The History of the Highland Clearances 16

The History of the Highland Clearances 16

You should be surprised to hear and learn, madam, for what purposes

most of the money drained from the Duke’s coffers yearly are expended

since he became the Duke and proprietor of Sutherland, upholding the

Loch policy. There are no fewer than seventeen who are known by the

name of water bailiffs in the county, who receive yearly salaries,

what doing, think you? Protecting the operations of the Loch policy,

watching day and night the freshwater lakes, rivers, and creeks,

teeming with the finest salmon and trout fish in the world, guarding

from the famishing people, even during the years of famine and

dire distress, when many had to subsist upon weeds, sea-ware, and

shell-fish, yet guarded and preserved for the amusement of English

anglers; and what is still more heartrending, to prevent the dying by

hunger to pick up any of the dead fish left by the sporting anglers

rotting on the lake, creek, and river sides, when the smallest of them,

or a morsel, would be considered by hundreds, I may say thousands,

of the needy natives, a treat; but they durst not touch them, or if

they did and were found out to jail they were conducted, or removed

summarily from his Grace’s domains; (let me be understood, these

gentlemen had no use for the fish, killing them for amusement, only

what they required for their own use, and complimented to the factors;

they were not permitted to cure them).

 

You will find, madam, that about three miles from Dunrobin Castle

there is a branch of the sea which extends up the county about six

miles, where shell-fish, called mussels, abound. Here you will find

two sturdy men, called mussel bailiffs, supplied with rifles and

ammunition, and as many Newfoundland dogs as assistants, watching

the mussel scalps, or beds, to preserve them from the people in the

surrounding parishes of Dornoch, Rogart, and Golspie, and keep them,

to supply the fishermen, on the opposite side of the Moray Firth,

with bait, who come there every year and take away thousands of tons

of this nutritive shell-fish, when many hundreds of the people would

be thankful for a diet per day of them, to pacify the cravings of

nature. You will find that the unfortunate native fishermen, who

pay a yearly rent to his Grace for bait, are only permitted theirs

from the refuse left by the strangers of the other side of the Moray

Firth, and if they violate the _iron_ rule laid down to them, they are

entirely at the mercy of the underlings. There has been an instance

of two of the fishermen’s wives going on a cold, snowy, frosty day to

gather bait, but on account of the boisterous sea, could not reach the

place appointed by the factors; one took what they required from the

forbidden ground, and was observed by some of the bailiffs, in ambush,

who pursued them like tigers. One came up to her unobserved, took out

his knife, and cut the straps by which the basket or creel on her back

was suspended; the weight on her back fell to the ground, and she, poor

woman, big in the family way, fell her whole length forward in the snow

and frost. Her companion turned round to see what had happened, when

she was pushed back with such force that she fell; he then trampled

their baskets and mussels to atoms, took them both prisoners, ordered

one of them to call his superior bailiff to assist him, and kept the

other for two hours standing, wet as she was, among frost and snow,

until the superior came a distance of three miles. After a short

consultation upon the enormity of the crime, the two poor women were

led, like convicted criminals, to Golspie, to appear before Lycurgus

Gunn, and in that deplorable condition were left standing before their

own doors in the snow, until Marshall Gunn found it convenient to

appear and pronounce judgment,--verdict: You are allowed to go into

your houses this night; this day week you must leave this village

for ever, and the whole of the fishermen of the village are strictly

prohibited from taking bait from the Little Ferry until you leave; my

bailiffs are requested to see this my decree strictly attended to.

Being the middle of winter and heavy snow, they delayed a week longer:

ultimately the villagers had to expel the two families from among

them, so that they would get bait, having nothing to depend upon for

subsistence but the fishing, and fish they could not without bait.

This is a specimen of the injustice to and subjugation of the Golspie

fishermen, and of the people at large; likewise of the purposes for

which the Duke’s money is expended in that quarter. If you go, then, to

the other side of the domain, you will find another Kyle, or a branch

of the sea, which abounds in cockles and other shell-fish, fortunately

for the poor people, not forbidden by a Loch ukase. But in the years

of distress, when the people were principally living upon vegetables,

sea-weeds, and shell-fish, various diseases made their appearance

amongst them hitherto unknown. The absence of meal of any kind being

considered the primary cause, some of the people thought they would be

permitted to exchange shell-fish for meal with their more fortunate

neighbours in Caithness, to whom such shell-fish were a rarity, and

so far the understanding went between them, that the Caithness boats

came up loaded with meal, but the Loch embargo, through his underling

in Tongue, who was watching their movements, was at once placed upon

it; the Caithness boats had to return home with the meal, and the

Duke’s people might live or die, as they best could. Now, madam, you

have steeped your brains, and ransacked the English language to find

refined terms for your panegyric on the Duke, Duchess, and family of

Sutherland. (I find no fault with you, knowing you have been well paid

for it.) But I would briefly ask you (and others who devoted much of

their time and talents in the same strain), would it not be more like

a noble pair--if they did merit such noble praise as you have bestowed

upon them--if they had, especially during years of famine and distress,

freely opened up all these bountiful resources which God in His eternal

wisdom and goodness prepared for His people, and which should never be

intercepted nor restricted by man or men. You and others have composed

hymns of praise, which it is questionable if there is a tune in heaven

to sing them to.

 

So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under

the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had

no comforter: and on the side of their oppressors there was power;

but they had no comforter.--Ecclesiastes iv. 1.

 

The wretch that works and weeps without relief

Has one that notices his silent grief.

He, from whose hands all pow’r proceeds

Ranks its abuse among the foulest deeds,

Considers _all_ injustice with a frown,

But _marks_ the man that treads his fellow down.

Remember Heav’n has an avenging rod--

To smite the poor is treason against God.--_Cowper._

 

But you shall find the Duke’s money is expended for most astonishing

purposes; not a little of it goes to hire hypocrites, and renowned

literary flatterers, to vindicate the mal-administration of those to

whom he entrusted the management of his affairs, and make his Grace

(who is by nature a simple-minded man) believe his servants are

innocent of all the charges brought against them, and doing justice to

himself and to his people, when they are doing the greatest injustice

to both; so that instead of calling his servants to account at any

time, and enquiring into the broad charges brought against them--as

every wise landlord should do--it seems the greater the enormities of

foul deeds they commit, and the louder their accusations may sound

through the land, the farther they are received into his favour. The

fact is, that James Loch was Duke of Sutherland, and not the “tall,

slender man with rather a thin face, light brown hair, and mild blue

eyes,” who armed you up the extraordinary elegant staircase in Stafford

House.

 

The Duchess of Sutherland pays a visit every year to Dunrobin Castle,

and has seen and heard so many supplicating appeals presented to her

husband by the poor fishermen of Golspie, soliciting liberty to take

mussels from the Little Ferry Sands to bait their nets--a liberty of

which they were deprived by his factors, though paying yearly rent for

it; yet returned by his Grace with the brief deliverance, that he could

do nothing for them. Can I believe that this is the same personage

who can set out from Dunrobin Castle, her own Highland seat, and

after travelling from it, then can ride in one direction over thirty

miles, in another direction forty-four miles, in another, by taking

the necessary circuitous route, sixty miles, and that over fertile

glens, valleys, and straths, bursting with fatness, which gave birth

to, and where were reared for ages, thousands of the bravest, the most

moral, virtuous, and religious men that Europe could boast of; ready

to a man, at a moment’s warning from their chiefs, to rise in defence

of their king, queen, and country; animated with patriotism and love

to their chief, and irresistible in the battle contest for victory?

But these valiant men had then a _country_, a _home_, and a _chief_

worth the fighting for. But I can tell her that she can now ride over

these extensive tracts in the interior of the county without seeing the

image of God upon a man travelling these roads, with the exception of

a wandering Highland shepherd, wrapped up in a grey plaid to the eyes,

with a collie dog behind him as a drill sergeant to train his ewes and

to marshal his tups. There may happen to travel over the dreary tract a

geologist, a tourist, or a lonely carrier, but these are as rare as a

pelican in the wilderness, or a camel’s convoy caravan in the deserts

of Arabia. Add to this a few English sportsmen, with their stag hounds,

pointer dogs, and servants, and put themselves and their bravery

together, and one company of French soldiers would put ten thousand of

them to a disorderly flight, to save their own carcases, leaving their

ewes and tups to feed the invaders!

 

The question may arise, where those people, who inhabited this

country at one period, have gone? In America and Australia the most

of them will be found. The Sutherland family and the nation had no

need of their services; hence they did not regard their patriotism

or loyalty, and disregarded their past services. Sheep, bullocks,

deer, and game, became more valuable than men. Yet a remnant, or in

other words a _skeleton_, of them is to be found along the sea shore,

huddled together in motley groups upon barren moors, among cliffs and

precipices, in the most impoverished, degraded, subjugated, slavish,

spiritless, condition that human beings could exist in. If this is

really the lady who has “Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth,

and good will to men,” in view, and who is so religiously denouncing

the American statute which “denies the slave the sanctity of marriage,

with all its joys, rights, and obligations--which separates, at the

will of the master, the wife from the husband, the children from the

parents,” I would advise her in God’s name to take a tour round the

sea-skirts of Sutherland, her own estate, beginning at Brora, then to

Helmsdale, Portskerra, Strathy, Farr, Tongue, Durness, Eddrachillis,

and Assynt, and learn the subjugated, degraded, impoverished,

uneducated condition of the spiritless people of that sea-beaten coast,

about two hundred miles in length, and let her with similar zeal

remonstrate with her husband, that their condition is bettered; for the

cure for all their misery and want is lying unmolested in the fertile

valleys above, and all under his control; and to advise his Grace, her

husband, to be no longer guided by his Ahitophel, Mr. Loch, but to

discontinue his depopulating schemes, which have separated many a wife

from her husband, never to meet--which caused many a premature death,

and that separated many sons and daughters, never to see each other;

and by all means to withdraw that mandate of Mr. Loch, which forbids

marriage on the Sutherland estate, under pains and penalties of being

banished from the county; for it has already augmented illegitimate

connections and issues fifty per cent above what such were a few years

ago--before this unnatural, ungodly law was put in force.

 

Let us see what the character of these ill-used people was! General

Stewart of Garth, in his “Sketches of the Highlands” says: In the

words of a general officer by whom the 93rd Sutherlanders were once

reviewed, “They exhibit a perfect pattern of military discipline and

moral rectitude. In the case of such men disgraceful punishment would

be as unnecessary as it would be pernicious.” “Indeed,” says the

General, “so remote was the idea of such a measure in regard to them,

that when punishments were to be inflicted on others, and the troops

in garrison assembled to witness their execution, the presence of

the Sutherland Highlanders was dispensed with, the effects of terror

as a check to crime being in their case uncalled for, as examples of

that nature were not necessary for such honourable soldiers. When

the Sutherland Highlanders were stationed at the Cape of Good Hope

anxious to enjoy the advantages of religious instruction agreeably

to the tenets of their national church, and there being no religious

service in the garrison except the customary one of reading prayers to

the soldiers on parade, the Sutherland men formed themselves into a

congregation, appointed elders of their own number, engaged and paid a

stipend (collected among themselves) to a clergyman of the Church of

Scotland, and had divine service performed agreeably to the ritual of

the Established Church every Sabbath, and prayer meetings through the

week.” This reverend gentleman, Mr. Thom, in a letter which appeared

in the _Christian Herald_ of October, 1814, writes thus: “When the

93rd Highlanders left Cape Town last month, there were among them 156

members of the church, including three elders and three deacons, all of

whom, so far as men can know the heart from the life, were pious men.

The regiment was certainly a pattern of morality, and good behaviour

to all other corps. They read their Bibles and observed the Sabbath.

They saved their money to do good. 7000 rix dollars, a sum equal to

£1200, the non-commissioned officers and privates saved for books,

societies, and for the spread of the Gospel, a sum unparalleled in

any other corps in the world, given in the short space of eighteen

months. Their example had a general good effect on both the colonists

and the heathen. If ever apostolic days were revived in modern times

on earth, I certainly believe some of those to have been granted

to us in Africa.” Another letter of a similar kind, addressed to

the Committee of the Edinburgh Gaelic School Society (fourth annual

report), says: “The 93rd Highlanders arrived in England, when they

immediately received orders to proceed to North America; but before

they re-embarked the sum collected for your society was made up

and remitted to your treasurer, amounting to seventy-eight pounds, sterling.”