THE 
 
 DEPOPULATION SYSTEM 
 
 THE HIGHLANDS: 
 
 ITS EXTENT, CAUSES, AND EVIL CONSEQUENCES, 
 WITH PRACTICAL REMEDIES. 
 
 Aif ETB-WITlsnESS. 
 
 ay field to field, till there be no place 
 
 EDINBURGH;_ 
 
 JOHNSTONE AND HUNTEKnTpBINCES STREET, 
 AND 26 PATEENOSTEB ROW, LONDON.' 
 
^ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following remarks appeared originally in the pages of 
 the Witness Newspaper, and as the Author is wishful that 
 the subject of Highland Ejections should be kept before 
 the public eye, he has been induced to issue them in the 
 present shape. He has not given his name, not from any 
 reluctance to authenticate his sentiments, but because he 
 believes that giving or withholding it is a matter of 
 moment to no one but himself. 
 
 Edinburgh, September 26, 1849. 
 
DEPOPULATION OF THE HIGHLANDS. 
 
 The state of our Highland population, and more especially the 
 system at present pursued by their landlords regarding them, can¬ 
 not fail sooner or later to arrest public attention. The wonder is, 
 that so much time has been allowed to elapse without a more dis¬ 
 tinct utterance of the voice of the country on the subject. The 
 interesting events taking place on the Continent of Europe have no 
 doubt contributed to this apparent indifference. Men’s minds have 
 been engrossed by them. The greatness of the scale on which they 
 have been exhibited has served to exclude occurrences of apparently 
 less moment. And we do not wonder that the souls of freemen 
 should be moved to their profoundest depths by the struggles of 
 their fellow-men, who would he free against a hateful despotism. 
 The oppression of a great nation is a sad and grievous spectacle. 
 But there is a sadder spectacle to be witnessed nearer home—a 
 spectacle which a man need not leave the territory of Britain to see 
 —we mean the gradual extinction of a high-spirited, loyal, and 
 Christian people. And if we have sympathy for the oppressed 
 Hungarian—and who that is worthy to be called a freeman has 
 not?—surely we are not to close our hearts against all sympathy 
 with the oppressed, the ejected Highlander. 
 
 At a period beyond even the reach of tradition these islands were 
 flooded with the great wave of Celtic population, propelled westward 
 from the middle portion of the Asiatic continent. Whether the 
 Celts had won the territory by the sword from previous races, or 
 recovered it by their industry from the primeval forests, we know 
 not; hut this we know, that, after being overtaken and over¬ 
 whelmed in a great measure by a second wave of population, pro¬ 
 pelled from the same quarter with themselves, they have been 
 hemmed in for centuries to the more rugged and inaccessible por¬ 
 tions of Great Britain, where they have held their possessions by 
 
6 
 
 the sword against all outward foes. But new circumstances have 
 arisen. The battle of Oulloden produced an entire change in the 
 position of, at any rate, the Scottish Gael. They have been brought 
 into intimate connection with British law and British civilisation, 
 and the result is likely to be their complete extinction. And the 
 ruin is the more melancholy when we reflect who the instruments 
 of it are. The people who resisted the inroads of Romans, Danes, 
 and Saxons, and bravely maintained their territory to the last, are 
 now about to fall by the hands of their own chiefs. The men who 
 are now in possession of their lands by means of the bravery of 
 their ancestors—who shed, many of them, their last drop of blood 
 in their defence—are the very men who now turn upon them as the 
 instruments of their extirpation. 
 
 A complete history of Highland clearings would, we doubt not, 
 both interest and surprise the British public. Men talk of the 
 Sutherland clearings as if they stood alone amidst the atrocities of 
 the system; but those who know fully the facts of the case can 
 speak with as much truth of the Eoss-shire clearings, the Inverness- 
 shire clearings, the Perthshire clearings, and, to some extent, the 
 Argyleshire clearings. The earliest of these was the great clearing 
 on the Glengarry estate, towards, we believe, the latter end of the 
 last century. The tradition among the Highlanders is (and some 
 Gaelic poems composed at the time would go to confirm it), that 
 the chief’s lady had taken umbrage at the clan. Whatever the 
 cause might have been, the offence was deep, and could only be 
 expiated by the extirpation of the race. Summonses of ejection 
 were served over the whole property, even on families the most 
 closely connected with the chief; and if tve now seek for the High¬ 
 landers of Glengarry, we must search on the banks of the St Law¬ 
 rence. To the westward of Glengarry lies the estate of Lochiel—a 
 name to which the imperishable poetry of Campbell has attached 
 much interest. It is the country of the brave clan Cameron, to 
 whom, were there nothing to speak of but their conduct at Water¬ 
 loo, Britain owes a debt. Many of our readers have passed along 
 Loch Lochy, and they have likely had the mansion of Auchnacarry 
 pointed out to them, and they have been told of the dark mile, sur¬ 
 passing, as some say, the Trosachs in romantic beauty; but perhaps 
 they were not awai-e that beyond lies the wide expanse of Loch 
 Arkeg, whose banks have been the scene of a most extensive clear¬ 
 ing. There was a day when three hundred able, active men could 
 have been collected from the shores of this extensive inland loch j 
 but eviction has long ago rooted them out, and nothing is now to 
 
7 
 
 be seen but the ruins of their huts, with the occasional bothy of a 
 shepherd, while their lands are held hy one or two farmers from 
 the borders. Crossing to the south of the great glen, we may begin 
 with Glencoe. How much of its romantic interest does this glen 
 owe to its desolation ? Let us remember, however, that the desola¬ 
 tion, in a large part of it, is the result of the extrusion of the inhabi¬ 
 tants. Travel eastward, and the foot-prints of the destroyer can¬ 
 not be lost sight of. Large tracks along the Spean and its tribu¬ 
 taries are a wide waste. The southern bank of Loch Lochy is 
 almost without inhabitants, though the symptoms of former occu¬ 
 pancy are frequent. When we enter the country of the Frasers, the 
 same spectacle presents itself-—a desolated land. With the excep¬ 
 tion of the miserable village of Fort-Augustus, the native popula¬ 
 tion is almost extinguished, while those who do remain are left as if, 
 by their squalid misery, to make darkness the more visible. Across 
 the hills, in Stratherrick, the property of Lord Lovat, with the excep - 
 tion of a few large sheep farmers, and a very few tenants, is one 
 wide waste. To the north of Loch Ness, the territory of the Grants, 
 both Glcnmorison and the Earl of Seafield, presents a pleasing 
 feature amidst the sea of desolation. But beyond this, again, let us 
 trace the large rivers of the east coast to their sources. Trace the 
 Beauly through all its upper reaches, and how many thousands upon 
 thousands of acres, once peopled, are, as respects human beings, a 
 wide wilderness! The lands of the Chisholm have been stripped of 
 their population down to a mere fragment: the possessors of those 
 of Lovat have not been behind with their share of the same sad 
 doings. Let us cross to the Conon and its branches, and we will 
 find that the chieftains of the M‘Kenzies have not been less active 
 in extermination. Breadalbane and Eannoch, in Perthshire, have 
 a similar tale to tell, vast masses of the population having been for¬ 
 cibly expelled. The upper portions of Athole have also suffered, 
 while many of the valleys along the Spey and its tributaries are 
 without an inhabitant, if we except a few shepherds. Sutherland, 
 with all its atrocities, aflrords but a fraction of the atrocities that 
 have been perpetrated in following out the ejectment system of the 
 Highlands. In truth, of the habitable portion of the whole country, 
 but a small part is now really inhabited. We are unwilling to 
 weary our readers by carrying them along the west coast from the 
 Linnhe Loch northwards; but if they inquire, they will find that 
 the same system has been, in the case of most of the estates, relent¬ 
 lessly pursued. These are facts of which, we believe, the British 
 public know little, but they are facts on which the changes should 
 
be rung until they have listened to them and seriously considered 
 them. May it not be that part of the guilt is theirs, who might, 
 yet did not, step forward to stop such cruel and unwise proceedings ? 
 
 Let us leave the past, however, and consider the present. And it 
 is a melancholy reflection that the year 1849 has added its long list 
 to the roll of Highland ejectments. While the law is banishing 
 its tens for terms of seven or fourteen years, as the penalty of deep- 
 dyed crimes, irresponsible and infatuated power is banishing its 
 thousands for life for no crime whatever. This year brings forward, 
 as leader in the work of expatriation, the Duke of Argyll. Is it 
 possible that his vast possessions are over-densely peopled ? “ Cre- 
 dat Jtidceus appelles.” And the Highland Destitution Committee 
 co-operate. We had understood that the large sums of money at 
 their disposal had been given them for the purpose of relieving, and 
 not of banishing, the destitute. Next, we have Mr Baillie of Glen- 
 elg, professedly at their own request sending five hundred souls off 
 to America. Their native glen must have been made not a little 
 uncomfortable for these poor people, ere they could have petitioned 
 for so sore a favour. Then we have Colonel Gordon expelling 
 upwards of eighteen hundred souls from South Uist; Lord M‘Don- 
 ald follows with a sentence of banishment against six or seven hun¬ 
 dred of the people of North Uist, with a threat, as we learn, that 
 three thousand are to be driven from Skye next season; and Jlr 
 Lillingston of Lochalsh, M‘Lean of Ardgour, and Lochiel, bring up 
 the rear of the black catalogue, a large body of people having left 
 the estates of the two latter, who, after a heart-rending scene of 
 parting with their native land, are now on the wide sea on their way 
 to Australia. Thus, within the last three or four months, consider¬ 
 ably upwards of three thousand of the most moral and loyal of our 
 people—^people who, even in the most trying circumstances, never 
 required a soldier, seldom a policeman, among them, to maintain 
 the peace—are driven forcibly away to seek subsistence on a foreign 
 soil. We ask. Ought these things to be so ? The parties instru¬ 
 mental in causing the ejections are, no doubt, prepared rvith certain 
 reasons which they are ready to offer for their conduct, and some of 
 these we shall now consider. 
 
 The question then is—Can any thing be said in defence of the 
 expatriation of the Highlanders?—and without doubt the system 
 has had stout defenders both in the Highlands and elsewhere; and 
 reasons for it are tendered which have considerable apparent force. 
 And here let us premise, in coming to this part of our subject, that 
 we write with no feehng of hostility to our Highland proprietors. 
 
9 
 
 We believe that many of them have acted in ignorance: they are 
 strangers to the people, and they have been made the dupes of other- 
 interested parties. We do not say that this is excusable, but we 
 believe it to be the fact. 
 
 The first great reason that is urged in favour of the ejection sys¬ 
 tem is, that the land is over-peopled. As to this statement, as ap¬ 
 plied more especially to the Hebrides, granting it, for the sake of 
 the argument, to be true, we ask. With whom does the blame of this 
 over-peopling lie? Who encouraged the crowding of the people 
 upon their estates for many long years? Uncpiestionably the land¬ 
 lords. AVho obtained an act of Parliament to restrain, as far as 
 possible, emigration, lest the people should be drained away from 
 their properties ? Undoubtedly the landlords. It was their interest, 
 while the kelp manufacture was in a prosperous state, to have as 
 many people as could be got to reside on their estates, seeing that, 
 at the time, their kelp shores were of four times the value of the 
 rest of the land. But is it fair now, that, if they have had their 
 share, ay, and the lion’s share, of the benefits, they should not also 
 share in the subsequent disadvantages ? But we demur to the fact 
 of this over-peopling. The population of North Uist in 1755 was 
 1909, in 1794, 3218, and in 1831, 4003. Now, w-e at once say 
 that this ratio of increase is by no means equal to the general ratio 
 over Great Britain during the same period, with all the means that 
 were used to foster it. It will probably be said that a proportional 
 advance was made elsewhere in regard to the means of subsistence, 
 which was not the case with North Uist. But why was it not ? 
 Just because the labour of the people was monopolised by the land¬ 
 lord in the manufacture of one single article (kelp) for his benefit, 
 while the land was necessarily neglected. But let us take the land 
 and the population as they are. By the statistical account of North 
 Uist, and ex uno disce omnes, the island consists of 55,000 acres, 
 with a population of 4603, or about an individual to every twelve 
 acres of the soil, or sixty acres to each family—surely no excessive 
 population. But to carry our calculations further:—Of the 55,000 
 acres, 11,200 are arable, or capable of bearing crops. Let us sup¬ 
 pose that of this two-fifths are under grain, which is less than the 
 quantity which the agriculture of the Hebrides would warrant us to 
 assume. It is well known that North Uist is the most fertile of all 
 the western isles; and it is not taking too high a figure when we 
 say that each of these acres should yield four quarters of grain, or, 
 say four bolls of meal. There would thus be produced by the island 
 somewhat about seventeen thousand bolls of grain or meal. Of the 
 
10 
 
 grain thus raised, deduct one-third for seed com, &c., and we have 
 ten thousand seven hundred bolls left. It is well known that six 
 bolls a-year is the allowance given for the support of a farm servant 
 and his family, exclusive of potatoes; but let us allow ten to each 
 family, and taking the number of families as one-fifth of the popu¬ 
 lation, or nine hundred and twenty, and we have thus the soil, even 
 as at present, capable of producing two thousand five hundred bolls 
 of meal more than is necessary for the support of the population, 
 and that exclusive of the produce of the other three-fifths of the 
 arable land, and upwards of forty thousand acres of pasture, from 
 which, no doubt, the rent could with little difficulty be extracted for 
 the landlord. But could the island not be made more productive 
 than it is? Much has been done in the way of improvement. 
 Since the year 1814, when the land was lotted, we learn from the 
 Statistical Account that much larger and better crops have been 
 produced in consequence. And as to what is doing, and might be 
 done, let us judge by the following quotation from the same authority. 
 "We read that “ the most productive part [^of the soil] is nothing more 
 than moss mixed mth, and decomposed by, the limy particles of 
 the sand. The process nature thus pointed out was remarked by 
 some individuals of sagacity and observation, who persuaded a few 
 to follow this guide. In consequence, along some of the shores 
 where the moss was washed by the sea, a certain quantity of sand 
 was led to the moss in the immediate neighbourhood, which pro¬ 
 duced crops in most instances sufficient to remunerate the trouble 
 and expense, and which renders what was before of small value of 
 permanent benefit as pasture ground. This improvement, by due 
 encouragement, might be carried on to an immense extent by what 
 we call draining and sanding moss. It is exceedingly facilitated by 
 the cross roads which almost through every farm have of late years 
 been made.” The idea of the over-population of the Highlands and 
 Islands is a gross delusion. The fact is, that many parts of the 
 Highlands are not peopled at all ; and we doubt not, from close ob- 
 seivation, that ten times the present population could be maintained 
 by the soil under a proper system. Why not as well assail the 
 heaths of Scotland as the forests of Canada? The reply is, that 
 there is at present an impassable barrier between them and the 
 
 Another reason urged by the landlords and their abettors for the 
 ejection system, is the alleged indolence of the people. It is an old 
 saying, “Give a dog a bad name, and hang him.” Nothing is 
 easier than to nmke such a charge as this; but even granting that 
 
11 
 
 the charge is true, as they mean it, we must remember that it may 
 be entirely a relative one. The people may he slothful and inactive 
 as agriculturists, hut that does not prove that they are inactive uni¬ 
 versally. It merely proves that agriculture is not the direction their 
 activity takes. In the kelp manufacture, we are told of the Uist 
 people, that they often work fifteen hours a-day at a most laborious 
 occupation. (Vide Stat. Ac.) As fishermen, they spread themselves 
 over the whole east coast during the season: they have had a share 
 in the construction of most of the railways in the country. If such 
 he the case, it is clear that there is inducement wanting to the ex¬ 
 pending of their labour on their land. And who would blame them 
 for not laying it out on that which belongs to another, without the 
 least security that they are to have any benefit? Would any capi¬ 
 talist in this country invest his capital (and their labom' is their 
 capital) in land without either the security of a purchase or a lease ? 
 We trow not. Now, we learn from the Statistical Account, that the 
 small tenants in Uist have no leases. May not this be the secret of 
 their indolence ? Man must have some stimulus to exertion, and it 
 is in vain to expect it of him unless this stimulus be suppUed. We 
 suspect that the want of leases tells as much against the agriculture 
 of England as that of Uist; and perhaps our calling attention to this 
 may obtain a little more sympathy for the poor Uist men. We are 
 able to point out portions of the Highlands in which leases have 
 been given, where the utmost activity was at once shown by the 
 people, and where the produce of the land in consequence has been 
 quadrupled at least. Some instances to the contrary may no doubt 
 be pointed out; but let us bear in mind that there are things which 
 effectually neutralize a lease, and these are, an exorbitant rent, or 
 other unreasonable conditions. The certain way to ensure no exer¬ 
 tion is to demand what is beyond human strength, and an exorbitant 
 rent has in this way the same effect as the want of security of te¬ 
 nure. The Celtic population are, in fact, like other men who work 
 when it is their advantage to do so, and who won’t when it is not. 
 Let us fake two of the larger Highland estates for instance, and 
 compare them with those we have been speaking of. We have on 
 the west coast Lewis, where the people have been all along kindly 
 treated, first under the family of Seaforth, and latterly under their 
 present proprietor Mr Matheson. What a pleasing contrast does it 
 present, in the condition of the people, to the rest of the Hebrides ? 
 And in the Eastern Highlands, the extensive estates of the Earl of 
 Seafield, which have ever been managed with the most considerate 
 regard to the wellbeing of the people—how pleasing a contrast do 
 
12 
 
 they present, with their industrious and thriving population, to 
 many properties in the same portion of the country, which aie 
 almost without inhabitants! And we believe such to be the case 
 without the slightest comparative loss to the proprietors as respects 
 a rental. 
 
 The next plea which we notice as urged in favour of the eject¬ 
 ment system is that of benevolence. Ejecting landlords and their 
 friends urge that they are conferring a favour on these people by 
 sending them to the colonies. As the great body of them are sent 
 to America, let us consider this plea in connection with the colonies 
 there. It is urged of late years that the potato crop has failed in the 
 Highlands, and that the colonies are now the only field for the people. 
 We answer that by saying that the potato crop has failed in the 
 colonies to an e^ual extent. The fact is, the potato crop has failed 
 every where; and what is to prevent the Highlands, under judicious 
 management, from bearing up under the calamity, as well as any 
 other portion of the globe visited by the same infliction 1 But w’e 
 should like to act as guide to some of our benevolent ejectors through 
 our North American colonies. And we would first bring them to the 
 emigrant sheds at Quebec or Montreal, and we could tell them that, 
 during the last great emigration, hundreds, we might say thousands, 
 died in these sheds of a fearful pestilence. There is the result of 
 their benevolence! Or, to show them Highlanders in a more ad¬ 
 vanced stage of settlement, we would bring them to Cape Breton, 
 or the district around Pictou, in Nova Scotia, and we suspect we 
 could point out an amount of destitution among old settlers not to 
 be outdone by that of the Hebrides. Or, passing up again to Canada, 
 we could bring them among the Lewis Highlanders on the Salmon 
 River, who, after ten years of settlement, have hardly been able to 
 pay the small sum, due as the price of their lauds; and, lest they 
 should suppose that this state of things merely existed among the 
 lazt/ Highlanders, we could tell them of an English settlement in 
 the same neighbourhood, of several years’ standing, where a friend 
 of ours was told within the last year or two, on unquestionable au¬ 
 thority, that there were forty families who had not^twenty-four hours’ 
 food in their houses at the time, nor means of purchasing it, and it 
 then wanted a month of harvest; or we could bring them among the 
 many thousand Highlanders of Glengarry, where, we regret to say, 
 they will see few symptoms of opulence, or even great comfort; and 
 where we suspect that, if debts due for land and to storekeepers were 
 paid, the nominal -owners of the farms would, in most cases, have 
 little remaining. Undoubtedly many of the Highlanders of Canada 
 
13 
 
 are comfortable; but we aver, without fear of contradiction, that a 
 less expenditure of labour at home, if permitted, rvould raise them 
 to a higher point in the scale of social comfort, with the further ad¬ 
 vantage of spending their days in a climate immeasurably more con¬ 
 ducive to health and happiness. We merely advert to the fact, that 
 such is the dread of extensive immigration on the part of the Cana¬ 
 dian colonist, that they have laid a heavy tax on each immigrant 
 entering their ports. 
 
 We might proceed to consider some other reasons that are alleged 
 for the ejectment system; but we desist. Let us now consider what 
 we believe to be the real causes of it. 
 
 It no doubt involves no very creditable insinuation, to speak of 
 the real as distinct from the alleged reasons; but that they do exist, 
 any man thoroughly acquainted with the Highlands must know, 
 and that right well. And, as one of these, we advert to the inex¬ 
 plicable craving on the part of some proprietors after large farms. 
 They join house to house, and field to field. They have adopted 
 the idea that these farms are desirable, though in what we believe to 
 he thorough ignorance of what is for their real interest. It may be 
 that they think there is something aristocratic in large fields and ex¬ 
 tensive steadings. That class of men have a wonderful sense of rvhat 
 redounds to their own glory and honour. They can ride out of a 
 forenoon with their visitors, and point out to them the splendid en- 
 enclosures, or the extensive sheep-walks, or the well-stocked deer- 
 forest, as they pass along, without once alluding to the amount of 
 human suffering by which the whole w’as purchased. They want fine 
 fields and fine forests. What care they for men ? They want on 
 their estates something worthy of their patrician greatness. What 
 though hundreds or thousands of human beings should be wrenched 
 from their beloved homes, and cast for subsistence on the cold 
 world ! Little do they know what they are doing—that each pro¬ 
 cess of ejection is another portion in the fast-filling cup that will one 
 day overflow and overwhelm them. It is no new subject to the 
 public to call their notice to the rapid diminution of the landed 
 proprietors in this kingdom, from 250,000 fifty years ago, to 
 25,000 now in round numbers. But perhaps it may not have 
 occurred to them, that the proportion of those who farm the soil 
 is equally diminished. Nine-tenths of the rural population of 
 this country have no interest in the cultivation of the soil, except as 
 mere serfs. Nor can they at present look for any improvement in 
 their condition, seeing that the vast masses in which the land is 
 held precludes the gradual uprising of the careful and industrious 
 
14 
 
 labourer. Here is a hot-bed for revolutions. Do we wish to make 
 men Conservatives ? Let us give them an interest in the soil. But 
 it is monstrous to expect men to be conservative of a system that 
 crushes them, and precludes the very cherishing of a hope. And 
 such is the system that shuts out the vast mass of the people from 
 any interest in the soil on which they live, unless so much as may 
 be a resting-place for their dust when time with them shall be no 
 more. We are no advocates for planting a family of human beings 
 on mere patches of cold moorland, to toil and starve. We leave 
 that to the enlightened minds and large hearts of northern dukes.* 
 There is a limit to the size of farms on the descending scale; but 
 we would with right good-will wield the axe in bringing to the 
 ground any system that interfered with a fair and beneficial division 
 of the soil among the people, and that not merely in the character 
 of philanthropists, but also of patriots. But now, who are the 
 gainers by this large-farm system? Surely not the proprietors. 
 (And our remarks here have reference to the system as developed 
 in the Highlands.) These farms do not bring them larger rents; 
 in fact, we believe that frequently they are less, while generally they 
 are of the same amount with the united rents of the smaller tenantry. 
 They do not help the improvement of their properties. The home 
 farm on a large sheep-walk may be in an approved state of cultiva¬ 
 tion, while the rest of the arable land lies waste. But more than 
 this, their estates deteriorate under the system. A sheep-walk will 
 neither maintain the number nor rear the quality of stock, after a 
 period of fifteen or sixteen years. Here, then, is a sacrificing of 
 the whole efforts of human industry ever since the soil was culti¬ 
 vated, and suffering the face of the country to fall back into its 
 original state of savage wildness. The order of the day elsewhere 
 is progress; here it is retrogression. The two neighbouring counties 
 of Sutherland and Caithness afford ample illustration of our position 
 —the former having made no progress as respects the value of the 
 land for the last thirty years under the sheep-farm system, while 
 the latter has increased it by one-half under the agricultural. But 
 the system is not beneficial to the large farmers themselves. They 
 think it is, and will likely sneer at us for the remark. But we 
 would ask them. How many of them have made fortunes by it ? If 
 they have made a bare living, is not that all ? and how few of them 
 have made that without debt? High rents and the vicissitudes in 
 their markets preclude it. And we suspect there are darker days 
 
 * This is done by men who take the title of “ The farmer’s friend." 
 
awaiting them than any they have seen. There seems to he a 
 thunder-cloud at present over their heads, the bursting of which 
 will, we fear, prove what we say to be too true. And we would 
 tell our large sheep-farmers, besides, that they and their system are 
 but a step in the downward progress of the country, and that they 
 are tracked by another system which pursues them rapidly, and 
 before which they must fall. Of late years deer are found to be 
 more profitable than sheep, and for these must the latter make way. 
 Their extinction is not far off; and much as we rejoice in our 
 beloved Sovereign’s visits to our country, we fear they may hasten 
 the consummation of making our Highlands a great deer-forest, by 
 inducing a larger number of our English aristocracy to flock to them 
 for the purposes of sport. We warn our large sheep-farmers that 
 there is a danger here; and we call on them, appealing to their self- 
 interest, if not to their patriotism, to make common cause with us 
 in resisting the evils that afflict, and still threaten the country, on 
 the only basis on which it can be done—the maintenance of popular 
 rights. And have the body of the people benefited ? Alas! few of 
 them in many places remain; but of those who do, if being reduced 
 in means, in mind, and in morals, be a benefit, then the benefit is 
 theirs. If being reduced from a state of honest, sturdy independence, 
 to that of miserable fawning serfdom, while beneath there is a 
 smouldering fire of deep-rooted hatred and discontent, be a benefit, 
 then the benefit is largely theirs. But if these things be evils, then 
 they are evils which form no small portion in the lot of the peasantry 
 of our country. 
 
 Another real cause of the depopulation of the Highlands is the 
 competition for the lands of the people among the larger farmers, 
 conjoined with the influence which these possess with the landlords 
 and their factors. We are glad to have it in our power to say, that 
 there are honourable exceptions ; but as a general rule, the larger 
 farmers of the Highlands—synonymous in some respects with the 
 middle-men of Ireland—are the scourges of the people. These men 
 have access to the proprietor, they frequently meet him, and they 
 are often the guests of the factor. The process is a simple one when 
 an ejection is desired. The people of a certain township are repre¬ 
 sented as exceedingly troublesome. They trespass, they steal; there 
 is no evil of which they are not capable, if the account of their neigh¬ 
 bour be true. Then they are said to be lazy. Donald So-and-so is a 
 worthless, lazy fellow; his land is in a shocking state; and a gentle 
 hint is thrown out, that if the place were in the hands of the 
 speaker, things would be in a different way. The laird is credulous. 
 
indifferent, or likes large farms; the factor thinks it easier to col¬ 
 lect the rent from one than from many; besides, his friend is a fine 
 companionable fellow. If the Established minister be present, he 
 is perhaps a large farmer himself, and his sympathies are with the 
 class; or perhaps he has a grudge at the people for their Free 
 Churchism, and he backs his friend and hearer. So poor Donald, 
 and John, and all the rest, are condemned in absence; and next 
 March brings on them, like a thunder-clap, a summons of removal, 
 and the population of perhaps a country side is swept away. Here, 
 we say, is the secret of many an ejection. 
 
 The next real reason for the ejectment system to which we ad¬ 
 vert, is one which has come recently into operation—we mean the 
 dread which proprietors entertain of the working of the New Poor 
 Law. And this is a cause which we suspect is operating more ex¬ 
 tensively than some parties would like to acknowledge. And it is 
 no wonder that all parties should feel alarmed. The rapid increase 
 of poor-rates is a subject for the serious consideration of the 
 country, and that as much with regard to the future as the present. 
 But what is the position which many of our proprietors hold as 
 respects the poor ? They, in the first place, did all they could to 
 force a poor-law on. They were in a great measure the origin of 
 it. By means of the ejectment system they reduced large bodies of 
 the people to a state of pauperism; and, by resisting with all their 
 force the claims of the Church to her spiritual freedom, they cut off 
 the only source of supply from w'hich these paupers could be sus¬ 
 tained. And now, how do they propose remedying their blunders ? 
 By laying hold on those paupers whom they have reduced to that 
 state, and remorsely expelling them from the land. In place of 
 seeking to retrace their steps, they plunge deeper in their course, 
 and add sin to sin. And they expect the country to look quietly 
 on; nay, they call for the military—who are paid out of the public 
 purse, and, in a measure, by the very people they are ejecting—to 
 aid them in perpetrating the atrocity. They must surely give the 
 public of this country no small credit for good-natured forbear¬ 
 ance, when they could venture to hint at such a thing; and this 
 is an amount of credit, we take leave to say, which is far from com¬ 
 plimentary to the nation. 
 
 We might mention, as another reason for the ejectment system, 
 the uncomplaining character of the people, and, in many cases, 
 their inability to make their grievances known, being, as they are, 
 separated from the rest of the community by their difference of 
 language and peculiarity of position. In the former of these cases 
 
17 
 
 they are assailed through their very virtue. They are a people who 
 “ fear God and honour the king,” and the oppressor does not dread 
 their revenge. In the latter case, advantage is taken of their pecu¬ 
 liar position, and consequent want of knowledge of the world and 
 its ways; and deeds are perpetrated within the Highland line which 
 men would not venture on this side of it. The people could not 
 plead their own cause, and they had few to plead it for them, and 
 they suffered in many cases unheard. 
 
 But we must hasten to consider the last of our reasons for the 
 system of ejection, and that is, the almost inextricable difficulties in 
 which many of the landlords are. Not long ago we noticed a great 
 Hebridean baron advertising his intention of raising £200,000 by 
 mortgage on his entailed estates. May there not he some connec¬ 
 tion between this fact and some recent clearings ? Charitable peoplp 
 may be inclined to say, that we should rather sympathize with men 
 who are thus in difficulties, and without means. But we say, if 
 they have no means they have no right to he landlords, any more 
 than other men in like circumstances, and are not entitled to our 
 sympathy till they cease to be so. Their difficulties involve the 
 misery of other parties innocent of any share in their production. 
 And what is the history of the poverty of many of our landlords ? 
 Is it not for the most part the result of horse-racing and gambling ? 
 Do not they spend their years in one unvarying whirl of levity and 
 dissipation ? and then, when they are at their last shilling, they turn 
 and avenge themselves on their unprotected tenantry ? And, wreeks 
 though they be, they must be bolstered up in their position by an 
 miquitous system of entails, and he aided by the law-officers of the 
 crown in inflicting punishment on parties who never injured them. 
 The captain has, by his ignorance and folly, wrecked the ship; 
 and, in the act of sinking, he turns to wreak his vengeance on the 
 crew. Better for him did he try to stop the leak, and make an 
 effort to get the ship, crew, and all, into working order. But, like 
 many other men in similar circumstances, their efforts at extrication 
 merely sink them deeper in the mire. What are they the better of 
 expelling the people ? They are so much out of pocket by assisting 
 them to emigrate, and whence or when is the sum to be recovered ? 
 What is this but expending the remnant they possess in a vain and 
 sinful effort to better themselves. They remind us of the scholastic, 
 who in the shipwreck, when all on board were looking about for 
 something to float them, in great triumph grasped the anchor as a 
 means of certain safety. How sad it is that many men, when in 
 difficulties, become thoroughly infatuated, and, instead of doing 
 
18 
 
 that which would help to relieve them, make efforts more like the 
 convulsive and aimless struggles of a drowning man than aught 
 else, or worse—^grasp at that which sinks them deeper. 
 
 We might with great safety mention ecclesiastical differences as 
 the secret cause of many clearings—there are estates in the High¬ 
 lands on which almost every office-bearer of the Free Church has 
 been carefully weeded out within the last few years; but we refrain. 
 We do not wish to make this a matter of any one Church more 
 than another. We wish it to be a question of general public inte¬ 
 rest. Besides, the body of the people expelled from South TJist were 
 Roman Catholics; and we have no more sjunpathy with the expa¬ 
 triation of Roman Catholics than with that of Free Churchmen. 
 We are the avowed opponents of Popery; but we would desire the 
 good of those who adhere to it. We earnestly pray for their con¬ 
 version ; but, so far as we can, we will resist their expatriation. 
 
 But, having thus given the causes which, we believe, prompt the 
 ejections in the Highlands, let us, in a few sentences, characterise 
 the system. And without doubt it is a system distinguished by un¬ 
 mingled cruelty. We would only ask our readers to witness for 
 once a clearing; and, if they did not read cruelty in every feature 
 of the transaction, we would be inclined to doubt their having the 
 feelings of ordinary humanity. We might be able to point out to 
 them, perhaps, the cottage of a poor widow with several children. 
 It is marked out for destruction. The enforcers of the law begin 
 the work of demolition. Her little articles of furniture (with many 
 of which, trifling though they be, there may be fond associations 
 connected with him who is now in the dust) are rudely cast out. 
 She has a small web of cloth, in a half-finished state, to which she 
 hopefully looks for the winter clothing of her little ones. It is mer¬ 
 cilessly cut from its place in the simple loom, and tossed heedlessly 
 amongst the rest of her furniture. The work of demolition proceeds 
 rapidly. Her dwelling is soon a wreck ; and she, who happens to 
 be on the shore gathering shell-fish to feed her starving children, 
 returns to find and weep over her now desolated home; while, dark 
 as is the present, the future is darker still. Such are the scenes that 
 mark a clearing. Multiply such scenes a hundred times, and, if we 
 go back some years, a thousand times over, and we hardly reach 
 the amount of cruelty exhibited in connection ivith Highland clear¬ 
 ings. And we would tell our clearing landlords, that there is not a 
 feeling that dwells in their breasts that does not exist in as great, 
 ay, and greater strength (for it has not been deadened by intercourse 
 with a heartless world), in the breast of him who inhabits the poorest 
 
19 
 
 cottage from which they can eject him. He loves his country, its 
 heathy mountains, and its rugged and stormy shores; he loves his 
 partner in life and his little ones, and desires their comfort as ear¬ 
 nestly as ever he who sat in baron’s hall. Do their ejectors then 
 think that there is no cruelty in their proceedings towards them ? 
 We just ask them how they would like to have the same measure 
 meted out to themselves they are meting to these people ? How would 
 they like that the officers of the law should visit their castles, in the 
 name of an indignant British public, and cast them forth upon a 
 cheerless world for their subsistence? And if the reason of the 
 thing is to be considered, we suspect that in uselessness, prodigality, 
 and neglected estates, better reasons could be found for their eject¬ 
 ment than for that of those who really suffer. But what we ask is, 
 Would they not think it hard measure? Would it not he sore to 
 bear? Then, let them remember that this is the very hardship they 
 are inflicting on an unoffending tenantry. 
 
 But the system is also most unjust. The title to the lands in the 
 Highlands is well known to have been different from that which 
 existed in any other part of the kingdom until modern times. The 
 system of civil economy in force there was the patriarchal. The 
 land did not belong to any individual ; it belonged to the sept. It 
 had been originally won either by the industry or the bravery of one 
 and all, and it was afterwards held by all as a matter of eq[ual right. 
 The chief was not the owner of the soil ; he was the Ceaim Cinnidk, 
 or the head of the clan. He was not the proprietor of the land; he 
 was the leader of the people; and so much rvas this the case, that 
 by the Tanist law the chief was elective. There was no direct here¬ 
 ditary succession, though it was respected when it suited otherwise 
 the object of the clan. Feudalism and its ruinous conseq^uences they 
 owe to Lowland Scotland, which owed them to the Normans; and 
 surely Lowland Scotland should now yield its assistance in undoing 
 ■ what it helped to do, and what is attended with such sad results. 
 Highland landlords for many centuries disdained feudal charters; 
 but, now that they have an object to accomplish, they bring them to 
 hear with dire effect. But while they do so, we maintain that they 
 are perpetrating an act of distinct spoliation. It is as much robbery 
 as if they crept into the people’s outhouses in the night and robbed 
 them of their cattle. It may not be so in law, but it is so in fact. 
 
 But the system is one which is opposed to the best interests of 
 this kingdom. Does the strength of a nation consist in no small 
 degree in the number of its people ? Then he who lessens their 
 numbers is the enemy of his country. But it may he said that the 
 
20 
 
 ratio of increase in the population of Great Britain is sufficiently 
 great! Then we take up the question of quality, and ask, Is it 
 for the best interests of this country to he importing thousands of 
 starving Irish to cluster in our large towns, and eat the very vitals 
 out of the middle classes of the people, as paupers, and, at the same 
 time, export a number as great of industrious, well-disposed, peace¬ 
 able people? Is this a wholesome system for the country? Does it 
 ' promise well for the future ? Certainly not. But where are we 
 sending these people ? To America,—many of them to the United 
 States, where they at once go to strengthen the hands of a foreign 
 power; and many to Canada, which, now a colony of Britain, is 
 likely one day, and that not a distant one, to be an opponent of our 
 nation. And when the country is in difficulties, and needs de¬ 
 fenders, will we raise the 42d, and the 72d, and the 79th, and the 
 93d, among our desolated straths, to earn victory for Britain on the 
 field of battle? We imagine not. And this is a consideration not to 
 be lightly dismissed by the man who wishes well to his country. 
 
 And, again, the system is one which is in direct contravention of 
 the Divine appointment. God gave man the earth. It is no doubt 
 accursed because of his transgression; but accursed though it be, it 
 was given him by his Maker, to extract from it his daily bread in 
 the sweat of his face. It was left to an iniquitous system of human 
 laws to double the curse, and withhold from him the earth itself. 
 It is a sad spectacle to see the brute—the soulless brute—feeding 
 and fattening, cherished with all man’s skill, while immortal man 
 himself is either suffered to pine and perish, or driven away like a 
 thing of nought. But this is the result of the system which we are 
 exposing. Can there be any situation in life more trying to human 
 patience than that of the man who is the daily witness of the sheep 
 and the deer fattening at his door, while he must fold his arms, and 
 see his beloved ones waste and die, and yet dare not upturn a foot 
 of the soil, or cast one seed into its fertile bosom? Far he it from us 
 to assail the laws that go to adjust wisely and usefully the distribu¬ 
 tion of property; but we do raise our protest against a system, the 
 effect of which is to secure the benefit of the few, even were it their 
 benefit, at the expense of the misery of the many. 
 
 And now the practical question arises. What can be done to 
 remedy the evil we have been endeavouring to expose ? It may 
 occur to some that it would be well to agitate the question of secu¬ 
 rity of tenure generally over the kingdom—that there should be 
 grounds distinct from the mere will of the landlord, on which alone 
 
21 
 
 a tenant can be removed. No doubt there would be great difficul¬ 
 ties in detail here; but it is a startling fact, that 25,000 individuals 
 are at this moment legally entitled to expel the whole of the rest of 
 the rural population from this kingdom. Such an agitation would 
 have this advantage, that it would secure the concurrence and sup¬ 
 port of the great body of the tenant farmers. The difficulty at pre¬ 
 sent in obtaining any reform bearing upon the agricultural portions 
 of the country is in detaching the tenants from the landlords; but 
 such a movement as the above would have the effect most com¬ 
 pletely. We do not pretend to say whether a movement of the 
 kind would be a wise one; nor do we profess to speak of it as if it 
 were a new suggestion. We merely introduce it as bearing upon 
 the question under considf ration, and as meeting a difficulty—we 
 mean that of including this merely Highland question in some great 
 national movement, without which we fear that much cannot be 
 
 Another remedy which suggests itself is an action at law, to try 
 the question of right on the part of the Highland landlords. We 
 know that there are great authorities in favour of the people in the 
 matter, and some have been surprised that the question never has 
 been raised. We do not intend being the apologists of the people 
 of Hist in their resistance to the execution of the law, though we 
 feel the force of the truth, that “ oppression maketh a wise man 
 mad; ’’ but did they raise the question of right, we think they would 
 do wisely; nor do we imagine that they would want support in 
 carrying their action into Court. At the same time, we fear for the 
 result. Our law courts are so completely made up of the privileged 
 classes, and so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the feudal law, 
 that we have misgivings as to their success. Still, the question is 
 one which affords ample room for discussion, and in which a strong 
 case—in fact, an impregnable case—can be made out, at least on 
 the ground of equity, for the people. 
 
 Another remedy which we heartily propose is, an earnest, vigorous 
 assault by the country on the laws of entail and primogeniture. 
 These laws have been the curse of this nation. They have fettered 
 the soil which the Creator made free. They have beggared the 
 proprietors, and they have beggared the people. They have formed 
 a great and widening gulf between the different classes of the com¬ 
 munity. They have checked the progress of improvement; and 
 they have kept down, many degrees, the standard of general com¬ 
 fort and happiness. It is a remarkable fact, that the abolition of 
 these laws in France has raised the number of the proprietors of the 
 
22 
 
 soil from 2,000,000 to 15,000,000, and has, notwithstanding the 
 compulsory division of land—against which we equally objeet— 
 proportionally raised the standard of comfort and independence 
 among the people. And here, let us remark, that it appears to us 
 not a little surprising that these laws should not have attracted 
 more of the notice of the great reforming parties in the country. 
 We can easily see that no reform short of their abolition will truly 
 .reach the root of our social and political evils, so far as these depend 
 upon our laws. Any other reform is a mere scratching of the sur¬ 
 face. Let what political changes, men choose be made, and these 
 laws will baulk them of the advantage. They have deprived the 
 country, in a great measure, of the benefits of the Eeform Bill, and 
 will also of the measures of free trade. It is vain to expect that we 
 can emancipate the people until we emancipate the soil. Men 
 naturally follow the fate of the soil. There is nothing else here 
 with which they are so closely connected, and on which they so 
 entirely depend. Let other laws be made as men list, it is the 
 state of the soil that will ever decide the state of the people. 
 Let the laws, then, that fetter it be abolished. We wish we could 
 believe that the knell of their extinction was rung. And were the 
 question fairly taken up by men able to grapple with it, and who 
 feared not the face of man, we would have little doubt of seeing the 
 object we desire accomplished. Unquestionably, it would be the 
 greatest political struggle this country has witnessed in modern 
 times. Political privileges, with all the tenacity with which men 
 cling to them, are little redd of when compared with those which 
 effeir to property. But powerful as the opposing confederacy would 
 be, we feel assured that a decided assault, associated as it would he 
 with a good and popular cause, would put all opponents to the 
 route, and that the laws of entail and primogeniture, with all their 
 accompanying evils, would be expunged from the statute-book of 
 the realm. 
 
 And let us here say, that we make these remarks in the spirit of 
 the truest conservatism. We wish to touch no man’s property;— 
 let every man quietly enjoy his own; but we desire to have all pro¬ 
 perty under the control of a system of laws that shall secure the 
 wellbeing of the nation. We wish to see this done constitutionally; 
 and we wish to tell our landlords, that better is a constitutional 
 movement for this end, than such a movement as brought about a 
 like change in France; and it does not require the spirit of prophecy 
 to be able to say that one or other will, nay, must occur. 
 
 And we would also take leave to say to those who may be in- 
 
dined to step forward in defence of our Highland population, that 
 they haye no easy task before them. They must nail their flag to 
 the mast. The opposing party have done so already. The pro¬ 
 ceedings at the late Circuit Court at Inverness show us distinctly 
 that they are resolved to carry their point, at whatever cost. Four 
 men are arrested, charged with resisting the levelling of their houses; 
 and, having been admitted to bail, have to find their way, as they 
 best can, to Inverness, 120 miles off, to be tried for this breach of 
 the law. They are refused a passage in the steamer sent for the 
 witnesses for the prosecution; still their bail-bond is redeemed; 
 they keep their day, and appear at the bar, without a single witness 
 in their favour, being without the means of bringing them forward; 
 without counsel, save what was provided at the last hour by public 
 benevolence. The trial proceeds; and a jury, whose names deserve 
 to he held in high honour, return the following verdict;—“The 
 jury, by a majority, find the pannels guilty as libelled, &c.; mia~ 
 nimously recommend the pannels to the utmost mercy and leniency 
 of the Court, in consideration of the cruel, though it may be legal, 
 proceedings adopted in ejecting the whole people of Sollas from their 
 houses and crofts, without the prospect of shelter or a footing in 
 their fatherland, or even the means of expatriating them to a foreign 
 one.” And yet, after such a verdict, these men, who have ever 
 borne a character of the highest respectability, are, as we hold, with 
 most undue severity, sentenced to four months’ imprisonment—that 
 imprisonment to be followed up virtually by perpetual banishment to 
 America at the instance of their prosecutor, and all this for defend¬ 
 ing what may turn out to he their just rights. It is not the sentence 
 of the judge, however, which we wish to mark here, but the deter¬ 
 mined resolution of the oppressor to carry his purpose out. What 
 we covet, then, is equal determination—nay, superior—in offering 
 sympathy and constitutional resistance. 
 
 But now we desire to call the attention of the public to a question 
 in which they are deeply involved, as closely connected with these 
 ejections—we mean that of a legal provision for the able-bodied 
 poor of the country. These proceedings of our Highland landlords 
 must undoubtedly hurry such a measure on. We believe it is talked 
 of in high quarters already as a remedy for these grievances. But 
 is the country prepared for this ? Are the middle classes in our 
 large cities willing to be offered up a sacrifice at the shrine of land¬ 
 lord oppression? We should hope not. Still it is a result they 
 have to fear. There is a class of politicians who dread touching the 
 real grievances of the country, and who would like to patch things 
 
•24 
 
 up, and keep them as long as possible as they are. Sucli men are 
 likely to look with fond ej'es on a measure of the kind spoken of; 
 and, if the middle classes wish to he relieved from the burden of 
 supporting out of their often scanty means those whom Highland 
 and other lairds choose to sweep off their estates, let them now step 
 forward and utter their voice in condemnation of ejections. Let the 
 people have the land at its value, and we will have little occasion for 
 poor-laws. 
 
 And now, let us express our hope that the subject of Highland 
 clearings may be taken up by parties able to do so with practical 
 effect. They present an object of intensest interest to every one pos¬ 
 sessed of the feelings of ordinary humanity; hut, above all, they 
 present to the Christian public an object worthy of their efforts and 
 their prayers. AVe do not imagine that it belongs to the Church, as 
 a Church, to take the question up; hut. surely no question befits 
 more its living members in their individual capacity. What move¬ 
 ment could be more worthy of the followers of Him who healed the 
 sick, restored the sorrowing widow her son, and whose heart ever 
 melted in the presence of human suffering ? But we have done. 
 And if these imperfect notices have in any way added to the public 
 interest in a subject in which we feel deeply interested ourselves, 
 our object is accomplished.