extinction of the power of the Clans
impracticable, even after the suppressing this rebellion, which gave the
fairest opportunity for it, that ever offered, because, as the reader must
observe, if there were delinquencies on one side, there were great merits on
the other, and an equal desire of power in both; very small amendments were
made in the nature of the tenures in that country, and as far as I have been
able to learn, the power of their lords and lairds remained very near as
great after as it was before it. Soon after the rebellion the great duke of
Argyll and his brother were removed from all their employments, which of
necessity occasioned a mighty fluctuation of power in Scotland for some
time, but at last the Argyle party came into power again, and have in some
measure held it ever since.
But when people had in a very great degree forgot all these disturbances,
and scarce preserved any remembrance of the outrages of the Highlanders, a
sudden resolution was taken to put an end to their power, by disarming them
absolutely; and it was at first proposed to strip them of their cloathing,
that is, preventing their going in their ordinary dress. This was in the
year 1725, and the motion for the bringing in this bill, which was intitled,
for more effectual disarming the Highlanders in that part of Great Britain
called Scotland and for the better securing the peace and quiet of that part
of the kingdom was made by a general officer still living, and seconded by
Mr. Duncan Forbes. By this law power is given to the lord lieutenant of
every one of the following shires, viz. Dunbarton on the North side of the
Water of Leven, Sterling on the North side of the river of Forth, Perth,
Kincairdin, Aberdeen, Inverness, Nairn, Cromarty, Argyll, Forfar, Bannf,
Sutherland, Caithness, Elgin, and Ross and for such other persons as his
majesty should authorize by his sign manual, to cause letters monitory to be
issued in his majesty’s name, dictated to the Clans within any of the said
shires, commanding them on a certain day to deliver up all their arms and
warlike weapons for the use of his majefty, and to be disposed of in such a
manner as their commissioners should think fit.
In case any of the Clans thus summoned should be found to bear arms of any
kind, and thereof be convided, by oath of two credible witnesses, before two
justices of the peace, the penalty was, that the person so convicted should
be, by warrant under the hands and seals of such justices, forthwith
committed to such safe custody as shall be expressed in the warrant, to be
there kept, without bail, until the said justices shall cause him to be
delivered over. (as they are hereby empowered to do) to such officers
belonging to his majesty’s forces as shall from time to time be appointed to
receive such man to serve as a soldier in any of his majesty’s dominions
beyond the seas; and the officer who receives such persons, shall then cause
the articles of war against mutiny and desertion, to be read to them in the
prefence of such persons as shall deliver over such men to such officers,
who shall cause an entry thereof to be made, together with the names of the
persons so delivered over, and a certificate thereof in writing, under their
hands and seals, to be delivered to the officers appointed to receive such
men; and after the reading the said articles of war, every person so
delivered over, shall be deemed a listed soldier, and be subject to the
discipline of war; and in case of desertion, shall be punished as a
deserter. The reader is desired to take notice of this clause for a
particular reason.
There were beside other severe penalties, as for example, the possessor of
any dwelling-house, barn or out-house was declared to be the owner of any
arms concealed therein, and if convicted was to suffer as before; and if a
woman, was to be imprisoned two years, or pay any fine that should be set
under an hundred pounds sterling. By another clause in the same act, power
is given to enter and search any house, in the day or in the night time, in
order to discover whether any arms were concealed; and if five persons were
assembled together, to defeat the purposes of this act, then the civil
magistrates were allowed to call for military assistance; and in case any
persons were killed by the said soldiers, they are indemnified by this act.
These and some other clauses excited a pretty warm struggle against the
bill, and induced some of the staunch asserters of liberty to treat it in
their speeches very freely. It passed however in the house of commons, by a
very large majority, but was again opposed with great warmth of spirit in
the house of peers, where, tho’ at last it made its way, yet it brought this
protest at its heels.
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