may

Whether by difarming a people thus broken into feveral tribes, and thus remote from the feat of power, more good than evil has been produced, deferve enquiry. The fupreme power in every community has the right of debarring every individual, and every fubordinate fociety from felf-defence, only because the fupreme power is able to defend them; and therefore where the governor cannot act, he must trust the subject to act for himself. These Islands might be wasted with fire and fword before their fovereign would know their distress. A gang of robbers, fuch as has been lately found confederating themselves in the Highlands, might lay a wide region under contribution. The crew of a petty privateer might land on the largest and most wealthy of the Islands, and riot without control in cruelty and wafte. It was observed by one of the Chiefs of Sky, that fifty armed men might, without refistance, ravage the country. Laws that place the fubje&s in fuch a state, contravene the first principles of the compact of authority: they exact obedience, and yield no protection.

It affords a generous and manly pleasure to conceive a little nation gathering its fruits and tending its herds with fearless confidence, though it lies open on every fide to invasion, where, in contempt of walls and trenches, every man fleeps fecurely

fecurely with his fword befide him; where all on the first approach of hostility came together at the call to battle, as at a fummons to a feftal show; and committing their cattle to the care of those whom age or nature has disabled, engage the enemy with that competition for hazard and for glory, which operate in men that fight under the eye of thofe, whofe diflike or kindness they have always confidered as the greatest evil or the greatest good.

This was, in the beginning of the present century, the state of the Highlands. Every man was a foldier, who partook of national confidence, and interested himself in national honour. To lose this spirit, is to lose what no fmall advantage will compenfate.

It may likewife deferve to be inquired, whether a great nation ought to be totally commercial? whether amidst the uncertainty of human affairs, too much attention to one mode of happiness may not endanger others? whether the pride of riches must not fometimes have recourse to the protection of courage? and whether if it be neceffary to preserve in some part of the empire the military fpirit, it can subsist more commodiously in any place, than in remote and unprofitable provinces, where it can comG

monly

monly do little harm, and whence it may be called forth at any fudden exigence ?

It must however be confeffed, that a man, who places honour only in fuccessful violence, is a very troublesome and pernicious animal in time of peace; and that the martial character cannot prevail in a whole people, but by the diminu tion of all other virtues. He that is accustomed to refolve all right into conqueft, will have very little tenderness or equity. All the friendship in fuch a life can be only a confederacy of invasion, or alliance of defence. The ftrong must flourish by force, and the weak fubfift by stratagem.

Till the Highlanders lost their ferocity, with their arms, they fuffered from each other all that malignity could dictate, or precipitance could act. Every provocation was revenged with blood, and no man that ventured into a numerous company, by whatever occafion brought together, was fure of returning without a wound. If they are now expofed to foreign hoftilities, they may talk of the danger, but can feldom feel it. If they are no longer martial, they are no longer quarrelfome. Mifery is caused for the most part, not by a heavy crush of difafter, but by the corrofion of lefs vifible evils, which canker enjoyment, and undermine fecurity. The

vifit

vifit of an invader is neceffarily rare, but domeftick animofities allow no ceffation.

The abolition of the local jurisdictions, which had for fo many ages been exercised by the chiefs, has likewife its evil and its good. The feudal constitution naturally diffused itself into long ramifications of fubordinate authority. To this general temper of the government was added the peculiar form of the country, broken by mourtains into many fubdivifions fcarcely acceffible but to the natives, and guarded by paffes, or perplexed with intricacies, through which national justice could not find its way.

The power of deciding controverfies, and of punishing offences, as fome fuch power there must always be, was intrufted to the Lairds of the country, to those whom the people confidered as their natural judges. It cannot be supposed that a rugged proprietor of the rocks, unprincipled and unenlightened, was a nice refolver of entangled claims, or very exact in proportioning punishment to offences. But the more he indulged his own will, the more he held his vaffals in dependance. Prudence and innocence, without the favour of the Chief, conferred no fecurity; and crimes involved no danger, when the judge was refolute to acquit.

When the chiefs were men of knowledge and virtue, the convenience of a domestick judicature was great. No long journies were neceffary, nor artificial delays could be practised; the character, the alliances, and interests of the litigants were known to the court, and all falfe pretences were easily detected. The fentence, when it was past, could not be evaded; the power of the Laird fuperfeded formalities, and juftice could not be defeated by interest or stratagem.

I doubt not but that fince the regular judges have made their circuits through the whole country, right has been every where more wifely, and more equally diftributed; the complaint is, that litigation is grown troublesome, and that the magiftrates are too few, and therefore often too remote for general convenience.

Many of the fmaller Iflands have no legal officer within them. I once asked, If a crime fhould be committed, by what authority the offender could be feized? and was told, that the Laird would exert his right; a right which he must now ufurp, but which furely neceffity muft vindicate, and which is therefore yet exercifed in lower degrees, by fome of the proprietors, when legal proceffes cannot be obtained.