But the most ignorant lad on the shore of Galloway from Loch Ryan to Annan Waterfoot knew that so long as the government waged war against Napoleon and America, it had no time to attend to them. The press-gang was all they had to avoid, and for that they trusted to their clear eyes and nimble feet.
They were also well informed. So soon as a patrol cleared the Irishman's Port in Stranryan, or a boat's crew was seen making for the beach of any of the Back Shore coves, messengers, ragged and brown, sped inland to warn the farms and villages engaged in the business, or even those merely acting as recipients and depots. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, all men under forty-five disappeared from the fields. The teams found their own way homewards or stood still till they were loosed by girls hurrying out from the steadings.
"Patriotism," said Stair Garland, bitterly, "that is a fine word. But the fine patriots tie the lads they catch to rings in the wall of the Stranryan gaol. They lash them till the blood runs just to learn them not to complain. Don't tell me about glory. There was Rob Blair, who came back from Spain after his brother Maxwell had been flogged to death. He shot a general near Corunna—him they make a fuss about—he and half a dozen of his mates, and he told me the reason that Allingham keeps so far ahead of his own soldiers is that they are better shots than the French, who do not fire at him nearly so often."
True or not, this was the Galloway idea of soldiering during the later Napoleonic wars, and it was only after a bout of drunkenness at some fair that recruits could be looked for. Suicide was not uncommon after a few weeks of discipline, and many were drowned from the transport ships which took them to Vigo or the Tagus mouth.
Galloway has always been cut off from the rest of Scotland. In spite of the invasion of its fertile valleys by Ayrshire dairy farmers it has remained the old Free Province, a little anti-Scottish, a good deal anti-Irish, excessively anti-English, self-centred, self-satisfied, quarrel-some and frondeur, yet in the main politically conservative.
In 1811 the Ayrshire invasion had not yet begun, and there was nothing to mitigate the determination of the people not to send a single man to fight in a war about which they cared nothing. No regiment in the service bore its name. It was looked upon as the haunt of an evil breed who would smuggle and fight, but against, and not among, the soldiers of the King.
A landing party had been attacked and cut up on the Corse of Slakes. Soldiers had to take and hold the old camp of the Levellers in the Duchrae wood, near the Black Water. Bitter hatred prevailed between the Lord Lieutenant's party, formed to aid the government in obtaining recruits, and the commonalty, which was equally determined that no one of theirs should be carried off to endure the shame of the cat-o'-nine-tails.
Earl Raincy made a tour of his estates, and the farmers promised wonderful things, but carefully and immediately sent their lads to the heather and the hill-caves for change of air. The girls took to the plough and threshed the grain on the beaten earth of the barn floor—emerging tired, but bright-eyed and happy. This, at least, they could do to keep Alec or John from the dread triangle and the lacerating whip. The Frenchman's bullet they were willing to risk, but not these. Galloway furnished its full tale of officers to both services, but as a recruiting-ground, even in milder times, it has given poor results.
In 1812 there was a good deal of writing about patriotism in struggling local journals. The big farmers were often loud-voiced, and the publicans hung out colours when the recruiting-officers made temporary headquarters of their houses, but the mass of the people stood silent, sullen and determined. They would not be taken, and if any were seized they would put up such a fight that the "press" would pay three or four lives for one. The chiefs would stay their hand, they argued, if they had to pay the price of three or four formed and disciplined men for a single unwilling recruit who would certainly desert at the first opportunity.
In the old outlaws' cave on Isle Ryan, towards the Mull out beyond Orraland, thirty or forty young men were gathered. They were not afraid of any attack by land or water. The stony bulk of the isle did not even fear cannon, and the passage, open only at low water, was exceedingly easily defended. Provisions they had in plenty, and for more they had only to cross to the mainland, where every farmer would willingly supply them.