Owing to a severe spring, a malady called ‘fever and cold’ prevailed in Edinburgh, and was spreading all over the country. On Sunday, the 8th May, fifty sick people were prayed for in the city churches, and in the preceding week there had been seventy burials in the Greyfriars, being three times the usual number.

July.

For a number of years, the six independent companies of armed Highlanders, commonly called the Reicudan Dhu, or Black Watch, had been effective in keeping down that system of cattle-lifting which ancient prejudice had taught the Highlanders generally to regard as only a kind of clan warfare. But in 1739, the government was induced to form these companies into a regular regiment for service in the foreign war then entered upon; and in March of this year, they were actually sent into England, leaving the Highlands without adequate protection. The consequence was an immediate revival of old practices.

In July of this year, it was reported to the Edinburgh newspapers that the highlands of Nairnshire were absolutely infested with depredators, who came by day as well as night, and drove off the cattle, not scrupling to kill the inhabitants when they were resisted. The proprietors were trying to form a watch or guard for the country; but these people often fell into complicity with the spoilers, or entered on a similar career themselves. The greatest confusion and difficulty prevailed, and other districts were soon after involved in the same calamitous grievance.

One day in October, a party of nine cearnochs or caterans, well armed, came from Rannoch into Badenoch, and laid a large part of the district under contribution, ‘forcing the people to capitulate for their lives at the expense of all they possessed,’ and carrying off a great quantity of sheep. The gentlemen of the district hastily assembled with some of their people, but felt greatly at a loss on account of their want of arms. Nevertheless, with a few old weapons, they resolved to attack the depredators. A smoke seen on a distant hillside led them to the place where the robbers were halting. Their firearms were by this time useless with wet; yet they fell on with great courage, and obtained a victory, at the expense of a wound to one of their party. Four of the offenders were secured, and carried to the prison at Ruthven.[[758]] It was hoped that the fate of this party would deter others; but the hope was not realised.

1743.

In March 1744, a general meeting of the gentlemen of the district of Badenoch took into consideration the sad state of their country. It was represented that, owing to the frequent thefts committed, the tenants were on the brink of utter ruin: some who paid not above fifteen pounds of rent, had suffered losses to the extent of a hundred. Evan Macpherson of Cluny, the leading man of the district, and a person of activity and intelligence, had been repeatedly entreated to undertake the formation and management of an armed watch, to be supported from such small contributions as could be raised; but he regarded the country as too poor to support such an establishment as would be necessary. Yet he now told them that, unless the king could protect them, he could suggest no other course than the putting of their own and the neighbouring districts under persons who could guard the country by their own armed retainers, and guarantee the restitution of lost goods to all such as would contribute to the necessary funds.

On the entreaty of his neighbours, Cluny, in May, did muster a number of his people, of honest character, whom he planted at the several passes through which predatory incursions were made, ‘giving them most strict orders that these passes should be punctually travelled and watched night and day, for keeping off, intercepting, seizing, and imprisoning the villains, as occasion offered, and as strictly forbidding and discharging them to act less or more in the ordinary way of other undertakers [leviers of black-mail], who, instead of suppressing theft, do greatly support it, by currying the favour of the thieves, and gratifying them for their diverting of the weight of theft from such parts of the countries as pay the undertaker for their protection, to such parts as do not pay them.’

Cluny is allowed to have tolerably well effected his purpose. The thieves, being hemmed in by him, and reduced to great straits, offered to keep his own lands skaithless if he would cease to guard those of his neighbours, a proposal to which, as might be expected, he gave no heed. They tried to evade his vigilance by taking a spreath of cattle from Strathnairn by boats across Loch Ness, instead of by the ordinary route; but he then set guards on the ferries of Loch Ness, albeit at a great additional expense. The lands of gentlemen who declined to contribute were as safe as those in the opposite circumstances. He was even able to restore some cattle taken from distant places, as Banffshire, Strathallan, and the Colquhoun’s grounds near Dumbarton.[[759]]

1743.