THE DEPOPULATION OF THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND.
_Edinburgh, 13th January 1855.
SIR—A few weeks ago, a "North Briton," in a letter to the Spectator, al- luded to the courage and prowess of the Scotch regiments in the Crimea. He referred particularly to the Ninety-third, once the Sutherland Feacibles, and asked, "How are they to be recruited from the depopulated straths of Sutherland, and the broken-up homesteads of Lord Reafir country, or the Hebrides ? " The same question might with equal propriety be put re- garding every district from which every other Highland regiment was once embodied ; and there would be little variety in the reply. This, however, is a subject of some national importance, and the time is fitting for its con- sideration ; for the process that has been going on in the Highlands under the name of improvement has not yet been canvassed nor scrutinized as closely as it deserves. Now, however, that war and the potent attraction of the Colonies are withdrawing in vast numbers its population from the United Kingdom, it would be desirable that all parts of that kingdom continued at least in their wonted ability to supply the drain. This, in regard to the Highlands of Scotland, is not the case ; it is notoriously and frightfully the reverse. It is therefore very much to be desired that the counterbalancing benefits of the new system, if they exist, should be made apparent.
In 1746 the number of fighting men in the Highlands, estimated by a com- petent judge, Lord President Forbes, himself, I believe, a Highlander, was 31,930. The ease with which regiments were obtained from that part of Scotland, down to the end of the last century, when they amounted to twenty-five, bespeaks not only a warlike spirit but a considerable population. It is rather a suspicious characteristic of any change of system, how plau- sible soever it may be, and acceptable to a class or section, that the popu- lation of the part of the country in which it takes place decrease in num- ber, or cease to be self-supporting, becoming a burden upon instead of a co- operating help to the rest of the community. The latter fact with refer- ence to the Highlands must be still fresh in public remembrance ; the des- titution in the Highlands which public benevolence had to relieve exceeding any known to have occurred in times reputed barbarous, certainly less favourable to peace and plenty. That the Highlands are to a vast extent depopulated must be known to every tourist who visits them. Throughout glens and straths and sea-coast, once studded with hamlets and cottages, pas- tured by lowing herds, and alive with sounds of rural labour, no trace of their former occupants is to be seen, but the green spaces among the brown heather where their crops were grown and their cattle folded ; the only inhabitants being now a few sparse shepherds and their dogs and Cheviot or black-faced sheep.
I lately passed through a central part of a great Highland estate. An an- cestor of its proprietor, when about to engage in battle with a clan in the far North, addressed his men in a few pithy words, which have become a proverb in Gaelic ; in English they are, "It is a far cry to Loehoe, and far help from Cruachan." Of course the chieftain meant to impress upon his warriors, that they must in the approaching conflict rely solely on their own strength and courage, the quarter whence alone they could obtain reinforce- ments being too distant to avail them; implying, however, that there a cry heard for help would have obtained it. The noble descendant of this spirited chief might now under the very walls of Castle Caolchuirn shout his war- cry and sound his pibroch ; but from the slopes of Ben Cruachan or the great valley of the Nochey, to which his ancestor so trusted, he would hardly col- lect as many men to put into kilts and hose as would form a respectable body-guard, or what Sir Walter nicknamed a "tail," of sufficient length to appear in state with. But the noble Marquis is no worse off than others. Alew years ago I paid a visit to the parish in which I was born, which in the early part of the century had not undergone the process by which it sub- sequently suffered. At that time it contributed seventeen officers to the Army and Navy ; and besides its proportion of private soldiers to regiments of the Line, sent sixty stalwart men to the local. Militia officered by resident gentlemen. At the time of my visit, the simple, hardy, independent., and improving tenantry, had been supplanted by sheep. A great central glen, and two others diverging from it, with great part of the sea-coast, seemed absolutely swept by a flood. The place from which I commanded a view of the melancholy landscape had been the arable farm of a little community of some ten or a dozen families, who lived in great comfort, and among whom I had been hospitably entertained when a boy on a holiday. They were like all their clasp, a fine, manly, kind-hearted race. I confess, when I looked around me, and could discern no vestige of a dwelling nor any trace of humanity more than in an unoccupied Australian run, I could not but keenly regret the change, effected not by any fault of the people, but by new landlords and altered modes. "Ex uno disce omnes "—one instance may stand for all. An absent wanderer revisiting each of a hundred other districts in the Highlands would look on a similar scene of desolation.
At this time, when the country has entered into an arduous contest, the Army, which is said, in peace, to be "caterpillars," but in war, "the pillars of the state," requires every element which conduces to its strength or up- holds its efficiency. It may be asserted without fear of contradiction, that the descendants of the ancient Caledonians are second to none of the races of the British Isles in the qualities of the soldier. On many a field of blood, _ from Fontenoy to Waterloo and Inkerman, they have established their character for dauntless courage. Disciplined and orderly in camp, gentle and kindly in quarters, hardy and endunng on the weary march, and patient under privation, they constitute a soldiery which able commanders love to lead, and on whom they would stake the issue of the deadliest and most pro- tracted conflict. And not only were they a force available to the country in war; the fiery energy combined with steadiness which rendered them for- midable in the shock of battle, modified by milder influences, were qualities to render them useful in the works of peace. The country does not know the number of skilled artisans, of able farm-servants, and hardy operatives, for they are perfectly assimilated with their countrymen, who descend from the hith to labour for its prosperity, on the well-cultivated fields, in the towns of Scotland, and the Colonies. Their sudden withdrawal would, however, be felt.
It is undoubtedly a positive loss of no small magnitude to the nation, both for purposes of peace and war, that these districts which, more than a century ago, could send 30,000 men into the field, should in great measure have been depopulated, and cease to send forth to battle or to industry their hardy sons. It may be that in the age of unbroken clanship, more adult males out of the whole were available as fighting men than now, and that that test may lead rather to an over-estimate of the population; but had the Highlanders participated in the agricultural, pastoral, and other im- provensents of the last hundred years, as much as their friends had reason to expect, they would, as all other sections of their countrymen have, and in like proportion, advanced and been still advancing in numbers and the com- forts of life. In that case, the legion of 10,000, which Government are to enlist of foreign mercenaries, might easily be drawn from the Highland counties, without sensibly impairing their usual contributions to the Army or the labour-market.
Having already trespassed too much on your space, I conclude, but in hope of, with your permission, again addressing you on the subject.
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