‘Write again, and God bless you.’[[646]]
Struan was now successful in obtaining a pardon, and for the remainder of his days he lived in the cultivation of the bottle and the muse at his estate in Rannoch. Only prevented by old age from risking all once again in the adventure of Prince Charlie, he died quietly in 1749, having reached his eighty-first year. So venerable a chief, who had used both the sword of Mars and the lyre of Apollo in the cause of the Stuarts, could not pass from the world notelessly. His funeral was of a character to be described as a great provincial fête. It was computed that two thousand persons, including the noblemen and gentlemen of the district, assembled at his house to carry him to his last resting-place, which was distant eighteen English miles; and for all of these there was entertainment provided according to their different ranks.[[647]]
Having taken personal surveys of the Highlands in the two preceding years, General Wade was prepared, in this, to commence the making of those roads which he reported to be so necessary for the reduction of the country to obedience, peace, and civilisation. He contemplated that, after the example set by the Romans sixteen hundred years before, the work might be done by the soldiers, on an allowance of extra pay; and five hundred were selected as sufficient for the purpose. Engineers and surveyors he brought down from England, one being the Edmund Burt to whom we have been indebted for so much information regarding the Highlands at this period, through the medium of the letters he wrote during his long residence in this country.[[648]]
1726.
‘In the summer seasons [during eleven years], five hundred of the soldiers from the barracks and other quarters about the Highlands were employed in those works in different stations. The private men were allowed sixpence a day, over and above their pay as soldiers. A corporal had eightpence, and a sergeant a shilling. But this extra pay was only for working-days, which were often interrupted by violent storms of wind and rain. These parties of men were under the command of proper officers, who were all subalterns, and received two shillings and sixpence per diem, to defray their extraordinary expense in building huts, making necessary provision for their tables from distant parts (unavoidable, though unwelcome visits), and other incidents arising from their wild situation.’[[649]]
A Scottish gentleman, who visited the Highlands in 1737, discovered the roads completed, and was surprised by the improvements which he found to have arisen from them, amongst which he gratefully notes the existence of civilised places for the entertainment of travellers. It pleased him to put his observations into verse—rather dull and prosaic verse it is, one must admit—yet on that very account the more useful now-a-days, by reason of the clearness of the information it gives.[[650]] After speaking of Wade’s success in carrying out the Disarming Act, and his suppression of disorders by the garrisons and Highland companies, he proceeds to treat of the roads, which had impressed him as a work of great merit. It seemed to him as an undertaking in no slight degree arduous, considering the limited means and art which then existed, to extend firm roads across Highland morasses, to cut out paths along rough hillsides, and to protect the way when it was formed from the subsequent violent action of Highland torrents and inundations. One of the most difficult parts of the first road was that traversing the broad, lofty mountain called Corryarrack, near to Fort Augustus. It is ascended on the south side by a series of zigzags, no less than thirteen in number. The general expended great care and diligence in the work, even to the invention of a balsam for healing the wounds and hurts inflicted on the men by accident.
In the forming of the numerous bridges required upon the roads, there was one natural difficulty, in addition to all others, in the want of easily hewn stone. The bridge of five arches across the Tay at Weem was considered as a marvellous work at the |1726.| time. In another part of the country, an unusually rugged river gave Wade and his people a great deal of trouble. The men, oppressed with heat during the day, and chilled with frosts as they bivouacked on the ground at night, were getting dispirited, when the general bethought him of a happy expedient.
‘A fatted ox he ordered to be bought,
The best through all the country could be sought.
His horns well polished and with ribbons graced,