|
The internal communications
of Scotland, which Telford did so much in the course of his life to improve,
were, if possible, even worse than those of England about the middle of last
century. The land was more sterile, and the people were much poorer. Indeed,
nothing could be more dreary than the aspect which Scotland then presented.
Her fields lay untilled, her mines unexplored, and her fisheries
uncultivated. The Scotch towns were for the most part collections of
thatched mud cottages, giving scant shelter to a miserable population. The
whole country was desponding, gaunt, and haggard, like Ireland in its worst
times. The common people were badly fed and wretchedly clothed, those in the
country for the most part living in huts with their cattle. Lord Kaimes said
of the Scotch tenantry of the early part of last century, that they were so
benumbed by oppression and poverty that the most able instructors in
husbandry could have made nothing of them. A writer in the 'Farmer's
Magazine' sums up his account of Scotland at that time in these
words:--"Except in a few instances, it was little better than a barren
waste."*[1]
The modern traveller through
the Lothians--which now exhibit perhaps the finest agriculture in the
world--will scarcely believe that less than a century ago these counties
were mostly in the state in which Nature had left them. In the interior
there was little to be seen but bleak moors and quaking bogs. The chief part
of each farm consisted of "out-field," or unenclosed land, no better than
moorland, from which the hardy black cattle could scarcely gather herbage
enough in winter to keep them from starving. The "in-field" was an enclosed
patch of illcultivated ground, on which oats and "bear," or barley, were
grown; but the principal crop was weeds.
Of the small quantity of corn
raised in the country, nine-tenths were grown within five miles of the
coast; and of wheat very little was raised--not a blade north of the
Lothians. When the first crop of that grain was tried on a field near
Edinburgh, about the middle of last century, people flocked to it as a
wonder. Clover, turnips, and potatoes had not yet been introduced, and no
cattle were fattened: it was with difficulty they could be kept alive.
All loads were as yet carried
on horseback; but when the farm was too small, or the crofter too poor to
keep a horse, his own or his wife's back bore the load. The horse brought
peats from the bog, carried the oats or barley to market, and bore the
manure a-field. But the uses of manure were as yet so little understood
that, if a stream were near, it was usually thrown in and floated away, and
in summer it was burnt.
What will scarcely be
credited, now that the industry of Scotland has become educated by a
century's discipline of work, was the inconceivable listlessness and
idleness of the people. They left the bog unreclaimed, and the swamp
undrained. They would not be at the trouble to enclose lands easily capable
of cultivation. There was, perhaps, but little inducement on the part of the
agricultural class to be industrious; for they were too liable to be robbed
by those who preferred to be idle. Andrew Fletcher, of Saltoun--commonly
known as "The Patriot," because he was so strongly opposed to the union of
Scotland with England*[2]-- published a pamphlet, in 1698, strikingly
illustrative of the lawless and uncivilized state of the country at that
time. After giving a dreadful picture of the then state of Scotland: two
hundred thousand vagabonds begging from door to door and robbing and
plundering the poor people,-- "in years of plenty many thousands of them
meeting together in the mountains, where they feast and riot for many days;
and at country weddings, markets, burials, and other like public occasions,
they are to be seen, both men and women, perpetually drunk, cursing,
blaspheming, and fighting together,"--he proceeded to urge that every man of
a certain estate should be obliged to take a proportionate number of these
vagabonds and compel them to work for him; and further, that such serfs,
with their wives and children, should be incapable of alienating their
service from their master or owner until he had been reimbursed for the
money he had expended on them: in other words, their owner was to have the
power of selling them. "The Patriot" was, however, aware that "great
address, diligence, and severity" were required to carry out his scheme;
"for," said he, "that sort of people are so desperately wicked, such enemies
of all work and labour, and, which is yet more amazing, so proud in
esteeming their own condition above that which they will be sure to call
Slavery, that unless prevented by the utmost industry and diligence, upon
the first publication of any orders necessary for putting in execution such
a design, they will rather die with hunger in caves and dens, and murder
their young children, than appear abroad to have them and themselves taken
into such service."*[3]
Although the recommendations
of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun were embodied in no Act of Parliament, the
magistrates of some of the larger towns did not hesitate to kidnap and sell
into slavery lads and men found lurking in the streets, which they continued
to do down to a comparatively recent period. This, however, was not so
surprising as that at the time of which we are speaking, and, indeed, until
the end of last century, there was a veritable slave class in Scotland--the
class of colliers and salters--who were bought and sold with the estates to
which they belonged, as forming part of the stook. When they ran away, they
were advertised for as negroes were in the American States until within the
last few years. It is curious, in turning over an old volume of the 'Scots
Magazine,' to find a General Assembly's petition to Parliament for the
abolition of slavery in America almost alongside the report of a trial of
some colliers who had absconded from a mine near Stirling to which they
belonged. But the degraded condition of the home slaves then excited
comparatively little interest. Indeed, it was not until the very last year
of the last century that praedial slavery was abolished in Scotland--only
three short reigns ago, almost within the memory of men still living.*[4]
The greatest resistance was offered to the introduction of improvements in
agriculture, though it was only at rare intervals that these were attempted.
There was no class possessed of enterprise or wealth. An idea of the general
poverty of the country may be inferred from the fact that about the middle
of last century the whole circulating medium of the two Edinburgh banks--the
only institutions of the kind then in Scotland--amounted to only 200,000L.,
which was sufficient for the purposes of trade, commerce, and industry.
Money was then so scarce that Adam Smith says it was not uncommon for
workmen, in certain parts of Scotland, to carry nails instead of pence to
the baker's or the alehouse. A middle class could scarcely as yet be said to
exist, or any condition between the starving cottiers and the impoverished
proprietors, whose available means were principally expended in hard
drinking.*[5]
The latter were, for the most
part, too proud and too ignorant to interest themselves in the improvement
of their estates; and the few who did so had very little encouragement to
persevere. Miss Craig, in describing the efforts made by her father, William
Craig, laird of Arbigland, in Kirkcudbright, says, "The indolent obstinacy
of the lower class of the people was found to be almost unconquerable.
Amongst other instances of their laziness, I have heard him say that, upon
the introduction of the mode of dressing the grain at night which had been
thrashed during the day, all the servants in the neighbourhood refused to
adopt the measure, and even threatened to destroy the houses of their
employers by fire if they continued to insist upon the business. My father
speedily perceived that a forcible remedy was required for the evil. He gave
his servants the choice of removing the thrashed grain in the evening, or
becoming inhabitants of Kirkcudbright gaol: they preferred the former
alternative, and open murmurings were no longer heard."*[6]
The wages paid to the
labouring classes were then very low. Even in East Lothian, which was
probably in advance of the other Scotch counties, the ordinary day's wage of
a labouring man was only five pence in winter and six pence in summer. Their
food was wholly vegetable, and was insufficient in quantity as well as bad
in quality. The little butcher's meat consumed by the better class was
salted beef and mutton, stored up in Ladner time (between Michaelmas and
Martinmas) for the year's consumption. Mr. Buchan Hepburn says the Sheriff
of East Lothian informed him that he remembered when not a bullock was
slaughtered in Haddington market for a whole year, except at that time; and,
when Sir David Kinloch, of Gilmerton sold ten wedders to an Edinburgh
butcher, he stipulated for three several terms to take them away, to prevent
the Edinburgh market from being overstocked with fresh butcher's meat!*[7]
The rest of Scotland was in
no better state: in some parts it was even worse. The rich and fertile
county of Ayr, which now glories in the name of "the garden of Scotland,"
was for the most part a wild and dreary waste, with here and there a poor,
miserable, comfortless hut, where the farmer and his family lodged. There
were no enclosures of land, except one or two about a proprietor's
residence; and black cattle roamed at large over the face of the country.
When an attempt was made to enclose the lands for the purposes of
agriculture, the fences were levelled by the dispossessed squatters. Famines
were frequent among the poorer classes; the western counties not producing
food enough for the sustenance of the inhabitants, few though they were in
number. This was also the case in Dumfries, where the chief part of the
grain required for the population was brought in "tumbling-cars" from the
sandbeds of Esk; "and when the waters were high by reason of spates [or
floods], and there being no bridges, so that the cars could not come with
the meal, the tradesmen's wives might be seen in the streets of Dumfries,
crying; because there was no food to be had."*[8]
The misery of the country was
enormously aggravated by the wretched state of the roads. There were,
indeed, scarcely any made roads throughout the country. Hence the
communication between one town and another was always difficult, especially
in winter. There were only rough tracks across moors, and when one track
became too deep, another alongside of it was chosen, and was in its turn
abandoned, until the whole became equally impassable. In wet weather these
tracks became "mere sloughs, in which the carts or carriages had to slumper
through in a half-swimming state, whilst, in times of drought it was a
continual jolting out of one hole into another."*[9]
Such being the state of the
highways, it will be obvious that very little communication could exist
between one part of the country and another. Single-horse traffickers,
called cadgers, plied between the country towns and the villages, supplying
the inhabitants with salt, fish, earthenware, and articles of clothing,
which they carried in sacks or creels hung across their horses' backs. Even
the trade between Edinburgh and Glasgow was carried on in the same primitive
way, the principal route being along the high grounds west of Boroughstoness,
near which the remains of the old pack-horse road are still to be seen.
It was long before vehicles
of any sort could be used on the Scotch roads. Rude sledges and
tumbling-cars were employed near towns, and afterwards carts, the wheels of
which were first made of boards. It was long before travelling by coach
could be introduced in Scotland. When Smollett travelled from Glasgow to
Edinburgh on his way to London, in 1739, there was neither coach, cart, nor
waggon on the road. He accordingly accompanied the pack-horse carriers as
far as Newcastle, "sitting upon a pack-saddle between two baskets, one of
which," he says, "contained my goods in a knapsack."
In 1743 an attempt was made
by the Town Council of Glasgow to set up a stage-coach or "lando." It was to
be drawn by six horses, carry six passengers, and run between Glasgow and
Edinburgh, a distance of forty-four miles, once a week in winter, and twice
a week in summer. The project, however, seems to have been thought too bold
for the time, for the "lando" was never started. It was not until the year
1749 that the first public conveyance, called "The Glasgow and Edinburgh
Caravan," was started between the two cities, and it made the journey
between the one place and the other in two days. Ten years later another
vehicle was started, named "The Fly" because of its unusual speed, and it
contrived to make the journey in rather less than a day and a half.
About the same time, a coach
with four horses was started between Haddington and Edinburgh, and it took a
full winter's day to perform the journey of sixteen miles: the effort being
to reach Musselburgh in time for dinner, and go into town in the evening. As
late as 1763 there was as only one stage-coach in all Scotland in
communication with London, and that set out from Edinburgh only once a
month. The journey to London occupied from ten to fifteen days, according to
the state of the weather; and those who undertook so dangerous a journey
usually took the precaution of making their wills before starting.
When carriers' carts were
established, the time occupied by them on the road will now appear almost
incredible. Thus the common carrier between Selkirk and Edinburgh, a
distance of only thirty-eight miles, took about a fortnight to perform the
double journey. Part of the road lay along Gala Water, and in summer time,
when the river-bed was dry, the carrier used it as a road. The townsmen of
this adventurous individual, on the morning of his way-going, were
accustomed to turn out and take leave of him, wishing him a safe return from
his perilous journey. In winter the route was simply impracticable, and the
communication was suspended until the return of dry weather.
While such was the state of
the communications in the immediate neighbourhood of the metropolis of
Scotland, matters were, if possible, still worse in the remoter parts of the
country. Down to the middle of last century, there were no made roads of any
kind in the south-western counties. The only inland trade was in black
cattle; the tracks were impracticable for vehicles, of which there were only
a few--carts and tumbling-cars--employed in the immediate neighbourhood of
the towns. When the Marquis of Downshire attempted to make a journey through
Galloway in his coach, about the year 1760, a party of labourers with tools
attended him, to lift the vehicle out of the ruts and put on the wheels when
it got dismounted. Even with this assistance, however, his Lordship
occasionally stuck fast, and when within about three miles of the village of
Creetown, near Wigton, he was obliged to send away the attendants, and pass
the night in his coach on the Corse of Slakes with his family.
Matters were, of course,
still worse in the Highlands, where the rugged character of the country
offered formidable difficulties to the formation of practicable roads, and
where none existed save those made through the rebel districts by General
Wade shortly after the rebellion of 1715. The people were also more lawless
and, if possible, more idle, than those of the Lowland districts about the
same period. The latter regarded their northern neighbours as the settlers
in America did the Red Indians round their borders--like so many savages
always ready to burst in upon them, fire their buildings, and carry off
their cattle.*[10]
Very little corn was grown in
the neighbourhood of the Highlands, on account of its being liable to be
reaped and carried off by the caterans, and that before it was ripe. The
only method by which security of a certain sort could be obtained was by the
payment of blackmail to some of the principal chiefs, though this was not
sufficient to protect them against the lesser marauders. Regular contracts
were drawn up between proprietors in the counties of Perth, Stirling, and
Dumbarton, and the Macgregors, in which it was stipulated that if less than
seven cattle were stolen--which peccadillo was known as picking--no redress
should be required; but if the number stolen exceeded seven--such amount of
theft being raised to the dignity of lifting--then the Macgregors were bound
to recover. This blackmail was regularly levied as far south as Campsie--then
within six miles of Glasgow, but now almost forming part of it--down to
within a few months of the outbreak of the Rebellion of 1745.*[11]
Under such circumstances,
agricultural improvement was altogether impossible. The most fertile tracts
were allowed to lie waste, for men would not plough or sow where they had
not the certain prospect of gathering in the crop. Another serious evil was,
that the lawless habits of their neighbours tended to make the Lowland
borderers almost as ferocious as the Higlanders themselves. Feuds were of
constant occurrence between neighbouring baronies, and even contiguous
parishes; and the country fairs, which were tacitly recognised as the
occasions for settling quarrels, were the scenes of as bloody faction fights
as were ever known in Ireland even in its worst days. When such was the
state of Scotland only a century ago, what may we not hope for from Ireland
when the civilizing influences of roads, schools, and industry have made
more general progress amongst her people?
Yet Scotland had not always
been in this miserable condition. There is good reason to believe that as
early as the thirteenth century, agriculture was in a much more advanced
state than we find it to have been the eighteenth. It would appear from the
extant chartularies of monastic establishments, which then existed all over
the Lowlands, that a considerable portion of their revenue was derived from
wheat, which also formed no inconsiderable part of their living. The
remarkable fact is mentioned by Walter de Hemingford, the English historian,
that when the castle of Dirleton, in East Lothian, was besieged by the army
of Edward I., in the beginning of July, 1298, the men, being reduced to
great extremities for provisions, were fain to subsist on the pease and
beans which they gathered in the fields.*[12] This statement is all the more
remarkable on two accounts: first, that pease and beans should then have
been so plentiful as to afford anything like sustenance for an army; and
second, that they should have been fit for use so early in the season, even
allowing for the difference between the old and new styles in the reckoning
of time. The magnificent old abbeys and churches of Scotland in early times
also indicate that at some remote period a degree of civilization and
prosperity prevailed, from which the country had gradually fallen. The ruins
of the ancient edifices of Melrose, Kilwinning, Aberborthwick, Elgin, and
other religious establishments, show that architecture must then have made
great progress in the North, and lead us to the conclusion that the other
arts had reached a like stage of advancement. This is borne out by the fact
of the number of well-designed and well-built bridges of olden times which
still exist in different parts of Scotland. "And when we consider," says
Professor Innes, "the long and united efforts required in the early state of
the arts for throwing a bridge over any considerable river, the early
occurrence of bridges may well be admitted as one of the best tests of
civilization and national prosperity."*[13] As in England, so in Scotland,
the reclamation of lands, the improvement of agriculture, and the building
of bridges were mainly due to the skill and industry of the old churchmen.
When their ecclesiastical organization was destroyed, the country speedily
relapsed into the state from which they had raised it; and Scotland
continued to lie in ruins almost till our own day, when it has again been
rescued from barrenness, more effectually even than before, by the combined
influences of roads, education, and industry.
Footnotes for Chapter IV.
*[1] 'Farmer's Magazine,'
1803. No. xiii. p. 101.
*[2] Bad although the
condition of Scotland was at the beginning of last century, there were many
who believed that it would be made worse by the carrying of the Act of
Union. The Earl of Wigton was one of these. Possessing large estates in the
county of Stirling, and desirous of taking every precaution against what he
supposed to be impending ruin, he made over to his tenants, on condition
that they continued to pay him their then low rents, his extensive estates
in the parishes of Denny, Kirkintulloch, and Cumbernauld, retaining only a
few fields round the family mansion ['Farmer's Magazine,' 1808, No. xxxiv.
p. 193]. Fletcher of Saltoun also feared the ruinous results of the Union,
though he was less precipitate in his conduct than the Earl of Wigton. We
need scarcely say how entirely such apprehensions were falsified by the
actual results.
*[3] 'Fletcher's Political
Works,' London, 1737, p. 149. As the population of Scotland was then only
about 1,200,000, the beggars of the country, according to the above account,
must have constituted about one-sixth of the whole community.
*[4] Act 39th George III. c.
56. See 'Lord Cockburn's Memorials,' pp. 76-9. As not many persons may be
aware how recent has been the abolition of slavery in Britain, the author of
this book may mention the fact that he personally knew a man who had been
"born a slave in Scotland," to use his own words, and lived to tell it. He
had resisted being transferred to another owner on the sale of the estate to
which he was "bound," and refused to "go below," on which he was imprisoned
in Edinburgh gaol, where he lay for a considerable time. The case excited
much interest, and probably had some effect in leading to the alteration in
the law relating to colliers and salters which shortly after followed.
*[5] See 'Autobiography of
Dr. Alexander Carlyle,' passim.
*[6] 'Farmer's Magazine.'
June. 1811. No. xlvi. p. 155.
*[7] See Buchan Hepburn's
'General View of the Agriculture and Economy of East Lothian,' 1794, p. 55.
*[8]Letter of John Maxwell,
in Appendix to Macdiarmid's 'Picture of Dumfries,' 1823
*[9] Robertson's 'Rural
Recollections,' p. 38.
*[10] Very little was known
of the geography of the Highlands down to the beginning of the seventeenth
century The principal information on the subject being derived from Danish
materials. It appears, however, that in 1608, one Timothy Pont, a young man
without fortune or patronage, formed the singular resolution of travelling
over the whole of Scotland, with the sole view of informing himself as to
the geography of the country, and he persevered to the end of his task
through every kind of difficulty; exploring 'all the islands with the zeal
of a missionary, though often pillaged and stript of everything; by the then
barbarous inhabitant's. The enterprising youth received no recognition nor
reward for his exertions, and he died in obscurity, leaving his maps and
papers to his heirs. Fortunately, James I. heard of the existence of Pont's
papers, and purchased them for public use. They lay, however, unused for a
long time in the offices of the Scotch Court of Chancery, until they were at
length brought to light by Mr. Robert Gordon, of Straloch, who made them the
basis of the first map of Scotland having any pretensions to accuracy that
was ever published.
*[11] Mr. Grant, of
Corrymorry, used to relate that his father, when speaking of the Rebellion
of 1745, always insisted that a rising in the Highlands was absolutely
necessary to give employment to the numerous bands of lawless and idle young
men who infested every property.--Anderson's 'Highlands and Islands of
Scotland,' p. 432.
*[12] 'Lord Hailes Annals,' i.,
379.
*[13] Professor Innes's
'Sketches of Early Scottish History.' The principal ancient bridges in
Scotland were those over the Tay at Perth (erected in the thirteenth
century) over the Esk at Brechin and Marykirk; over the Bee at Kincardine,
O'Neil, and Aberdeen; over the Don, near the same city; over the Spey at
Orkhill; over the Clyde at Glasgow; over the Forth at Stirling; and over the
Tyne at Haddington. |
