CHAP. VIII. RECEPTION OF TELFORP'S REPORT. 381 



and a description of the country through which the 

 proposed line of the Caledonian Canal would necessarily 

 pass a canal which had long been the subject of in- 

 quiry, but had not as yet emerged from a state of mere 

 speculation. 



The new roads and bridges, and other improvements 

 suggested by the engineer, excited much interest in the 

 north. The Highland Society voted him their thanks by 

 acclamation ; the counties of Inverness and Ross followed ; 

 and he had letters of thanks and congratulation from 

 many of the Highland chiefs. " If they will persevere," 

 says he, " with anything like their present zeal, they will 

 have the satisfaction of greatly improving a country that 

 has been too long neglected. Things are greatly changed 

 now in the Highlands. Even were the chiefs to quarrel, 

 de'il a Highlandman would stir for them. The lairds 

 have transferred their affections from their people to 

 flocks of sheep, and the people have lost their veneration 

 for the lairds. It seems to be the natural progress of 

 society ; but it is not an altogether satisfactory change. 

 There were some fine features in the former patriarchal 

 state of society ; but now clanship is gone, and chiefs and 

 people are hastening into the opposite extreme. This 

 seems to me to be quite wrong." 



In the same year Telford was elected a member of the 

 Iloyal Society of Edinburgh, on which occasion he was 

 proposed and supported by three professors ; so that the 

 former Edinburgh mason was rising in the world and 

 receiving due honour in his own country. The effect of 

 his report was such, that in the session of 1803 a Parlia- 

 mentary Commission was appointed, under whose direc- 

 tion a series of practical improvements was commenced, 

 which issued in the construction of not less than 92Q 

 additional miles of roads and bridges throughout the 

 Highlands, one-half of the cost of which was defrayed by 



Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, LangUolui, dated Salop, 18th February, 1803. 



