LETTERS, &c. PART I. LORD MACDONALD'S EVICTIONS AT SOLLAS, To the Lord Advocate of Scotland. Carinish, North Uist, August 29. 1849. MY LORD,-During a course of enquiry into the circumstances connected with the recent commotions at Sollas, in this island, some facts have come to my knowledge which I judge it proper and respectful to submit to your Lordship, before I take steps to publish them as widely as (in my opinion) their importance demands. Sheriffs Colquhoun and Shaw were, as your Lordship is no doubt informed, officially employed at Sollas in ostensibly enforcing certain rights of property urged on behalf of Lord Macdonald; and had those functionaries limited themselves to the strict discharge of their proper duties, as administrators of the law, no cause of complaint could be justly alleged against them. But it pains me to be obliged to state, that from the testimony (which they are ready to verify upon oath) of many parties at Sollas, the aforesaid sheriffs compelled by menaces a number of heads of families to sign an agreement with, and framed by Lord Macdonald's so-styled commissioner, binding themselves to emigrate to Canada between the months of February and June 1850. Now, I appeal to your Lordship, as the protector of public rights, and the avenger of public wrongs in this part of the United Kingdom, to satisfy the humble persons thus despotically dealt with, whether the law of Scotland justifies a sheriff called in for one purpose, viz. that of enforcing a proprietor's right of rent, to subserve another purpose, namely, that of aiding a proprietor in A promoting compulsory emigration? On this plain point I am sure an explicit answer will be afforded by your Lordship. I am not aware of any principle of English law which would bear out a sheriff, or any other officer, in so violent an interference with the liberty of the subject. The "menaces" to which I referred, as used by Sheriffs Colquhoun and Shaw, were, "that if the agreement to go to Canada, or elsewhere, as emigrants, was not signed by the Sollas tenants, their houses should be pulled down, roof and stance.” Again, my Lord, I ask for my own information, if the Scottish law of ejectment warrants a sheriff in thus acting towards parties against whom writs of ejectment are to be enforced ?—I have the honour to be, your Lordship's obedient servant, THOMAS MULOCK. NORTHI UIST.-SHERIFFS COLQUHOUN AND SHAW, AND LORD MACDONALD'S COMMISSIONER. [From Inverness Advertiser, Sept. 11. 1849.] SIR, I am pleased to find my letter to the Lord Advocate copied in your journal, and I am still more pleased that you have not undertaken to vindicate the contents of that letter. My statement requires no vindication. I laid down as a truthful proposition that the sheriffs had flagrantly gone beyond their legal functions in abetting the course pursued by Lord Macdonald's factor, viz. that of making the execution of a writ of ejectment contingent upon a forced agreement to emigrate to America-the threat being the demolition of the houses of unsigning parties. This is the pith of the whole matter. Let the sheriffs shew-let the commissioner of Lord Macdonald shew, what legal right they had to coerce the poor people of Sollas into any such agreement. And can that agreement be enforced by law? I maintain that it cannot-that it is essentially vicious and void, as having been extorted from parties who were under police duresse at the very time. And if the agreement be invalid, then all the previous notices of ejectment, &c. fall to the ground-for the agreement was a waiver of all previous proceedings. It is, however, quite true that there is a class of cases where the interference of the sheriffs in enforcing compulsory emigration might be both proper and necessary; but it should be added, that the coerced parties must be criminals convicted by the verdict of a jury; whereas the guilt of the Sollas tenants only consisted in their being debtors to Lord Macdonald in a small arrear of rent, which had accumulated in very hard times, with perhaps the additional culpability of holding lands which were desiderated for sheepwalks. In a very few days I shall be able to lay before the public a succinct and faithful statement of facts connected with the North Uist affair, which will, I trust, prove useful to all parties concerned in promoting compulsory emigration, which I take to be a very illegal proceeding. To aid or facilitate voluntary emigration is one thing to persecute the poor into forced expatriation is quite another thing—and this latter course is now so rife in the Highlands as to call for thorough exposure and reprobation.' As I have no interests or feelings mixed with my researches, my inquiries are perfectly impartial, and my zeal for truth forbids my too ready reception of representations which I might hereafter have occasion to qualify or retract. To satisfy you that my remarks regarding the sheriffs can be borne out, I beg to say that I possess a notification signed "Patrick Cooper, " in which that gentleman identifies "the authorities" with his own menaces against such parties as should refuse to sign the agreement to emigrate. I must trespass still farther, by asking you to insert a second letter to the Lord Advocate, a copy of which I subjoin.—I am, sir, your obedient servant, Reraig, Lochalsh, Sept. 7. 1849. THOMAS MULOCK. To the Lord Advocate. Portree, September 3. 1849. MY LORD,-Before my departure from Lochmaddy, I had an opportunity (through the courtesy of the Procurator-fiscal) of examining the bail-bonds executed on behalf of the four parties against whom your Lordship has raised indictments for alleged rioting and assault at Sollas, in North Uist. With the merits of their respective cases I do not, at present, presume to meddle; but I take the liberty of asking your Lordship whether the surrender of the bailed prisoners at Lochmaddy would not meet the requirements of the law? for I apprehend if the parties had not been bailed, they must have been sent to Inverness at the public expense. The parties in question are, I well know, to poor to provide their own viaticum-their stock, &c., having been seized by Lord Macdonald's commissioner, neither have they means to defray the cost of witnesses, which might amount to a denial of justice. When I see the formidable list of witnesses for the Crown (30 in number), the subject becomes still more important to the prisoners. -I have the honour to be, your Lordship's obedient servant, THOMAS MULOCK. LETTER 1.-THE SOLLAS TRIALS. To the Right Hon. Lord Macdonald. MY LORD,-Now that the "majesty" of the law of landlord and tenant has been measurably vindicated by the conviction of the poor prisoners from Sollas, your Lordship must not be surprised to find the noble proprietor of North Uist himself subjected to a course of investigation, quite as rigorous as can take place in an ordinary court of justice. As your Lordship's so-styled commissioner has thought proper to impugn indirectly the Christian compassion with which the Jury humanely qualified the stern uprightness of their verdict, it appears to me but just that your Lordship should be held accountable for the statements, as well as the acts of a delegated despiser and oppressor of the poor. I, for one, disdain to descend to altercation with Mr Cooper: but I assume your Lordship to be responsible for all the errors, all the harshness, all the vulgar virulence which abound in a statement to which Mr Cooper subscribes his name. I respect your Lordship's rank-I unfeignedly pity your painful position, but I cannot suffer your Lordship to be screened by the interposition of an underling; as you have made the poor people of Sollas answerable for their acts, so your Lordship must now submit to a scrutiny of your own conduct. No privilege of your order can avail you here; and in your character of proprietor you are as amenable to the principles of truth and righteousness, as your captive tenants were to the common law of the land. Apart from the studied misrepresentations and prolix mystifications of your Lordship's magniloquent commissioner, the whole case of the ill-treated people of Sollas, lies in a nut-shell; and if your Lordship shall be shewn to be the transgressing party, through sheer ignorance of your own affairs, you must blame your own supineness, instead of finding fault with my freedom. I assert, without fear of confutation, that your Lordships statements (made through your vice-gerent) are wholly incorrect when you allege that "Sollas was not suited for small tenants, from the scarcity of manure, and the nature of the soil." I maintain, on the contrary, from actual observation and inquiry, and from the written testimony of your Lordship's former factor, Dr Macleod, that the experience of more than seventy years justifies the belief that the district of Sollas is well-suited for small tenants, if proper and reasonable encouragement were afforded them. Up to the years 1846, 1847, and 1848, the rents of Sollas were as regularly paid," says Dr Macleod, "as those of any other lands in North Uist, which can be proved from the factor's books." It is true that the potato failure threw the people of Sollas, like all other Highland tenants, necessarily in arrear,-and the absolute need of increased corn cultivation, at once demonstrated the inadequacy of existing crops to supply subsistence for the population. But the real remedy for this distressing state of things lay with your Lordship, who, by reducing rents and enlarging crofts, might have secured the continuance (after a period of difficulty), of a thriving and thankful tenantry. But other counsel prevailed, and Sollas was fore-doomed to depopulation, in order that the district should be partitioned among two or three prospective tacksmen, who had found favour with your Lordship's functionaries. And I boldly affirm that these monstrously unjust pre-arrangements lie at the root of all the systematic clearances which disgrace and desolate the Highlands. The old dispossession of Naboth's Vineyard, is renewed on a larger scale by the Celtic Ahabs-and when once a devoted district is fastened upon, or, in other words, bespoke, by some unscrupulous sheep-owner-pretexts are not wanting to colour the tyrannical eviction and forced expatriation of the unfortunate and unprotected peasantry. Thus, your Lordship (per commissioner), having resolved upon converting Sollas into a sheep |