Observations on the Present State of the Highlands of Scotland: With a View of the Causes and Probable Consequences of Emigration |
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accustomed acres advantage afford agricultural allowed America antient appear Appendix arable land arising cattle causes chief chieftains circumstances clan colonies consequence consider considerable cotters crop cultivation degree difficulty dispossessed districts doubt duced employed employment England entirely established estates exertion expense farmer farms feel feudal fishing Fraserdale gentlemen gration habits hands Hebrides Highland Society immediate improvement induced industry inhabitants interest Inverness island Isle kelp kingdom labour landlord lord lord Lovat Low Country manner manufacturing means ment mode mountains natural necessity nerally Nova Scotia observed occupiers pasture peasantry peculiar pecuniary perhaps persons population possession principles procure produce progress proportion proprietors racter reason regiment render rent Ross-shire scarcely Scotland settlement settlers sheep sheep-farming situation small tenants South of Scotland South Uist spirit stances Strachur sufficient supposed tenantry tillage tion wages waste land Western Isles whole
Popular passages
Page xix - All their household stuff, which is very little worth, though it might well abide the sale: yet being suddenly thrust out, they be constrained to sell it for a thing of nought. And when they have wandered...
Page xiv - Inclosures at that time began to be more frequent, whereby arable land, which could not be manured without people and families, was turned into pasture, which was easily rid by a few herdsmen ; and tenances for years, lives, and at will, whereupon much of the yeomanry lived, were turned into demesnes.
Page xviii - I, your sheep that were wont to be so meek and tame and so small eaters, now, as I hear say, be become so great devourers and so wild, that they eat up and . „ swallow down the very men themselves. They consume, destroy, and devour whole fields, houses, and cities.
Page xiv - That all houses of husbandry, that were used with twenty acres of ground and upwards, should be maintained and kept up for ever; together with a competent proportion of land to be used and occupied with them...
Page xviii - ... fraud, or by violent oppression they be put besides it, or by wrongs and injuries they be so wearied, that they be compelled to sell all...
Page xviii - They consume, destroy, and devour whole fields, houses, and cities. For look in what parts of the realm doth grow the finest, and therefore dearest wool, there noblemen and gentlemen : yea, and certain Abbots, holy men...
Page v - Wherever we roved, we were pleased to see the reverence with which his subjects regarded him. He did not endeavour to dazzle them by any magnificence of dress : his only distinction was a feather in his bonnet ; but as soon as he appeared, they forsook their work and clustered about him : he took them by the hand, and they seemed mutually delighted.
Page xviii - ... all into pastures : they throw down houses : they pluck down towns, and leave nothing standing, but only the church to be made a sheephouse.
Page xix - ... woeful mothers with their young babes, and their whole household small in substance and much in number as husbandry requireth many hands. Away they trudge, I say, out of their known and accustomed houses, finding no place to rest in.
Page xiv - The king likewise knew full well, and in no wise forgot, that there ensued withal upon this a decay and diminution of subsidies and taxes ; for the more gentlemen, ever the lower books of subsidies.