3°» on foe commotions m Rofsjhire. Aug-. j«t 



istence to defective legislation, and not to tlie fault of 

 individuals, ought to beredrefsed by the state j and that if 

 the people must be supported by charity, that charity Ihould 

 flow from the purses of the community at large, and not 

 from the pocket of individuals. There can be no doubt 

 that, in the instance above given, the 169 uselefs persons 

 on the estate of Balnagowan, had in strict justice, an 

 equal claim on any manufacturer or merchant in Britain, 

 ill proportion to their income, as on Sir John Lockhart 

 Rofs for their support. 



Let us therefore turn our attention from the gentle- 

 men proprietors of lands in the Highlands, and acquit 

 them of blame on the present occasion, that we may be 

 enabled the more distinctly to discriminate the real causes 

 of this political malady, which, if not removed, threatens- 

 to be attended with very disagreeable consequences to the.- 

 community. 



People dispersed in separate hamlets, in a wide couni- 

 try, without market towns or roads, have no means of 

 converting their industry to profit. If they are able to 

 rear a scanty subsistence for themselves from the soil, 

 they can scarcely in any case do more ; and where the cli- 

 mate is indifferent, even that scanty subsistence must be 

 precarious. They have no inducement to rear more thaa 

 enough in ordinary years, because they could not" find a 

 market for it. For the same reason they cannot convert 

 their industry in any other way to profit. Perpetual po- 

 verty, tliercfore, must be the lot of these people ; and of 

 course they can neither afford to pay an adequate rent to 

 the proprietor for the land they pofsefs, nor pay any taxes 

 so as to augment the revenue of the state *. Could any 



* The following account exhibits such a true picture of the state of the ' 

 Highlands, and the incoijveniencc s to which the inhabitants of these coun- 

 tries are subjected in the progrefs of Industry, that I with pleasure insert 



