"A portion of the aborigines had been thrown upon the sea-shore, and attempted to live by fishing. They became amphibious, and, as an English author says, lived half on land and half on water, and after all did not half live upon both."
Throughout the North of Scotland the tenants of the small grazing farms into which the Highland counties had been divided, have been ousted for the purpose of creating sheep-walks, and to such an extent has this been carried, that where once, and at no distant period, were numerous black-cattle farms, not an inhabitant is now to be seen for many miles.[121] The work, too, is still going on. "The example of Sutherland," says Mr. Thornton,[122] "is imitated in the neighbouring counties."
The misery of these poor people is thus described:—
"Hinds engaged by the year are seldom paid more than two-thirds of what they would receive in the South, and few of them are fortunate enough to obtain regular employment. Farm-servants, however, form only a small proportion of the peasantry, a much greater number being crofters, or tenants of small pieces of ground, from which they derive almost their whole subsistence. Most of them live very miserably. The soil is so poor, and rents in some instances so exorbitant, that occupiers of four or five acres can do little more than maintain themselves, yet it is their aid alone that saves their still poorer brethren from starvation. This is true even of Sutherland, which is commonly represented as a highly improved county, and in which a signal change for the better is said to have taken place in the character and habits of the people.[123] Recent inquiry has discovered that even there, in districts once famous for fine men and gallant soldiers, the inhabitants have degenerated into a meagre and stunted race. In the healthiest situations, on hillsides fronting the sea, the faces of their famished children are as thin and pale as they could be in the foul atmosphere of a London alley.[124] Still more deplorable are the scenes exhibited in the Western Highlands, especially on the coasts and in the adjoining islands. A large population has there been assembled, so ill provided with any means of support, that during part of almost every year from 45,000 to 80,000 [125] of them are in a state of destitution, and entirely dependent upon charity. Many of the heads of families hold crofts from four to seven acres in extent, but these, notwithstanding their small size, and the extreme barrenness of the soil, have often two, three, and sometimes even four families upon them. One estate in the Hebrides, the nominal rent of which is only £5200 a year, is divided into 1108 crofts, and is supposed to have more than 8300 persons living upon it. In another instance a rental of £1814 is payable (for little is really paid) by 365 crofters, and the whole population of the estate is estimated at more than 2300. In Cromarty, 1500 persons are settled upon an estate let nominally for £750, but "paying not more than half that sum."—Thornton, 74.
"Of course, they live most wretchedly. Potatoes are the usual food, for oatmeal is considered a luxury, to be reserved for high days and holidays, but even potatoes are not raised in sufficient abundance. The year's stock is generally exhausted before the succeeding crop is ripe, and the poor are then often in a most desperate condition, for the poor-law is a dead letter in the North of Scotland, and the want of a legal provision for the necessitous is but ill supplied by the spontaneous contributions of the land-owners."—Ibid. 76.
At the moment of writing this, the journals of the day furnish information that famine prevails in the Hebrides, and that "in the Isle of Skye alone there are 10,000 able-bodied persons at this time without work, without food, and without credit."
The condition of these poor people would certainly be much improved could they find some indulgent master who would purchase them at such prices as would make it to his interest to feed, clothe, and lodge them well in return for their labour.
In the days of Adam Smith about one-fifth of the surface of Scotland was supposed to be entailed, and he saw the disadvantages of the system to be so great that he denounced the system as being "founded upon the most absurd of all suppositions—the supposition that every successive generation of men have not an equal right to the earth and all that it possesses; but that the property of the present generation should be retained and regulated according to the fancy of those who died perhaps five hundred years ago." Instead of changing the system, and doing that which might tend to the establishment of greater freedom of trade in land, the movement has been in a contrary direction, and to such an extent that one-half of Scotland is now supposed to be entailed; and yet, singularly enough, this is the system advocated by Mr. McCulloch, a follower in the foot-steps of Adam Smith, as being the one calculated "to render all classes more industrious, and to augment at the same time the mass of wealth and the scale of enjoyment."
The effects of the system are seen in the enormous rents contracted to be paid for the use of small pieces of land at a distance from market, the failure in the payment of which makes the poor cultivator a mere slave to the proprietor. How the latter use their power, may be seen by the following extract from a Canadian journal of 1851:—
"A Colonel ——-, the owner of estates in South Uist and Barra, in the highlands of Scotland, has sent off over 1100 destitute tenants and cotters under the most cruel and delusive temptations; assuring them that they would be taken care of immediately on their arrival at Quebec by the emigrant agent, receive a free passage to Upper Canada, where they would be provided with work by the government agents, and receive grants of land on certain imaginary conditions. Seventy-one of the last cargo of four hundred and fifty have signed a statement that some of them fled to the mountains when an attempt was made to force them to emigrate. 'Whereupon,' they add, 'Mr. Fleming gave orders to a policeman, who was accompanied by the ground officer of the estate in Barra, and some constables, to pursue the people who had run away among the mountains, which they did, and succeeded in capturing about twenty from the mountains and from other islands in the neighbourhood; but only came with the officers on an attempt being made to handcuff them, and that some who ran away were not brought back; in consequence of which four families, at least, have been divided, some having come in the ships to Quebec, while other members of the same families are left in the highlands.'"