Donald MacLeod's Gloomy memories in the Highlands of Scotland versus Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Sunny memories

Preface To The Present Edition

Many things have happened in the County of Sutherland, as well as in the Highlands generally, since 1840-41, when Donald MacLeod wrote to the Edinburgh Weekly Chronicle about “ the Sutherland Clearances,” and even since the later portions of this work were called forth by Mrs. Beecher Stowe’s attempt in her “ Sunny Memories ” to whitewash the house of Sutherland after its defilement from contact with the fire and crow-bar brigade of that county. To many interested in the Highlands of Scotland, the title of this book has been long familiar, and the name of Donald MacLeod has long been esteemed and honoured. Few, how¬ ever, of the present generation have read the “ Gloomy Memories” as the earlier editions are long out of print, and but comparatively few of the Canadian edition, published in 1857, reached this country. In these circumstances it may be interesting to give a few facts regarding the author of this patriotic work, and the causes which led him to publish his “ Gloomy Memories.”

Donald MacLeod was born at Bossal, Strathnaver, where his father, William MacLeod, was at the time a farmer. When Donald was about twenty years of age, his father was obliged to leave his little farm in order that it might form part of a gigantic sheep run, and was obliged to accept a croft among others at the foot of the Strath, in Aird-an-iasgaich. After¬ wards, the family were removed to Strathy Point, whence Donald had to make another move at the instance of Patrick Sellar’s successor. He removed southward, keeping as long as he could within the bounds of the county. The last employment he had in his native shire was as a mason building the breast on the north side of the Kyle, and to the ease of the bridge of Bonar.

From this he went to Edinburgh, where he found access to the press, but such an “ agitator ” was not likely to receive much encouragement in that city of “ law and order,” and accordingly Donald MacLeod went to Canada, where he ended his days. In Woodstock, Ontario, he prepared for the press, the edition which was published for him in 1857, b y Thomson & Coy., Colonist Office, Toronto.

No one who reads the “Gloomy Memories” and considers the author’s environments and opportunities, can fail to observe the marked ability with which he states his facts, and the firmness displayed at a time when his sentiments could find but little support and scanty approval. Despite the attempts of Mrs Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Commissioner James Loch, M.P., to whitewash the Sutherland escutcheon, and the various efforts of the Sellar family to vindicate the memory of their father, yet the state* ments made by Donald MacLeod have never been overturned or refuted — indeed they have in these latter days been fully substantiated. The Royal Commission appointed in 1883 to enquire into the condition of the Highland Crofters had ample evidence submitted to it in the county regarding the Sutherlandshire clearances, their extent and attendant cruelties. At its sittings in Edinburgh, the Commission heard the evidence of two witnesses of these cruel evictions, as well as received fifteen duly attested affidavits of old men then living who had been eye¬ witnesses of the clearances, and of the accompanying atrocities.

The conduct of the clergy during the period of these evictions must call forth the censure of all right thinking persons. Instead of pleading the cause of the poor and defending the widow and orphan, they, with one or two exceptions, aided and abetted the evictors and sought to justify their conduct. Nor is the attitude of the clergy towards the Crofter Agitation in our own day much better. As a rule — with just sufficient exceptions to prove the rule — they have either sided with the oppressors of the people and condemned the agitators, or displayed a callous indifference when the most vital interests of their people were at stake. Even many of the successors of those who protested so vehemently against “site refusers’’ in 1843, are frequently found attempting to justify the oppression and extortion of modern landlordism. It is therefore a matter of profound thankfulness that the people have asserted their rights and demanded a restitution of privileges long denied them Till within recent years the Highland people were denied

Ill

-a voice in the making of those laws under which they lived. An ex¬ tended franchise has recently endowed them with a new existence and their sufferances are now sought for with a persistency indicative of their importance in the domain of politics. *

The Crofters’ Act of 1886, despite its imperfections and aggravating limitations, is based on the historic rights of the Celts, and is therefore but an earnest of what must yet be conceded, if the Highlanders are united in their desires and persistent in their demands. How it would have cheered the heart of Donald MacLeod had he lived to see the passing of the Crofters’ Act, and he would have been gratified beyond measure to find that the electors of his native county had, at the last general election, declined the blandishments of those in authority and sent a crofter’s son, Mr Angus Sutherland to Parliament to represent them — and so furnished all other constituencies with an example well worthy of imitation.

FIONN.

* In 1884 the Sutherland constituency was 325, in 1885 the extended franchise raised it to 3180.

v.

Introduction

TO CANADIAN EDITION

To Donald Matheson, Esq., M.P.P., for North Oxford, Canada West, and William Manson, Esq., Captain of the Highland Guards, New York, Scottish Highlanders, and their descendants in the Canadas, x and in the United States of America.

Gentlemen, — In dedicating the following narrative to you, the author has not the vanity to suppose that you will be honoured thereby, containing as it does a narration of painful facts, connected with the suffering and depreciation of a once mighty race of people, who had largely contributed to the renown of Britain as a nation, and instrumental in raising her to her present proud position among the nations of the earth. It is not the object of the author to dilate here upon the antiquity and character of the Celtic race, but expose the cruelty and injustice to which they have been subjected by the aristocracy of Great Britain, and tolerated by the Gov¬ ernment, seemingly with the avowed intention to extirpate them root and branch from the land of their birth and home of their forefathers, and to convert the fertile valleys of Caledonia, “the land of the brave,” into hunting and sheep walks. Doubtless the cruel dealings of Highland aris¬ tocracy to the down-trodden sons and daughters of Caledonia, will find apologists, and even at the present time they have procured an American literary luminary, who promises well to whitewash their foul deeds, partic¬ ularly the Sutherlandshire depopulators (of the long purse)’, and endeav¬ ouring to make it appear that all the author and others have written about the Sutherlandshire clearances, were malicious accusations and groundless grievances ■ hut she will not get Scot free away with it. I know, experimentally, that the advocates of the poor man’s rights do labor under many disadvantages ; still the author of this work rejoices that he has it in his power to appeal to hundreds of his countrymen to attest the veracity of all the statements he advances, and has confidence in his own abilities to bring home every charge of cruelty and oppression practised upon the Sutherlandshire Highlanders by their ruthless and tyrannical lords of the soil and their underlings. This unvarnished narrative, imperfect as it may be, in regard to its literary character, is however, inscribed not from any mercenary motives, but as a humble tribute of regard for your well known sympathies for the wrongs of your oppressed countrymen : trust ing, that a liberal allowance will be made for the limited literary attain ments of

Yours respectfully,

DONALD MCLEOD,

Woodstock, 20th Feb., 1857.

Gentlemen and Fellow Countrymen: —

It is true, as many of you said, that we have had at one time a nativity, and a native country, to which we and our forefathers were married and loved — where we have kindred feelings and associations, as sacred to our memory as almost our very existence. It is true that we are the genuine descendants of a race of whom we have much cause to be proud, and boast of — for we may turn up the pages of antiquity and ransack modern and ancient history in vain, to find out a race of people, among whom bravery and patriotism existed equal to the Celtic race, or among whom Civilization, Science, Literature, Morality, Benevolence, and Humanity, made such progress as among the Celtic, who occupied the Highlands of Scotland. But alas, alas ! It is true, that all that they were — all that they have done for ungrateful Britain, went for nothing when their ene¬ mies got the upper hand of them. It is now a lamentable truth, that the Highlands of Scotland (Tir mo ghraidh. Tir nam beann, nangleann ’s nan gaisgeach) which the Roman army in their victorious days failed to conquer — which the brutal Edwards, and Cromwell, and many other formidable invaders failed to subdue — are now converted to a howling solitary wilder¬ ness, from which joy and rejoicing are fled for ever. Where the martial notes of the bag- pipes, echoed by mountains and glens, ceased to be heard — and where no sweeter strains to cheer the stranger who may hap¬ pen to travel there, are heard, than the yell of shepherds and foxhunters the bleating of sheep, the barking of collie dogs, and the screeches of the owl and eagle.

It is true my friends, that I have devoted all my spare time and means, for the last thirty-four years, expostulating, remonstrating with, and expo¬ sing the desolators of my country, and extirpators of my race, from the land of their birth, and advocating the cause of the suffering people, dur¬ ing these trying, murdering, and desolating times — considering that I could not serve God in a more acceptable way, than to help those who could not help themselves. Thousands of my countrymen in this country, and elsewhere, will bear me witness in what I have suffered at the hands of the scions of Highland aristocracy, for performing what I considered my incumbent duty.

Hot knowing my position in life, especially my pecuniary circumstances, many of my countrymen in the Canadas, say — Why not come out Donald M‘Leod with your long promised Highland Cabin , that the cruel conduct, and ungodly oppression of Highland oppressors, may be immortalized in the Canadas.

Your importunities are most agreeable to me, for I bear in my mind an unuying desire to gratify you, and I hope in the course of some time, that I will accomplish it.

The only excuse I can plead for the delay, is my circumscribed circum¬ stances. I have been peeled and plucked so often, that there was scarcely a feather in my wings when I left Scotland, and they are but slowly pro¬ gressing as yet — but there is hope of their restoration. To sol cit aid was hitherto foreign to my mind, but now I am old v*.d have learnt, (nach sluagh duine na 6nar) that one man is not a people.

The time is now come when I consider I have to perform my part to •gratify you. The conflicting opinions and ideas regarding the rights of property, more especially property in land, and what constitutes property in land, is a great barrier in my way : all 'who read and believe sacred history, I think will agree with me, that the whole creation of God was at one time public property. How is the most part of God’s creation now taken out of His hands, and converted to individual private property 1 Since history took notice of the movement of nations, I can trace only three fundamental, feasible laws, which constitute right of property in land, viz : — the laws of discovery, of conquest, and of purchase. For instance, when a seafaring captain discovers a continent, or an island, he takes possession of it in the name of his Sovereign and Government. On his return he is rewarded. Government transports, with soldiers, sur¬ veyors, pioneers, &c., are dispatched to ascertain the mineral wealth and various resources of the land, and all expenses for discovery, and of the expedition are paid out of the public treasury, hence the discovered land becomes national property. Emigration will follow, commissioners are appointed by government, (and paid out of the public purse) to sell the land. The land is sold, but under certain stipulations, and these conditions must be observed, or the purchase right is forfeited. Though you purchased the land legally, and pay for it punctually, still government has a perfect right, (at least should have) to compel the obstinate and vicious to cultivate, or use the land for the greatest good or benefit of the lieges ; wise governments do in all cases retain for themselves the power that no right of property in land shall be a barrier to public good and prosperity ; railways and canals can be driven through your land, quarries and gravel pits can be opened in your corn-fields, whether you will or not, so that in my opinion land cannot be, nor should be, private property that a man can do what he pleases with it.

There are many vicious, inhumane, and unconstitutional men in this world, and to be found among land owners in greater ratio than any other •classes I know or read about. Now supposing that one or any number of them took it into their heads to convert their estates into hunting parks, •lays, and preserves of wild and destructive animals, which could neither be enclosed nor prevented from depredatory inroads upon other people’s property — purposely to afford themselves, their rich friends, and favourite companions amusement, or to let their domains upon rent to sportsmen, should not government interfere. But to find these men boldly entering both Houses of Parliament with a bill demanding an Act of Parliament to protect them in their wicked and unconstitutional scheme, and to punish by banishment or long imprisonment, any one who would even trespass upon the preserves or lays of these animals to annoy them. But this is not all, but an act whereby they could seize upon the property of their poorer co-proprietors and neighbours, burn down their habitations, banish themselves from the land, and add their property to their own extensive game preserves. You surely would consider this effrontery without a par¬ allel in the annals of plunderers ; and I am sure you will agree with me (that the imbeci lity, yea, insanity of the Legislature or Government who

IV would enact such laws and grant such liberties, are beyond the compre¬ hension of rational beings ; likewise that the shortsightedness, culpable carelessness, and cowardice of a nation boasting of their civilization, intel¬ ligence, and Christianity, who would tolerate such unwise and ungodly proceedings are beyond description. But you say Donald are you raving , where did such enormities take place 1 I tell you in Scotland y yes in beloved and never to be forgotten Scotland, in Caledonia Tir nam beann, nan gleann ’s nan Gaisgeach , — “ the land of the mountains, the cataracts, and heroes” still worse than this took place, and I will make it as clear as noonday to you in my narrative, — yes, after the union of England and Scotland, far more insane and unconstitutional laws were enacted, and to the everlasting disgrace of the British Parliament and nation are still allowed a stain upon the statute book, and in full opera¬ tion, to rob the poor to make the rich richer — to gratify a few avaricious minions who, constitutionally speaking, forfeited their rights of property, (with very few exceptions) their rights and privileges of communion with Christians, and who should long ere now be arrainged before the highest tribunal of the nation, and dealt with as conspirators and traitors. Men. who have neither bravery, ancestry, virtue, or honour to boast of ; men who cannot claim the rights of discovery , of conquest , of defending, nor of purchase to the land they now hold as their private property, and con¬ sidering their rights to these lands sacred.

Very few Historians, however unprincipled and partial, ever attempted to deprive the Celtic race of their right of discovery to Scotland, and we have ample proof in history of how the Celts defended Scotland from every invader from the first invasion of the Romans down to the ignoble union or alliance with England; so that Scotland stands alone among the nations of the known world unconquered. No doubt the Lowlands of Scotland have been invaded and conquered more than once ; but when these powerful invaders came to exchange blows with the (unmixed in blood) Celtic Caledonians, they met with more than their match, were repelled, had to retrace their steps, and often not many of them left to retrace their steps. If this is admitted, (and who can deny it) I maintain that the lineal descendents of the discoverers and defenders of Scotland,* are the real proprietors of the land, and that every one of that lineage from John O’Groat to Maiden Kirk, has as good a right to a portion of the land as the Dukes of Roxburgh, Buccleuch, Hamilton, Athol, Argyle, Gordon, or Sutherland, who (along with other nine or ten Earls, Mar¬ quises and Lords) hold more than the two-thirds of Scotland, as their private property, exclusively for themselves and their families’ agrandizement, luxury and amusement, and three-fourths of their domains devoted to rear brute animals. How the legitimate heirs of children of the soil were dispossessed and expelled, and how aliens and cruel bastards got possession of the Scottish soil, is to be explained. To trace the history of the Celtic race down from the Garden of Eden to Cape- wrath, in Sutherlandshire would be the work of supererogation, hence I must con¬ fine myself to the time since history took hold of their movements and system of Government ; and however complicated, conflicting, and partial.

V historians are upon the genealogy, customs and government of this race, it is evident that braver men never existed, and no other race on record who excelled them in literature, science, and civilization.

I would in particular solicit the attention of ray readers to what they should all know — the chain of Scottish historians, whose works are still extant, though suppressed and locked up from those who should be edified by them — works sufficient to convince the most obdurate, that learning and civilization always followed our race from the earliest ages, not only in Scotland but in other nations where they made a distinguished figure. “ I am tired,” says Julius Leichton, “of hearing the Roman authors quoted, when the commencement of our civilization is spoken of, while nothing is said of the Celts, or of our obligation to them. It w as not the Latins, it was the Gauls who were our first instructors. Aristotle declared that philosophy was derived by the Greeks from the Gauls, and not imparted to them. The Gauls were truly of sharp wit and apt to learn. So much did the Briton Celts excel in profound learning, that the youths of the continent came hitherto to study by a course of no less than twenty year’s probation.” (See Tacitus’s life of Agricola .) Read the same Roman historian’s admiration and description of the Caledonian Celts under the command of Corbred the Second, surnamed Galgacus and twenty-second King of Scotland, when they confronted the Roman army under the command of Agricola, at the foot of the Grampian hills, where a most sanguinary battle was fought ; and though the Romans by strata¬ gem gained a partial victory, and when Agricola proposed to pursue them, “No,” said Tacitus (his son-in-law) “ be content that you have so many of the Roman soldiers to lead off the field that if you pursue the defeated Caledonians one league further, you shall not have one Roman soldier to guard your person going home.

These are the most formidable, and bravest enemy that ever Rome had to confront, every one of them will die before they yield, they are true patriots, Agricola, make all haste to your strongholds or you are done.” So the Romans had to retrace their steps, and the Calenonians pursued them until the Romans were ultimately driven into the sea. Columba burned many of these Celtic records, yet many survived his ravages. St. Patrick burned one hundred and eightynine of those works at Tara, Ireland, all written in the Gaelic language, with a little mixture of Latin. Edward the First, of England, destroyed many of them, and after the ignoble union with England, what portion of them were preserved extant from these ravages, are now suppressed so as to deprive Scotland of their Celtic record and of the history of their grand¬ fathers. I find thirty-seven of these records suppressed, and locked up in libraries where only a few favorites are admitted, and those say very little about them, except what they say to mutilate and violate them. To enumerate all the works in the Gaelic, Latin, and English language, now suppressed, would require more room or space than I can spare in this small narrative. Among these works, we find the ancient annals of Scotland ; the Pictish Chronicle of high antiquity ; the register of St. Andrew, beginning with 827, when that university was founded by the ^primitive Celtic Christians of Scotland; the works of Nenius in the n seventh century ; the annals of Dunbarton, beginning with the Colum¬ bian period ; the Chronicle of Melrose, partly written in Gaelic, ancE partly in Latin ; the Obituary and Chartularly of Glasgow ; the History of Scotland by Vermandus, Arch -Deacon of St. Andrew, in 1079, Hector Boethius, first principal of Aberdeen College, his history cut deep and is on that account abhorred by the English, (on the savage charge given by Edward the First to his no less savage son, to boil him after he was dead, and to carry his bones with him to frighten the Scots) — Boethius remarks that after he was boiled, “ few would sup the broth.” The black book of Paisley, the last part of which is a continuation of Scots’ Chronicon. Also Lord Elibank’s Treatise on the Scottish League with France in the reign of Charlemange ; and the vast collection of Scottish Annals collected by Sir James Balfour, still preserved, particularly his registers of Scone and Cambuskeneth, now locked up in the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh, besides his history of Fergus the First to Charles the First; together with the Monastic Chronicles, under the appropriate title of Scottish Annals.

But all these and as many more are suppressed, and locked up, but still extant; besides this we have about one hundred manuscript volumes in the Gaelic language, collected and in the possession of the Highland Society, Edinburgh, some of which were transcribed in the fifth century, and is allowed by competent j udges, to be the oldest document written in any living language ; the document itself is sufficient to prove its author. He was named Fithil, rector of the High School of Iona. The volume con¬ sists of two poems, inculcating the only true guide to well-doing here, and eternal happiness hereafter, viz. : that spotless morality which is alonefounded on the word of God ; there is also a critical dissertation on a singular poem, Tain Bo , or the cattle spoil, an event which happened only five years after the Ascension. All of these Gaelic volumes consists of treatises on Botany, Anatomy, Astronomy, Astrology, Theology, Economy, Science, Literature, and Politics; all in the Gaelic language, but all (as I said before) suppressed or lying useless, locked up in universities’ and societies’ libraries. It is a very natural enquiry j — Why are these works suppressed or locked up % or by whom, and what is the cause for it 1 — They are suppressed by the British Government, and the cause is obvious but ignoble in the extreme.

Previous to the miscalled union of Scotland and England it is evident that England could never conquer Scotland until the Caledonians were subdued; they often made bloody attempts, but were as often defeated; but England had recourse to intrigues, her favourite weapons, and after secur¬ ing her alliance with Scotland, she found it a very easy task to conquer. What her arms, and her bloody and murderous kings and generals could never achieve, her treacherous intrigues and money did for her. She got Scot to fight against Scot, Caledonian against Caledonian. She then laughed in her sleeve, and exulted like the lion in the fable when he saw the two bulls in the same park with him quarrelling and fighting ; knowing they would soon become his pray, for she {stretched upon a couch of down) had her soul satisfaction to see the two d - stupid

Vll

Scottish bulls fighting between death and life until they ultimately con¬ quered and subdued one another in 1746, upon the murderous and unfor¬ tunate field of Culloden, when the English insatiable Lion seized upon them both, and Scotland, who, before this, was the pride and protectoress and faithful ally of all the reformed Christian nations of the world, and the terror of England; and all other cruel ambitious nations, her name became now Ichabod , her glory departed, she forfeited her proud position among nations, aud ceased forever to be numbered among them or recog¬ nized as a nation. England seized her Government, her laws, and in short her all. The duped, affected, and the disaffected, shared alike,

No doubt the Duke of Cumberland, the most obnoxious, cowardly monster9 that ever disgraced humanity, commissioned his followers to acts of mur¬ der, plunder, and violence. Thank God, unprecedented in the histories of nations (excepting England) plunder which some of them do enjoy to this day, Argyle among the noblest of them. In that unfortunate year the Black Act was enacted, which deprived the Caledonians of their national garb, of their arms, and forbade them to wear either under the pains and penalties of heavy fines, long imprisonment, and banishment. This nefarious act was in force, and strictly watched for thirty-two years, which is equal to a generation. Our poets, the reprovers of evil cowardly deeds, and the recorders of the deeds of valiant men, were silenced, and many of them made a narrow escape from the gallows, for their 'pensive memoirs of the fallen at Culloden, on the day when Scot- t land was prostrated, at the foot of her avowed enemy, a day pregnant with degradation, slavery, and the desolation and misery I have to record ; all the Gaelic manuscript and history that could be discovered, by hook or by crook, was seized, destroyed, or locked up, among which was the national records, from Fergus the First, to William the First, and none who understood the language were admitted to see them ; and after the elapse of thirty-two years of this Reign of Terror very few were found to peruse or understand the language.

There were various motives for these outrageous proceedings, against the Caledonians in particular, and they answered their various designs to the aristocrats heart’s desire. England knew that the most effectual way to subdue the Celts, wras to, crush their loyalty to their legitimate sovereign, to crush their kindred feeling, habits and customs, and extirpate the patriarchial system of government from among them ; but there was another primary cause, viz. : the Celtic history of Scotland recorded the feudal brutality of English invaders in Scotland, which is indeed too horrifying to speak of, hence would need to be suppressed, that England’s barbarity might be obliterated, and that Scotland and Ireland might be saddled with all her sins. Moreover that Scotland might be left defence¬ less from the attacks of England’s hired historians, to defame her in her government and her chivalry, in her patriotism, her customs, her science, and literature, and to make everything that was great and good, English.

It is a notorious fact that so far as the ingenuity of these hired emmisaries could go, they were faithful to their employers ; and that these noted calumniators of Scotland were chosen from among her own treacherous

Vlll sons, beginning with Robertson,- under the dictation and command of Horace Walpole, the notorious Dupe of Chaterton, down to infamous Babington Macaulay. Limits will not permit me to detail the injustice done to Cedonians by these hired literary scourges, yet with all that they have done, there is still extant of the history of our noble race, enough to make these mutilators blush, and more than enough to make their spurious sarcasm and unfounded calumny stink in Scottish and in the world’s nostrils. Five hundred years before the Christian Era, the Celts took possession of Scotland, and down from that period they governed them¬ selves under the Patriarchial system, until the last remnant of it was destroyed upon the unfortunate muir of Cuiloden ; they had their kings and chieftains, who were entrusted with their government, not by hereditary rights, but as they were found competent to discharge their duties. They obeyed and ardently loved and respected their kings and chieftains while they behaved themselves, but no further ; never allowed them to interfere with the rights of the land any further than to parcel it out to their followers impartially, and the people parcelled out to them what they con¬ sidered sufficient to keep them comfortable and respectable. The chief¬ tains or captains were amenable to the king in all their proceedings, when a dispute arose between the people and their chief, that could not be settled otherwise, it was submitted to the king as their umpire : his decision was final.