The History of the Highland Clearances 27

The History of the Highland Clearances 27

“Now, so far as I can discover, after careful enquiry among the men’s

neighbours and in the village of Lochcarron, nothing can be said

against either of them. Their characters are in every respect above

suspicion. The ground officer, whom I have seen, admits all this,

and makes no pretence that the eviction is for any other reason than

the conduct of the young men in prosecuting and succeeding against

himself in the Sheriff Court for defamation of character. Maclean

paid rent for his present holding for the last sixty years, and never

failed to pay it on the appointed day. His father, grandfather, and

great-grandfather occupied the same place, and so did their ancestors

before them. Indeed, his grandfather held one-half of the township,

now occupied by more than a hundred people. The old man is in his 81st

year, and bed-ridden--on his death-bed in fact--since the middle of

January last, he having then had a paralytic stroke from which it is

quite impossible he can ever recover. It was most pitiable to see the

aged and frail human wreck as I saw him that day, and to have heard him

talking of the cruelty and hard-heartedness of those who took advantage

of the existing law to push him out of the home which he has occupied

so long, while he is already on the brink of eternity. I quite agreed

with him, and I have no hesitation in saying that if Mr. Stuart and

his ground officer only called to see the miserable old man, as I did,

their hearts, however adamantine, would melt, and they would at once

declare to him that he would be allowed to end his days, and die in

peace, under the roof which for generations had sheltered himself and

his ancestors. The wife is over 70 years of age, and the frail old

couple have no one to succour them but the son who has been the cause,

by defending his own character, of their present misfortunes. Whatever

Mr. Stuart and his ground officer may do, or attempt to do, the old man

will not, and cannot be evicted until he is carried to the churchyard;

and it would be far more gracious on their part to relent and allow the

old man to die in peace.

 

“Mackenzie has paid rent for over 40 years, and his ancestors have done

so for several generations before him. He is nearly sixty years of age,

and is highly popular among his neighbours, all of whom are intensely

grieved at Mr. Stuart’s cruel and hard-hearted conduct towards him and

Maclean, and they still hope that he will not proceed to extremities.

 

“The whole case is a lamentable abuse of the existing law, and such as

will do more to secure its abolition, when the facts are fully known,

than all the other cases of eviction which have taken place in the

Highlands during the present generation. There is no pretence that

the case is anything else than a gross and cruel piece of retaliation

against the innocent parents for conduct on the part of their sons

which must have been very aggravating to this proprietor and his ground

officer, who appear to think themselves fully justified in perpetuating

such acts of grossest cruelty and injustice.”

 

This report was slightly noticed at the time in the local and

Glasgow newspapers, and attention was thus directed to Mr. Stuart’s

proceedings. His whole conduct appeared so cruelly tyrannical that

most people expected him to relent before the day of eviction arrived.

But not so; a sheriff officer and his assistants from Dingwall duly

arrived, and proceeded to turn Mackenzie’s furniture out of his house.

People congregated from all parts of the district, some of them coming

more than twenty miles. The sheriff officer sent for the Lochcarron

policemen to aid him, but, notwithstanding, the law which admitted

of such unmitigated cruelty and oppression was set at defiance;

the sheriff officers were deforced, and the furniture returned to

the house by the sympathising crowd. What was to be done next? The

Procurator-Fiscal for the county was Mr. Stuart’s law agent in carrying

out the evictions. How could he criminally prosecute for deforcement

in these circumstances? The Crown authorities found themselves in a

dilemma, and through the tyranny of the proprietor on the one hand,

and the interference of the Procurator-Fiscal in civil business which

has ended in public disturbance and deforcement of the Sheriff’s

officers, on the other, the Crown authorities found themselves helpless

to vindicate the law. This is a pity; for all right-thinking people

have almost as little sympathy for law breakers, even when that law is

unjust and cruel, as they have for those cruel landlords who, like Mr.

Stuart of Lochcarron, bring the law and his own order into disrepute by

the oppressive application of it against innocent people. The proper

remedy is to have the law abolished, not to break it; and to bring this

about such conduct as that of Mr. Stuart and his ground officer is more

potent than all the Land Leagues and Reform Associations in the United

Kingdom.[16]

 

[16] _Celtic Magazine_ for July, 1882.

 

Mr. William Mackenzie of the _Aberdeen Free Press_, who was on the

ground, writes, next morning, after the deforcement of the sheriff

officers:--

 

“During the encounter the local police constable drew his baton, but he

was peremptorily ordered to lay it down, and he did so. The officers

then gave up the contest and left the place about three in the morning.

Yesterday, before they left, and in course of the evening, they were

offered refreshments, but these they declined. The people are this

evening in possession as before.

 

“When every article was restored to its place, the song and the dance

were resumed, the native drink was freely quaffed--for ‘freedom an’

whisky gang thegither’--the steam was kept up throughout the greater

part of yesterday, and Mackenzie’s mantelpiece to-day is adorned with a

long tier of empty bottles, standing there as monuments of the eventful

night of the 29th-30th May, 1882.

 

A chuirm sgaoilte chualas an ceòl

Ard-shòlas an talla nan treun!

 

“While these things were going on in the quiet township of Slumbay,

the Fiery Cross appears to have been despatched over the neighbouring

parishes; and from Kintail, Lochalsh, Applecross, and even Gairloch,

the Highlanders began to gather yesterday with the view of helping the

Slumbay men, if occasion should arise. Few of these reached Slumbay,

but they were in small detachments in the neighbourhood ready at any

moment to come to the rescue on the appearance of any hostile force.

After all the trains had come and gone for the day, and as neither

policemen nor Sheriff’s officers had appeared on the scene, these

different groups retired to their respective places of abode. The

Slumbay men, too, resolved to suspend their festivities. A procession

was formed, and, being headed by the piper, they marched triumphantly

through Slumbay and Jeantown, and escorted some of the strangers on

their way to their homes, returning to Slumbay in course of the night.”

 

As a contrast to Mr. Stuart’s conduct we are glad to record the noble

action of Mr. C. J. Murray, M.P. for Hastings, who has, fortunately for

the oppressed tenants on the Lochcarron property, just purchased the

estate. He has made it a condition that Maclean and Mackenzie shall be

allowed to remain; and a further public scandal has thus been avoided.

This is a good beginning for the new proprietor, and we trust to

see his action as widely circulated and commended as the tyrannical

proceedings of his predecessor have been condemned.

 

It is also fair to state what we know on the very best authority,

namely, that the factor on the estate, Mr. Donald Macdonald, Tormore,

strongly urged upon Mr. Stuart not to evict these people, and that his

own wife also implored and begged of him not to carry out his cruel

and vindictive purpose. Where these agencies failed, it is gratifying

to find that Mr. Murray has succeeded; and all parties--landlords and

tenants--throughout the Highlands are to be congratulated on the result.

 

 

THE 78TH HIGHLANDERS.

 

In connection with the evictions from the County of Ross, the following

will appropriately come in at this stage. Referring to the glorious

deeds of the 78th Highlanders in India, under General Havelock, the

editor of the _Northern Ensign_ writes:--All modern history, from the

rebellion in 1715, to the Cawnpore massacre of 1857, teems with the

record of Highland bravery and prowess. What say our Highland evicting

lairds to these facts, and to the treatment of the Highlanders? What

reward have these men received for saving their country, fighting its

battles, conquering its enemies, turning the tide of revolt, rescuing

women and children from the hands of Indian fiends, and establishing

order, when disorder and bloody cruelty have held their murderous

carnival? And we ask, in the name of men who have, ere now, we fondly

hope, saved our gallant countrymen and heroic countrywomen at Lucknow;

in the name of those who fought in the trenches of Sebastopol, and

proudly planted the British standard on the heights of the Alma,

how are they, their fathers, brothers, and little ones treated? Is

the mere shuttle-cocking of an irrepressible cry of admiration from

mouth to mouth, and the setting to music of a song in their praise,

all the return the race is to get for such noble acts? We can fancy

the __EXPRESSION__ of admiration of Highland bravery at the Dunrobin

dinner table, recently, when the dukes, earls, lairds, and other

aristocratic notables enjoyed the princely hospitality of the Duke.

We can imagine the mutual congratulations of the Highland lairds as

they prided themselves on being proprietors of the soil which gave

birth to the race of “Highland heroes.” Alas, for the blush that

would cover their faces if they would allow themselves to reflect

that, in their names, and by their authority, and at their expense,

the fathers, mothers, brothers, wives, of the invincible “78th” have

been remorselessly driven from their native soil; and that, at the

very hour when Cawnpore was gallantly retaken, and the ruffian, Nana

Sahib, was obliged to leave the bloody scene of his fiendish massacre,

there were Highlanders, within a few miles of the princely Dunrobin,

driven from their homes and left to starve and to die in the open

field. Alas, for the blush that would reprint its scarlet dye on their

proud faces as they thought in one county alone, since Waterloo was

fought, more than 14,000 of this same “race of heroes” of whom Canning

so proudly boasted, have been hunted out of their native homes; and

that where the pibroch and the bugle once evoked the martial spirit of

thousands of brave hearts, razed and burning cottages have formed the

tragic scenes of eviction and desolation; and the abodes of a loyal

and a liberty-loving people are made sacred to the rearing of sheep,

and sanctified to the preservation of game! Yes; we echo back the

cry, “Well done, brave Highlanders!” But to what purpose would it be

carried on the wings of the wind to the once happy straths and glens of

Sutherland? Who, what, would echo back our acclaims of praise? Perhaps

a shepherd’s or a gillie’s child, playing amid the unbroken wilds, and

innocent of seeing a human face but that of its own parents, would

hear it; or the cry might startle a herd of timid deer, or frighten

a covey of partridges, or call forth a bleat from a herd of sheep;