The History of the Highland Clearances 15

The History of the Highland Clearances 15

Loch, his chief commissioner; to Mr. W. Mackenzie, his chief lawyer

in Edinburgh; to every one of their underlings, to sheep farmers, and

ministers in the county of Sutherland, who abetted the depopulators,

and I challenged the whole of them, and other literary scourges who

aid and justified their unhallowed doings, to gainsay one statement I

have made. Can you or any other believe that a poor sinner like Donald

MacLeod would be allowed for so many years to escape with impunity,

had he been circulating and publishing calumnious, absurd falsehoods

against such personages as the House of Sutherland? No, I tell you, if

money could secure my punishment, without establishing their own shame

and guilt, that it would be considered well-spent long ere now,--they

would eat me in penny pies if they could get me cooked for them.

 

I agree with you that the Duchess of Sutherland is a beautiful,

accomplished lady, who would shudder at the idea of taking a faggot or

a burning torch in her hand to set fire to the cottages of her tenants,

and so would her predecessor, the first Duchess of Sutherland, her

good mother; likewise would the late and present Dukes of Sutherland,

at least I am willing to believe that they would. Yet it was done

in their name, under their authority, to their knowledge, and with

their sanction. The dukes and duchesses of Sutherland, and those of

their depopulating order, had not, nor have they any call to defile

their pure hands in milder work than to burn people’s houses; no,

no, they had, and have plenty of willing tools at their beck to

perform their dirty work. Whatever amount of humanity and purity of

heart the late or the present Duke and Duchess may possess or be

ascribed to them, we know the class of men from whom they selected

their commissioners, factors, and underlings. I knew every one of the

unrighteous servants who ruled the Sutherland estate for the last fifty

years, and I am justified in saying that the most skilful phrenologist

and physiognomist that ever existed could not discern one spark of

humanity in the whole of them, from Mr. Loch down to Donald Sgrios,

or Damnable Donald, the name by which the latter was known. The most

of those cruel executors of the atrocities I have been describing are

now dead, and to be feared but not lamented. But it seems their chief

was left to give you all the information you required about British

slavery and oppression. I have read from speeches delivered by Mr.

Loch at public dinners among his own party, “that he would never be

satisfied until the Gaelic language and the Gaelic people would be

extirpated root and branch from the Sutherland estate; yes, from the

Highlands of Scotland.” He published a book, where he stated as a

positive fact, “that when he got the management of the Sutherland

estate he found 408 families on the estate who never heard the name of

Jesus,”--whereas I could make oath that there were not at that time,

and for ages prior to it, above two families within the limits of the

county who did not worship that Name and holy Being every morning and

evening. I know there are hundreds in the Canadas who will bear me out

in this assertion. I was at the pulling down and burning of the house

of William Chisholm. I got my hands burnt taking out the poor old woman

from amidst the flames of her once-comfortable though humble dwelling,

and a more horrifying and lamentable scene could scarcely be witnessed.

I may say the skeleton of a once tall, robust, high-cheek-boned,

respectable woman, who had seen better days; who could neither hear,

see, nor speak; without a tooth in her mouth, her cheek skin meeting

in the centre, her eyes sunk out of sight in their sockets, her mouth

wide open, her nose standing upright among smoke and flames, uttering

piercing moans of distress and agony, in articulations from which

could be only understood, “_Oh, Dhia, Dhia, teine, teine_--Oh God,

God, fire, fire.” When she came to the pure air, her bosom heaved to

a most extraordinary degree, accompanied by a deep hollow sound from

her lungs, comparable to the sound of thunder at a distance. When laid

down upon the bare, soft, moss floor of the roofless shed, I will

never forget the foam of perspiration which emitted and covered the

pallid death-looking countenance. This was a scene, madam, worthy of an

artist’s pencil, and of a conspicuous place on the stages of tragedy.

Yet you call this a specimen of the ridiculous stories which found

their way into respectable prints, because Mr. Loch, the chief actor,

told you that Sellar, the head executive, brought an action against the

sheriff and obtained a verdict for heavy damages. What a subterfuge;

but it will not answer the purpose, “_the bed is too short to stretch

yourself, and the covering too narrow and short to cover you_.” If you

took the information and evidence upon which you founded your _Uncle

Tom’s Cabin_ from such unreliable sources (as I said before), who can

believe the one-tenth of your novel? I cannot. I have at my hand here

the grandchild of the slaughtered old woman, who recollects well of

the circumstance. I have not far from me a respectable man, an elder

in the Free Church, who was examined as a witness at Sellar’s trial,

at the Spring Assizes of Inverness, in 1816, which you will find

narrated in letters four and five of my work. Had you the opportunity,

madam, of seeing the scenes which I, and hundreds more, have seen--the

wild ferocious appearance of the infamous _gang_ who constituted the

burning party, covered over face and hands with soot and ashes of the

burning houses, cemented by torch-grease and their own sweat, kept

continually drunk or half-drunk while at work; and to observe the

hellish amusements some of them would get up for themselves and for

an additional pleasure to their leaders! The people’s houses were

generally built upon declivities, and in many cases not far from pretty

steep precipices. They preserved their meal in tight-made boxes, or

chests, as they were called, and when this fiendish party found any

quantity of meal, they would carry it between them to the brink,

and dispatch it down the precipice amidst shrieks and yells. It was

considered grand sport to see the box breaking to atoms and the meal

mixed with the air. When they would set fire to a house, they would

watch any of the domestic animals making their escape from the flames,

such as dogs, cats, hens, or any poultry; these were caught and thrown

back to the flames--grand sport for demons in human form!

 

As to the vaunted letter which his “Grace received from one of the most

determined opposers of the measures, who travelled in the north of

Scotland as editor of a newspaper, regretting all that he had written

on the subject, being convinced that he was misinformed,” I may tell

you, madam, that this man did not travel to the north or in the north

of Scotland, as editor; his name was Thomas Mulock; he came to Scotland

a fanatic speculator in literature in search of money, or a lucrative

situation, vainly thinking that he would be a dictator to every

editor in Scotland. He first attacked the immortal Hugh Miller of the

_Witness_, Edinburgh, but in him he met more than his match. He then

went to the north, got hold of my first pamphlet, and by setting it up

in a literary style, and in better English than I, he made a splendid

and promising appearance in the northern papers for some time; but

he found out that the money expected was not coming in, and that the

hotels, head inns, and taverns would not keep him up any longer without

the prospect of being paid for the past or for the future. I found out

that he was hard up, and a few of the Highlanders in Edinburgh and

myself sent him from twenty to thirty pounds sterling. When he saw

that that was all he was to get, he at once turned tail upon us, and

instead of expressing his gratitude, he abused us unsparingly, and

regretted that ever he wrote in behalf of such a hungry, moneyless

class. He smelled (like others we suspect) where the gold was hoarded

up for hypocrites and flatterers, and that one apologising letter to

his Grace would be worth ten times as much as he could expect from the

Highlanders all his lifetime; and I doubt not it was, for his apology

for the sin of misinformation got wide circulation.

 

He then went to France and started an English paper in Paris, and for

the service he rendered Napoleon in crushing republicanism during the

besieging of Rome, etc., the Emperor presented him with a _gold pin_,

and in a few days afterwards sent a _gendarme_ to him with a brief

notice that his service was not any longer required, and a warning to

quit France in a few days, which he had to do. What became of him after

I know not, but very likely he is dictating to young Loch, or some

other Metternich.

 

No feelings of hostile vindictiveness, no desire to inflict

chastisement, no desire to make riches, influenced my mind, pourtraying

the scenes of havoc and misery which in those past days darkened the

annals of Sutherland. I write in my own humble style, with higher

aims, wishing to prepare the way for demonstrating to the Dukes of

Sutherland, and all other Highland proprietors, great and small, that

the path of selfish aggrandisement and oppression leads by sure and

inevitable results, yea to the ruin and destruction of the blind and

misguided oppressors themselves. I consider the Duke himself victimised

on a large scale by an incurably wrong system, and by being enthralled

by wicked counsellors and servants. I have no hesitation in saying, had

his Grace and his predecessors bestowed one-half of the encouragement

they had bestowed upon strangers on the aborigines--a hardy, healthy,

abstemious people, who lived peaceably in their primitive habitations,

unaffected with the vices of a subtle civilization, possessing little,

but enjoying much; a race devoted to their hereditary chief, ready to

abide by his counsels; a race profitable in peace, and loyal, available

in war; I say, his Grace, the present Duke of Sutherland, and his

beautiful Duchess, would be without compeers in the British dominions,

their rents, at least doubled; would be as secure from invasion and

annoyance in Dunrobin Castle as Queen Victoria could, or can be, in

her Highland residence, at Balmoral, and far safer than she is in

her English home, Buckingham Palace; every man and son of Sutherland

would be ready, as in the days of yore, to shed the last drop of

their blood in defence of their chief, if required. Congratulations,

rejoicings, dancing to the martial notes of the pipes, would meet

them at the entrance to every glen and strath in Sutherlandshire,

accompanied, surrounded, and greeted, as they proceeded, by the most

grateful, devotedly attached, happy, and bravest peasantry that ever

existed; yes, but alas! where there is nothing now, but desolation and

the cries of famine and want, to meet the noble pair--the ruins of

once comfortable dwellings--will be seen the landmarks of the furrows

and ridges which yielded food to thousands, the footprints of the

arch-enemy of human happiness, and ravager--before, after, and on each

side, solitude, stillness, and the quiet of the grave, disturbed only

at intervals by the yells of a shepherd, or fox-hunter, and the bark

of a collie dog. Surely we must admit that the Marquises and Dukes

of Sutherland have been duped and victimised to a most extraordinary

and incredible extent; and we have Mr. Loch’s own words for it in his

speech in the House of Commons, June 21st, 1845: “I can state, as

from facts, that from 1811 to 1833, not one sixpence of rent has been

received from that county; but, on the contrary, there has been sent

there for the benefit and improvement of the people a sum exceeding

sixty thousand pounds sterling.” Now think you of this immense wealth

which has been expended. I am not certain, but I think the rental of

the county would exceed £60,000 a year; you have then from 1811 to

1833, twenty-two years, leaving them at the above figures, and the

sum total will amount to £1,320,000 expended upon the self-styled

Sutherland improvements; add to this £60,000 sent down to preserve the

lives of the victims of those improvements from death by famine, and

the sum total will turn out in the shape of £1,380,000. It surely cost

the heads of the house of Sutherland an immense sum of money to convert

the county into the state I have described it in a former part of this work (and I challenge contradiction).