CHAPTER XV. 



THE triple-headed weapon which the Government 

 employed after Culloden, for rendering impossible the 

 recurrence of rebellion, was designed to deal a crushing 

 blow at the system of Celtic feudalism which prevailed in 

 the Highlands. The Disarming Act enforced passive 

 obedience to the laws ; the Act against the Highland 

 dress stifled the spirit of nationality ; the abolition of 

 I hereditary jurisdictions, although these formed no part of 

 the clan system, struck, nevertheless, at its very roots. 

 This is not the place to discuss the undoubted advantages 

 which ultimately accrued to the Highland people from the 

 I decay of their feudal system, and to weigh them against 

 I the less obvious disadvantages which are claimed as an 

 offset. The change was far-reaching. It stripped the 

 chiefs of powers which had no parallel in Great Britain ; 

 and it put at the disposal of the people, liberties, immuni- 

 ties, and a form of justice, through regularly appointed 

 sheriffs, to which they had previously been total strangers. 

 On the other side of the account, may be fairly placed the 

 mutual dependence and the mutual sympathy engendered 

 by Celtic feudalism, and the intimate relations between 

 chiefs and commoners which it fostered. But it is pain- 

 fully clear that in most cases, the paternal care of the 

 chiefs for their clansmen, and the community of interests 

 which formerly existed, had been gradually superseded by 

 an autocratic system of government, which divested the 

 commoners of the last shred of control over the actions of 

 their leaders. Yet, the fiction of patriarchism was main- 

 tained to the end : the cordiality of the chiefs to the 

 meanest of their dependents covered a multitude of 



