The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP. VI] OF SCOTLAND 97
superabundant population, greatly
diminished the risk of fresh
disturbances."
Thus terminated the existence of the Scottish Highlanders
as a peculiar, and in some degree, an independent nation ; and
it is remarkable to find their fall brought about by their
exertions in the cause of those Princes whose ancestors had
striven so long and so hard to crush that very spirit to which
they were beholden for the last support. But if these acts of
the government thus destroyed the organization of the Highland
clans, and brought the country into a state of peace from one
of almost constant strife and bloodshed, it was left for the
Highland chiefs themselves, by an act as unjustifiable in respect
to humanity as it was inexpedient as an act of policy, to give
Introduction
of sheep
the last blow to the rapid decline of the Highland
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population, and to ariect their individual comrort and
welfare, as by the former measures the had affected their
government
independence and national spirit. An idea
was unhappily adopted by Highland proprietors, that a much
larger rent might be obtained for their possessions now in
the occupancy generally of small farmers, and the herds of
black cattle which they reared, were they converted into grazings
for sheep ; a plan, for the accomplishment
of which it became
necessary to throw a number of the small farms into one, and
thus to divide the districts into single sheep farms of great
extent, which, of course, required for that purpose to be cleared
of the population now become superfluous. This formed the
climax to the process of deterioration which had been gradually
reducing the condition of the poor Highlanders, in proportion
as their chiefs advanced in the modern constitution of society.
For the Highland tacksman, who was originally co-proprietor
of his land with the chiefs, became by a series of changes, first
vassal, then hereditary tenant, and lastly, tenant at will, while
the law of the country now declared the chiefs to be absolute
proprietors of the lands occupied by their clan. When, accord-
ingly, the first prospect of this advantage opened to them, the
chiefs had no hesitation in violating the relation which subsisted
between the Highland proprietor and his tacksman, and in
proceeding to depopulate the country for the sake of their
increased rents. The change produced by this system was very
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