grazing system of large farms began in the South, when the higher orders lost all regard for their followers, and forgot all ancient kindness and friendship, (of which we have seen too many instances in our times in the North), and thousands of the brave borderers, whose forefathers defended their country, were set adrift without a house or shelter, in that country for which their ancestors had fought and bled. Then the people naturally lost all confidence and respect for those from whom they received this treatment; and there being no manufacturing towns to receive them, no emigration to America, and no employment in a country all turned to pasture, they had no alternative but to beg or steal. Were it not for America and the towns in the Lowlands, would not the late burnings, forcible ejectments, and depopulations in the North produce a host of sturdy beggars, sorners, and thieves? A reference to the state of England by Sir Thomas More, of Scotland by Fletcher of Salton, and to the recent associations for the suppression of felony in Sutherland and other parts of the North Highlands, exhibits a striking coincidence, and shows that the want of education is not the principal cause of crimes and poverty. Now that schools are generally established in Scotland, it behoves the higher orders to endeavour, by protection, by kindness, and by example, to preserve those principles which have been so honourable to this country, and which form the best basis for good education among a people, and without which, indeed, education may be a curse instead of a blessing. But, unfortunately, many Highlanders have begun, (as I have too often had occasion to mention,) to lose all confidence in the views and line of conduct of their superiors, of whom it is said, " When I see a man subscribing for schools and bible societies, while he reduces his tenants to poverty by exorbitant rents; while he has school-books and bibles in one hand, and in the other a warrant of ejectment, or an order for rouping out for the rent, and when he makes speeches at public meetings lamenting the loss of morals, and in private, lectures against drunkenness

and the vices it produces, while, at the same time, the rents are such that they cannot be paid without smuggling, cheating, perjury and lying-when much of this is daily seen, who but must believe that there is much hypocrisy at the bottom?".

Such are the sentiments I often hear expressed by the people, and which may be ascribed to that grasping selfish system, which looks only to what is supposed to bring the most immediate advantages, careless of the loss to others,tempting men to cheat and deceive by calling for the cheapest contracts,-raising a spirit of rivalry and over-reaching by auctioning, and receiving secret offers for farms, with many other circumstances which have occasioned great distress and discontent in the Highlands, with much less permanent advantage to the promoters of this horrible system, than could be obtained by a more open, fair, and milder line of conduct. If people see that their welfare is attended to, they will return the favour. Gratitude, kindness, and friendship, are natural to man; but harshness and oppression will quickly destroy all. In the Highlands the contrast between the past and present manners are the more striking, from the recollection of those times when the poorest clansman received a kind shake of the hand from the laird, and was otherwise treated like an independent man, and a proper regard shown to his feelings. Of modern customs, which allow of no such intimacy with the lower orders, and where strangers with no recommendation but money are preferred to all ancient claims, I will give the following statement in the words of an old acquaintance, who with tears in his eyes told me, "If a Lowlander comes among us with a good horse, a pair of spurs, and a whip, he is immediately received by the laird:-he takes him to his house:-he has the choice of a farm, and a whole tribe of us are sent to cot-houses on the moors, or ejected entirely; and while the Lowlander gets a fine house at the landlord's expence, I must build my own hut, get no allowance for the house I left, although I built it myself; and while the stranger is supplied with Norway wood for his

house, if I take a birch-trèe not worth five shillings from the hill-side, the constable is sent after me with a warrant; I am threatened with a removal and the terrors of the law by the laird on whose lands I built the house, and whose property it will be when I leave it, which I would do tomorrow if I knew where to go." Will education cure this

poor man's grief and indignation? Will reading make him contented with his lot, loyal to his king and government, and attached to his landlord? Reading will more clearly show him his misery. To make a man comfortable in his circumstances, and easy in his mind, consequently no temptation or necessity for resorting to improper practices, are better and more sure preservatives of morals than reading or writing, particularly if the educated reader is in poverty and destitution, and that destitution occasioned by oppression and the conduct of others.

As a man blind from his infancy may be virtuous, and well-instructed in all useful knowledge without ever having read a line in his life, so are the bulk of the uneducated Highlanders well instructed in a knowledge of the Gospel and of the Scriptures, with great intelligence of all that immediately concerns themselves, and comes within the range of their knowledge, confined, as it must necessarily often be, to the narrow bounds of a Highland strath or glen.

I have already mentioned, that many Highland gentlemen, though possessed of honourable and humane dispositions, have, with the best intentions, allowed themselves to be seduced into hasty measures, and the adoption of plans unsuitable to their lands and their tenants; and have thus unhinged the social virtues, and the mutual confidence between them and their formerly attached dependants, whose sentiments and feelings are deplorable changes in many instances. May we not therefore hope, that when any prejudicial effects are seen on the minds of the tenants, an abatement of hasty changes will ensue; and that we will not see advertisements inviting strangers to offer for their lands, with other measures calculated to raise their indig

nation, and check the inclination to improvement? May we not hope, that gentlemen will take into consideration the well-known fact, that the agricultural system now carried on with such spirit in Scotland was 140 years in progress in England, before the prejudices of the southern Scotch farmers were so far overcome as to embrace and practise it? And if gentlemen will also recollect, that their own fathers and grandfathers, men of education and knowledge of the world, saw these improved changes, in their frequent intercourse with the South, long before they introduced them into their own practice, many never having done so at all, will they not then make some indulgent allowance for the prejudices of the poor and ignorant Highlander, who never travelled beyond the bounds of his own or the neighbouring districts, and afford him time to comprehend the advantages of changes so recent and so opposite to his usual habits? Will landlords arraign them as incorrigible, because they do not change with every variation of every political or economical opinion, or according to the direction in which newly-adopted theories would turn them, and embrace systems of which they have never been made to comprehend the advantages, and without any encouragement or spur for exertion but an augmentation of rent?

In what manner the people comprehend and act on the new system of agriculture, when the knowledge of it is attainable, is clearly seen in those districts whose vicinity to the South have enabled the inhabitants to follow the exam

A respectable Highland clergyman, of talents and learning, who occupied a farm of some extent contiguous to his glebe, was so wedded to old customs, that it was not till the year 1815 that he commenced green crops, liming, and fallow; although two gentlemen in his immediate neighbourhood had carried on the system for some years with great success. Now, when such a person rejected all innovations, is it surprising that an ignorant Highlander, with his deep-rooted predilection to ancient habits, should not commence a system (by order, perhaps, of a harsh and authoritative agent) which would overturn all notions of respect and reverence for the customs of his fathers?

221

ple shown them *. Any person travelling through Athole, Breadalbane, and other districts of the Highlands of Perthshire, will observe, in the altered appearance of the country, how readily the people have availed themselves of use. ful and practical knowledge, and to what extent improvements have been carried, both in respect to the quantity and the quality of the produce. These districts furnish decisive proof of this progressive improvement. In glens where, a few years ago, turnips and the green crop system were totally unknown, they are now as regularly cultivated as in Mid-Lothian; on a small scale, to be sure, as it must necessarily be, from the size of the farms and the narrow limits of cultivation, but in a manner calculated to produce good rents to the proprietors, and great comparative comfort to the tenants. This spirit of improvement is extending northwards, and has every appearance of spreading over the whole country, although it has, in various instances, been checked by attempts to force it on too rapidly, and by theories founded on the customs of countries totally different, both in soil, in climate, and in the habits of the people. One obvious evil is, the too frequent practice of giving leases for only seven years. This the people dislike more than none at all †, as, according

The inveteracy and the difficulty of overcoming ancient habits, in countries highly favoured by many opportunities of improvement, is shown in several parts of England, where ploughing is still performed, even on light soils, with four and five horses; whereas that custom has long been laid aside in Scotland, where two horses are found sufficient for the deepest soils; yet, with this example before them, English farmers continue such a waste of labour, at great additional expence to themselves and consequent loss to the landlord. But it would be endless to state instances of prejudices as deep-rooted and prejudicial as any entertained in the Highlands, where the people have suffered so much from mischievous experiments, founded on their supposed incapacity and incurable prejudices.

+ On several estates, tenants neither ask for leases, nor are any given, yet improvements are carried on with the same spirit as on estates where leases are granted. In the former case, much of the confidence of old times remains, the landlord's promise being as good as his bond; and the tenants trust to this in preference to a documentary term of years, and