58 



&l)c iTarmcr'a iHontljlji lUsitor. 



even thai an old man, or, according to other ac- 

 counts, an old woman, refusing 10 leave lier 

 cabin to encounter misery and exile, lier pres- 

 ence did not stop the incendiary, and the victim 

 had perished in the flames. Then the public in- 

 dignation showed itself, ill a manner which could 

 be neither mistaken nor braved. The Duchess 

 of Sutherland thought she did not merit the se- 

 vere judgment which was passed on her con- 

 duct, and it was to justify her at the bar of pub- 

 lic opinion that the hook of her agent was pub- 

 lished. He has tried to prove, and he has done 

 it successfully, that the Duchess has exercised 

 only her acknowledged legal rights, and in so 

 doing has had regard to the preservation of the 

 existence of her vassals [slaves:] lor which she 

 felt that she was responsible. 



The ancestors of this lady were proprietors of 

 about three-fourths of the comity of Sutherland 

 in the most northern part of Scotland. Their 

 possessions measured about one million of En- 

 glish acres. When the Countess of Sutherland 

 inherited these domains, which she brought as a 

 dowry to the Marquess of Stafford, since created 

 Duke of Sutherland, their population did not ex- 

 ceed 15,000. The revenue obtained by the pro- 

 prietor from her vassals was so small, that it 

 might be considered rather as an acknowledg- 

 ment of sovereignty than as rent. It appears that 

 as late as 1811, each family was bound to an an- 

 nual payment of otdy a lew shillings in money, 

 of some articles of game, and of a few days' la- 

 bor. On the other hand, every man born upon 

 these domains was required to spare neither his 

 blood nor his life in defending the soverignty 

 and honor of the family of which he considered 

 himself a member. Mhoir—Fhear Challaibh, as 

 be was called in Gaelic, or The Great Man of 

 Sutherland, had always found his companions in 

 arms ready to defend him, at the peril of their 

 lives, against every enemy, whether foreign or 

 domestic. 



The population was pretty equally distributed 

 over the whole district. Every valley had its 

 hamlet ; the arable laud was devoted to the cul- 

 tivation of barley and oats, and the hills were 

 given to the pasturage o&cattle. The people 

 were poor, as labor anil pasturage were their 

 chief resources: the climate was severe, the 

 winters lung, and they had neither manufactures, 

 commerce, nor money. But they had generally 

 enough to supply their wants ; and even when 

 the wrath of Heaven sometimes destroyed their 

 harvests, and decimated them and their herds by 

 famine, they knew how to submit with re.-ijna- 

 tion, because the hand of man had no part in 

 their sufferings. 



Between the years 1811 and 1820, these 15,000 

 inhabitants, forming about 3000 families, were 

 driven away, or to use Mr. Loch's softened ex- 

 ptession, removed, from the whole interior of the 

 county. All their villages were demolished or 

 burnt, anil all their fields converted into pasture. 

 A similar clearing was made, almost simultane- 

 ously, by the owners of the rest of the county, 

 and their example was soon followed by the 

 great proprietors in Buss and Cromarty counties, 

 and generally throughout the north of Scotland. 

 Mr. Loch assures us, that the Duchess of Suther- 

 land has shewn fir more humanity than any of 

 her neighbors: she has interested herself in the 

 fate of the exiles, has offered them a retreat on 

 her on n territory, and, on taking awaj from them 

 7:i4.UUU acres, of which they had been in pos- 

 b - ion from time immemorial, she has generous- 

 ly left them about 6000, or two acres to a family. 

 The land thus granted to them, however, had 

 never been cultivated, and hiid yielded no in- 

 come to the proprietor. Still, it was not conceded 

 to them gratuitously; they are subject to a mod- 

 erate rent of two and a half shillings per acre, 

 and no leases are granted to them for mine than 

 .- iven years; but they are assured that the leases 

 shall be renewed for another term of seven years, 

 if the land should he we'l cultivated. Mr. "Loch 

 informs us that the fate of these exiles has not 

 been so deplorable as they foreboded. Some, it 



is true, were unwilling to receive any thing fi 



her who had driven them from their homes. 

 The clan Gunn, or the Mac Hamish, after leav- 

 ing the mountains of Kildonan, and the valleys 

 ol Newer and Helmsdale, quitted the rouiitri 



entirely, and we are not told what has hi me ol 



them. But with the exception of this tribe, ami 

 of 32 families from Strathbora, who left for 



America in 1818 and 1811), the clansmen, we are 

 told, have almost all accepted the lots offered 

 them by the Duchess. 



The territory of which the Duchess has thus 

 reclaimed possession has been divided by her 

 agent, Mr. Loch, into 29 great farms, very une- 

 qual in extent, some of them being larger than 

 the department of the Seine in France. These 

 farms, intended solely for the pasturage of sheep, 

 are each inhabited by a single family, and as the 

 kind of labor required upon them is a new thing 

 in Scotland, only English farm-servants are em- 

 ployed. As early as 1820, the place of the brave 

 men who formerly shed their blood in delence of 

 Mhoir-Fhear Chattaibh was filled by 131,000 

 sheep, and their number is now doubtless much 

 increased. No human voice is now heard with- 

 in the narrow passes of those bills once made 

 illustrious by the combats of an ancient race; no 

 one any longer calls to mind their glorious re- 

 collections: the valleys have no more any ham- 

 lets, no accent of joy or grief any longer trou- 

 bles those vast solitudes ; but the heir of the Earl 

 of Sutherland, who is established for the future 

 in England, many hundreds of miles distant 

 from the country of his maternal ancestors, can 

 repose, and enjoys himself for his ancient vassal. 



This expulsion of the Gaelic people from their 

 ancient friends is considered as legal ; but will 

 men dare say it is just? * * * This ancient 

 nation of the Celts, or Gauls, which formerly 

 possessed not only the British isles, but France, 

 and a part of Italy and Spain, shall it he driven 

 in the name of the laws, from those rocks where 

 it maintained its independence, that was lost 

 every where else ? 



It is by a cruel abuse of legal forms, by a fla- 

 grant usurpation, that the Highlanders have been 

 considered as having no right to the soil which 

 they have occupied for centuries, and of which, 

 in fact, they were co-proprietors with their chief- 

 tains. Even their name, Klaun, in Gaelic signi- 

 fies children. * * * * A count has no more 

 right to bailish from their homes the inhabitants 

 of bis county, than a king has to expel from the 

 laud the inhabitants of bis kingdom. 



The feudalism of wealth, the serfdom of the 

 laboring classes, are so firmly anchored in the 

 empire [of Great Britain] that they can be sha- 

 ken only by the hurricane strength of a revolu- 

 tion like that which prostrated the throne and 

 the nobility of France in 1781). The immediate 

 cause of the wildest excesses of that epoch was a 

 cry of the populace for bread ; and one of the 

 great permanent effects of that memorable con- 

 vulsion was the adoption of a democratic law regu- 

 lating the descent of proper!;/. England is already 

 heaving with the first throes of a similar out- 

 break. The frequent suspension of the Habeas 

 Corpus act in Ireland, and the disarming of the 

 people, the Chartist disturbances in 1838, and 

 the riots in the midland counties in 1842, are 

 signs the purport of which cannot be mistaken. 

 Even now, peace is maintained only at the point 

 of the bayonet, by the pres nee of large bodies 

 of troops, and ol" an armed and disciplined po- 

 lice. 



Thus far the extracts from the North Ameri- 

 can Review. They show, that although the early 

 revolution in France was defeated by the excess- 

 es into which it was driven by hostile conspira- 

 tors against it, objects of great magnitude were 

 gained, and the foundation laid for such a repub- 

 lican government as in time should be maintain- 

 ed by the voice of a virtuofis and enlightened 

 public opinion. The revolution of 1789, depo- 

 sing the first Bourbons, was an important founda- 

 tion laid which has since secured comfort, com- 

 petency, intelligence, all the means of indepen- 

 dence permanently to he asserted and maintained 

 by the masses of the French people. 



To show what progress the first ten years had 

 made in the melioration nf the condition of the 

 people of France, we have copied from the 

 "lire,'' in the Congress Library, published hj 

 Charles Holt at New London, ("t., June 2G, ]7!>L>. 

 extracts from a letter of George Logan, that year 



a traveller in France, and who afterwards in the 

 administration of Mr. Jefferson was an eminent 

 Senator in Congress from Pennsylvania. The 

 putting an end to the feudal times in France at 

 that time was a most important means of her fu- 

 ture prosperity: had the same basis of prosperi- 

 ty been laid ir, Great Britain and Ireland, how 

 different now would be the condition of both 

 government and people. 



Letter of George Logan, in the Aurora. 

 " During the summer 1 travelled seven hun- 

 dred miles through France. The country every 

 where had the appearance of increasing prosper- 

 ity: in many places comfortable farm bouses 

 were building, and the cottagers, well clothed, 

 exhibited a pleasing appearance of happiness 

 and content This numerous and heretofore de- 

 graded class of men have received immediate 

 advantages from the revolution, whilst the privi- 

 leged orders have been annihilated by its impet- 

 uous storms. The cultivators of the earth, 

 emancipated from the feudal claims of the nobil- 

 ity, from the monstrous demands of the clergy, 

 ami trom the personal labor exacted by unjust 

 laws for repairing the roads, &<•., at this time 

 lonn a respectable class of independent citizens, 

 in many instances living on their own small 



'• The municipal officers, established in every 

 pan of the republic to preserve the public tran- 

 quility, are attentive to their function ; and the 

 laws are so highly respected that although the 

 fields in general are not enclosed, yet the proper- 

 ty of the farmer is held sacred — even the exten- 

 sive gardens in the vicinity of Paris, abounding 

 with the most delicious fruits and vegetables, are 

 free from plunder. 



" With respect to religions establishments, the 

 people of Fiance are in opinion with the citi- 

 zens of the United States: they consider them 

 as foreign to civil institutions. On this account 

 no provision is made by law for the support of 

 the clergy for any denomination — nor does the 

 civil law interfere between any man and his Cre- 

 ator: every citizen is left at full liberty to wor- 

 ship God agreeably to the dictates of his own 

 conscience. 



'• Whilst in Paris, I visited several of the 

 churches on the Christian Sabbath, and was [ire- 

 sent at the celebration of mass; the doors of the 

 chinch being open for the free admission of any 

 person. The same places of worship are, on the 

 day of duade, occupied by the Theophilanthro- 

 pists, a religious sect, something similar in their 

 discipline and manner of worship to the inde- 

 pendents of New England, or the Baptists. — 

 They commence their worship by prayer, invok- 

 ing the Supreme Being as the author and Ibun- 

 tain of all good: they sing hymns of praise, and 

 conclude their devotions by well-connected ser- 

 mons on the genuine principles of morality and 

 virtue; when at the same time they inculcate 

 the duties of every good citizen to maintain the 

 liberties and to preserve inviolate the laws of his 

 country. In one respect they resemble the Qua- 

 kers : every gifted brother" has the liberty of 

 pleaching without any formal ordination." 



The mode in which Sulphuric Acid increas- 

 es THE FERTILIZING INFLUENCE OK Bo.NE-DUST. 



it has been found that bones, in a heap with 

 moistened ashes or sand, ferment so intensely, as 

 soon entirely to lose their structure and form. 

 In this state they have acquired greatly more 

 power as a manure. In one case, 17 bushels of 

 bones yielded a crop of 13j tons of turnips pet- 

 acre, while the same nop was obtained from 

 half the quantity of hones that had heated in sand. 

 In another case, 14£ tons of turnips followed the 



application of 2.V, bushels of I es, while 12J 



bushels heated in sand yielded a crop of upwards 

 of 17 tons per acre. In the former case 4.J bu- 

 shels of " sulphated" bones produced 14.J tons 

 of roots, ami in the latter 7h bushels of "sulpha- 

 ted " bones produced a crop of 14-1 tons. The 

 explanation is this: In the course' of it, let it be 

 assumed that the value of the hones, as a ma- 

 nure, is mainly due to the phosphorus with 

 which they furnish the plant. The chief con- 

 stituent of bone-dust is phosphate of lime, a 



