to levy war or black-mail. Lochiel's lantern, the moon, shone in vain at Michaelmas for a creagh or foray. Instead of the fiery cross to summon the clan, the bailiff now went round to dun and distress for rent! The law was paramount, heritable jurisdiction was abolished, and feuds were transferred from the clan and claymore to the Sheriff Court or the Parliament House in Edinburgh. Rent had formerly been a subordinate consideration. The value of the soil was in "man and steel, the soldier and his sword;" and with these the Highland chief, like the Cretan warrior, ploughed, and sowed, and reaped. Up to the seventeenth century, the history of the Western Islands is little else than a record of wars and tumults-of revolts against the Scottish crown, or of sanguinary feuds between the Macdonalds, the Macleans, and Macleods. The long Norwegian sway in the Hebrides had not induced piratical habits among the people. There were no native Vikings or buccaneers. The Celtic blood preponderated, and determined the institutions, the speech, and customs of the islanders. Some of their clan feuds were of the most barbarous and revolting character. At one time, we find the Macleods assaulted by the Macdonalds when peacefully assembled in church: the building was suddenly surrounded and set on fire, and the worshippers perished in the flames. On another occcasion, the Macleods chased some two hundred of the Macdonalds into a cave by the sea-side in the island of Eig, and, piling up huge fires at the mouth of the cave, suffocated the miserable clansmen, whose bones still remain to attest the deed. This atrocity is not without a parallel in modern history: a French officer commanding in Algeria, in the nineteenth century, had the incredible audacity and wickedness to perpetrate the same enormity while waging war with the natives. Long-protracted local hostilities desolated the islands. At one time, the Macleods were compelled, in the agony of hunger, to eat dogs and other unclean animals—their whole produce having been wasted and destroyed. Some

glimpses of chivalrous enterprise are interposed amidst these outrages and sufferings. In the reign of Elizabeth, we find the Chief of Dunvegan-the famed "Rorie More," and the Chief of the Macdonalds, leading each five hundred men to the shores of Ulster to assist Red Hugh O'Donell in his contest with the English Crown. And picturesque the sight must have been, as the chief, in his twelve-oared galley, with a fleet of boats behind, struck out from his island fastness by the black rocks, and the rowers chanted the jorram, or boat-song, with which they solaced their toils and fatigues. The unbounded hospitality of Rorie More made Dunvegan famous in song and tale. The heroic old chief was knighted by King James VI., and was a man of invincible courage and address, while his son and suc cessor, John More (who died in 1649), is said to have taken so much pains to civilize the country, that he acquired the appellation of "Lot in Sodom!" His grandson, John Breck Macleod, was the last of the island chiefs who kept up the ancient feudal retinue the bard, piper, harper, and jester. After his death (which took place in 1693), we find a gradual approximation to the customs and manners of the south, the chiefs acquiring new wants and luxuries, and the clan becoming of less value than the land. The affair of the Forty-five was the primary cause of the pecuniary burdens which long encumbered and ultimately overwhelmed the Macleod and many other Highland properties.

The system of agriculture then pursued in the Hebrides was of the most wretched description. The undrained land was perpetually subject to mildew or frost, and little winter food being provided for the herds of black cattle that crowded every hill and strath, whenever a severe season came the cattle died in scores. Even the straw that might have helped to maintain them was wasted and destroyed, in consequence of the people preparing their corn by means of fire instead of thrashing and kiln-drying it. The higher hills contained tracts of fine Alpine pasturage, but they were generally inaccessible to the cattle, and

only became of value when sheep-husbandry was extensively introduced. Under such a system, high rents were ruinous-even moderate rents could hardly have been paid. Yet, after the era of the Forty-five, when the last remains of feudal power and homage were lost, most of the chiefs and other proprietors adopted a higher scale of rents, and pressed the new system with prompt and inconsiderate rigour. The tacksmen, or large tenants, were deprived of their peculiar privilege of sub-letting part of their lands, as the proprietor found he could obtain a greater amount of rent and secure more authority as a landlord when the people held directly under himself. The tacksmen had thus to descend to the condition of ordinary farmers. They were mostly men of gentle blood-cadets of the chief's family. Some had held commissions in the army, and all were hospitable and profuse, their houses filled with servants, visitors, and dependents. The new management and high rents took them by surprise. They were indignant at the treatment they received,. and, selling off their stock, in disgust or despair, they emigrated to America. In the twenty years from 1772 to 1792, sixteen vessels with emigrants sailed from the western shores of Inverness-shire and Ross-shire, containing about 6,400 persons, who carried with them, in specie, at least £38,400. A desperate effort was made by the tacksmen on the estate of Lord Macdonald, whom Johnson and Boswell accuse so broadly of parsimony, meanness, and extortion. They bound themselves by a solemn oath, copies of which are still extant, not to offer for any farm that might become vacant, believing that they would thus repress competition and continue low rents. The combination failed of its object, but it appeared so formidable in the eyes of the "English-bred chieftain," that he retreated precipitately from Skye and never afterwards returned. Lord Macdonald, however, was popular with the small tenants, and had no difficulty, in 1777, in raising a regiment in the Highlands and Isles. The chiefs, it must be admitted, were, in some instances, sorely

tried. The men of Kintail, for example, held a large tract of land in Glengarry as a summer sheiling or grazing for their cattle, for which they paid only £15 of annual rent. The ground was examined by a sagacious sheep-farmer from the dales in the south. He offered no less than £350 of rent-about half the value of the whole estate-and, having obtained possession, stocked it with Cheviot sheep, and died a richer man than his laird. It was difficult for a needy embarrassed proprietor to resist temptations like this. The patriarchal system was forgotten, the stranger was preferred, and many of the smaller tenants were dispossessed of their holdings, that the farms might be enlarged and brought under an improved and more profitable mode of culture. In the figurative language of the country, a hundred smokes had to pass through one chimney! An experiment of an opposite kind was made by one benevolent and active proprietor. This gentleman broke up one of his finest farms in Skye, in order that he might give occupation to a number of small tenants born on his estate. They obtained possession, but proved unable to cultivate their crofts successfully, and the only result was a loss of £400 per annum to the generous and unfortunate chief.

Johnson espoused the cause of the tacksmen with his characteristic energy. The condition of the vast numbers under them, does not appear to have attracted his attention. They were, on all hands, suffered to

"Grow up and perish as the summer fly

Heads without name, no more remembered."

The tacksmen formed a body of resident gentry, and Johnson conceived that the islands would be abandoned to grossness and ignorance, if so many of the intelligent inhabitants left the country. The error of the proprietors-where there was error (for in some instances the change was effected by mild and gradual means)—was in raising the rents too suddenly. Neither the tacksmen, nor the people generally, had been trained to

steady industry. They had not been allowed time to shake off the half military, half nomadic habits, in which they were brought up and though the chief was entitled to make the most of his land, considerations of patriotism and humanity-old recollections and former ties-should have operated to prevent undue haste and severity. The exodus continued for many years. Speculators and agents were busy at work painting the charms of the new world, and the most extravagant expectations were entertained. Even the war in America had little effect in checking the tide of emigration. Carolina was the favourite colony of the men of Skye and Mull; and some hundreds of the exiles formed themselves into the "Royal Highland Emigrant Regiment," which continued in active service during the remainder of the war. There was scarce an instance of the Highlanders joining the revolted colonists. True to their native instincts and hereditary faith (which even in rebellion was a mistaken principle of loyalty), they adhered to the British monarchy, and justified the eulogium which Chatham had pronounced on a former generation of their countrymen, that they "served with fidelity and fought with valour."

The lairds ultimately became alarmed at the defection of their people. They held consultations and solicited Government to stay the emigrant ships. So late as 1786, a meeting of noblemen and gentlemen took place in London, at which the Earl of Breadalbane stated that five hundred persons had resolved to emigrate from the estate of Glengarry, and had subscribed and commissioned ships for the purpose. The money meeting took up the subject warmly, and agreed to co-operate with Government to frustrate the design. At the same time they represented the necessity of improving the fisheries, agriculture, and manufactures of the country, adding to their recommendation a subscription of three thousand pounds. The design was laudable and patriotic, but it proved a failure. Something was done towards encouraging the fisheries, but not on a scale