Boston Public Library - Electric Scotland

"we're no eerish, but scoatch." 15
Scotch. To this very hour, in the remoter and more un-
changed parts of Antrim and Down, the country-folk will
tell you: 'We're no Eerish, but Scoatch.' All their folk-
lore, all their tales, their traditions, their songs, their poetry,
their heroes and heroines, and their home-speech, is of the
oldest Lowland types and times."
In continuation of this subject, I will say, that in the
Scotch settlements of New Hampshire, after a residence of
one hundred and seventy-five years, there are families of as
pure Scotch lineage as can be found in the Scotch settlements
of Ireland or in the interior of the Scottish Lowlands.
In no instance since their coming to America have they intermarried
with any save those of Scottish blood.
They retain in a marked degree the mental characteristics
of the race; there are the same lofty adherence to principle,
the same pride of race, the same tenacity of purpose, the
same manifestations of unbending and inflexible will-power
and devotion to duty, as were shown by their forefathers at
the "Siege of Derry," or by their Covenanting ancestors,
who, among the moors, the glens, and the cold mountains of
Scotland, amid sufferings numberless, upheld loftily the banner
of the Cross, while some sealed their deathless devotion
to the faith of their souls by sacrificing the bright red blood
of their hearts.
In my veins flows, equally commingled, the blood of
Scot and Puritan; but I speak what I do know, and
declare, with all the force and emphasis v/hich language is
capable of expressing, that after many years of careful historical
and genealogical research, relating to Scotch-American
families ; after tracing them from America to the Emerald
Isle, thence across the narrow belt of sea to the Fatherland,
Scotland ; that only in exceptional cases has there been an
intermixture by marriage of the Scot with the Irish Celt.
I am somewhat familiar with the Scotch settlements in
Ulster, have met and talked and am acquainted with many
of her people of Scotch descent, and they declare with particular
emphasis that the mixture of Scot and Irish Celt has
been of the slightest kind.
The love of Scotchmen, and the descendants of Scotchmen,
in Ulster and elsewhere for the Fatherland and its history
is phenomenal, and in America has existed for generations.
It is as sweet, as strong, and enduring as that of
Burns for the object of his affections as expressed in the fol-
lowing lines, and which all of our race can apply to Scotland: