restoring that corrupt and tyrannical dynasty, whose offences smelt to heaven, and whose cruelties had, at length, kindled the anger even of humble and meekminded men.

The simple fact is, that the outbreaks of 1715 and 1745 were, in our country, the last struggle of barbarism against civilization. On the one side, war and confusion. On the other side, peace and prosperity. These were the interests for which men really fought; and neither party cared for Stuarts or for Hanoverians. The result of such a contest in the eighteenth century, could hardly be doubtful. At the time, the rebellions caused great alarm, both from their suddenness, and from the strange and ferocious appearance of the Highland invaders.91 But the knowledge we now possess, enables us to see, that, from the beginning, success was impossible. Though the government was extremely remiss, and, notwithstanding the information it received, allowed itself on both occasions to be taken by surprise, there was no real danger.92 The English, not being par

91 Which gave rise to a report that they were cannibals. "The late Mr. Halkston of Rathillet, who had been in this expedition" (the Rebellion of 1745), "told Mr. Young that the belief was general among the people of England, that the Highlanders ate children." Johnstone's Memoirs of the Rebellion, 3d edit. London, 1822, p. 101. Such a rumour, notwithstanding its absurdity, was made somewhat plausible by the revolting conduct of the Highlanders in the first rebellion of 1715, when they committed, in the Lowlands, horrible outrages on corpses which they dug up. See the contemporary evidence, in Correspondence of the Rev. Robert Wodrow, published by the Wodrow Society, vol. ii. pp. 86, 87, 93. 66 They have even raised up some of my Lord Rothes's children and mangled their dead bodies" "till the stench put them away." In 1745, they signalized their entrance into England in the following manner. "The rebels, during their stay in Carlisle, committed the most shocking detestable villanies; for, not contented with robbing families of their most valuable effects, they scrupled not to act their brutal insolence on the persons of some young ladies, even in the presence of their parents. A gentleman, in a letter to his friend in London, writes thus: That, after being in a manner stripped of every thing, he had the misery to see three of his daughters treated in such a manner that he could not relate it.'" Marchant's History of the present Rebellion, London, 1746, pp. 181, 182.

92 Even when they had penetrated to Derby, the best informed of their own party despaired of success. See the Jacobitical account in The Lockhart Papers, London, 4to, 1817, vol. ii. p. 458: "The next thing to be considered of, was what was now to be done; they were now at Derby, with an army not half the number of what they were reported to be, surrounded in

ticularly enamoured either with the Highlanders or with the Stuarts, refused to rise;93 and it cannot be seriously supposed, that a few thousand half-naked banditti had it in their power to prescribe to the people of England what sovereign they should obey, and under what sort of government they should live.

After 1745, there was no further interruption. The interests of civilization, that is, the interests of knowledge, of liberty, and of wealth, gradually assumed the upper hand, and reduced men like the Highlanders to utter insignificance. Roads were cut through their country; and, for the first time, travellers from the south began to mingle with them in their hitherto inaccessible wilds.94 In those parts, the movement was,

a manner with regular troops on all sides, and more than double their number. To go forward, there was no encouragement, for their friends (if they had any) had kept little or no correspondence with them from the time they entered England." The Chevalier De Johnstone, who took an active part in the Rebellion, frankly says, "If we had continued to advance to London, and had encountered all the troops of England, with the Hessians and Swiss in its pay, there was every appearance of our being immediately exterminated, without the chance of a single man escaping." Johnstone's Memoirs of the Rebellion in 1745 and 1746, p. 79.

93 Lord George Murray, the commander-in-chief in 1745, was unwilling to advance far south of Carlisle, "without more encouragement from the country than we had hitherto got." See his own account, in The Jacobite Memoirs of the Rebellion of 1745, edited by R. Chambers, Edinburgh, 1834, p. 48. But his prudent advice was over-ruled. The Highlanders pressed on; and that happened, which any one, tolerably acquainted with England, might have foreseen. Johnstone (Memoirs of the Rebellion, p. 70) says, "In case of a defeat in England, no one in our army could by any possibility escape destruction, as the English peasants were hostile towards us in the highest degree; and, besides, the army of Marshal Wade was in our rear, to cut us off from all communication with Scotland." And at p. 81, "In every place we passed through, we found the English very ill disposed towards us, except at Manchester, where there appeared some remains of attachment to the house of Stuart." The champion of arbitrary power would find a different reception now, in that magnificent specimen of English prosperity, and of true, open-mouthed, English fearlessness. But a century ago, the men of Manchester were poor and ignorant; and the statement of Johnstone respecting them is confirmed by Home, who says, "At Manchester, several gentlemen, and about 200 or 300 of the common people, joined the rebel army; these were the only Englishmen (a few individuals excepted) who joined Charles in his march through the country of England." Home's History of the Rebellion in 1745, London, 1802, 4to, p. 145. 1715, the English equally held back, except at Manchester. See Patten's History of the late Rebellion, London, 1717, pp. 89, 108.

In

The establishment of roads caused great displeasure. Pennant, who

indeed, very slow; but, in the Lowlands, it was much more rapid. For, the traders and inhabitants of towns were now becoming prominent, and their authority helped to neutralize the old warlike and anarchical habits. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, a taste for commercial speculation sprung up, and a large amount of the energy of Scotland was turned into this new channel.95 Early in the eighteenth century, the same tendency was displayed in literature; and works on mercantile and economical subjects became common.96

:

visited Scotland in 1769, says, "These publick works were at first very disagreeable to the old chieftains, and lessened their influence greatly for by admitting strangers among them, their clans were taught that the Lairds were not the first of men.' Pennant's Tour in Scotland, 4th edit. Dublin, 1775, vol. i. p. 204. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, this feeling began to die away. "Till of late, the people of Kintail, as well as other Highlands. had a strong aversion to roads. The more inaccessible, the more secure, was their maxim." Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. vi. p. 244, Edinburgh, 1793.

"The

95 Soon after the establishment of the revolution settlement, the ardent feelings of the Scottish people were turned out of their old channels of religious controversy and war in the direction of commercial enterprise." Burton's Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. i. p. 104. Compare Burnet's History of his own Time, vol. iv. pp. 286, 287, 418; and the note (at p. 419): lords and commons of Scotland were then desirous of getting into trade." This is under the year 169. In 1698, Fletcher of Saltoun writes: "by no contrivance of any man, but by an unforeseen and unexpected change of the genius of this nation, all their thoughts and inclinations, as if united and directed by a higher power, seem to be turned upon trade, and to conspire together for its advancement. First Discourse on the Affairs of Scotland, in Fletcher of Saltoun's Political Works, Glasgow, 1749, p. 57. At this, the clergy were uneasy. In 1709, the Reverend Robert Wodrow expresses an opinion, in one of his letters, that "the sin of our too great fondness for trade, to the neglecting of our more valuable interests, I humbly think will be written upon our judgment. Wodrow's Correspondence, Edinburgh, 1842, 8vo, vol. i. p. 67. In the same year, some ships being taken by the French, part of the loss fell upon Glasgow. Thereupon, Wodrow writes: "It's said that in all there is about eighty thousand pound sterling lost there, whereof Glasgow has lost ten thousand pound. I wish trading persons may see the language of such a Providence. I am sure the Lord is remarkably frouning upon our trade, in more respects than one, since it was put in the room of religion, in the late alteration of our constitution." Wodrow's Analecta, vol. i. p 218, 4to, published by the Maitland Club.

Laing (History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 296), under the year 1703, says: "Ever since the projected settlement at Darien, the genius of the nation had acquired a new direction; and as the press is the true criterion of the spirit of the times, the numerous productions on political and commercial subjects, with which it daily teemed, had supplanted the religious disputes of the former age." Unfortunately for Scotland, they were by no means supplanted. Still, the movement was great, and not to be mistaken.

A change in manners was also perceptible. About this period, the Scotch began to lose something of that rugged ferocity which had distinguished them of old. This improvement was evinced in several ways; one of the most remarkable being an alteration, which was first observed in 1710, when it was noticed that men were leaving off armour, which had hitherto been worn by every one who could afford it, as a useful precaution in a barbarous, and therefore a warlike, society.97

To trace the general progress in its various parts, or even to indicate the immediate consequences, would require a separate volume. One of the results is, however, too conspicuous to be passed over in silence, though it does not deserve all the importance that has been attached to it. This is, the abolition of hereditary jurisdictions, which, after all, was but a symptom of the great movement, and not a cause of it; being itself due, partly to the growth of the industrial spirit, and partly to that diminution of the power of the aristocracy, which had been visible as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century. During many ages, certain persons of noble birth had enjoyed the privilege of trying offences, and even of inflicting capital punishment, simply because their ancestors had done so before them; the judicial power being, in fact, part of their patrimony, and descending to them like the rest of their property.98 An institution of this sort, which made a man a judge, not because he was apt

97"It was only in 1710, that they began to throw off their armour, and allow the soldier to merge into the quiet and industrious craftsman." Penny's Traditions of Perth, p. 335, Perth, 1836. This particularly applies to the citizens of Perth.

98 On these "hereditary or proprietary jurisdictions," which conferred the right, or, I would rather say, the power, of putting people to death, see Burton's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 425, vol. ii. p. 402. The technical term for so monstrous a privilege, was the right "of pit and gallows." Pitcairn's Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol ii. p. 94; and Mackenzie's Laws and Customs of Scotland in Matters Criminal, pp. 70, 100, 187, 210. This meant, that men were to be hung, and women to be drowned. See also Arnot's History of Edinburgh, p. 224; Fountainhall's Notes on Scottish Affairs, p. 139; Hume's History of the House of Douglas, vol. i. p. 346; Lettice's Scotland, p. 271; Sinclair's Scotland, vol. i. p. 417, vol. iv. p. 478, vol. vi. pp. 195, 258, vol. viii. pp. 129, 348, vol. xiii. p. 563, vol. xiv. p. 34, vol. xvii. pp. 442, 600, vol. xviii. p. 473.

for the office, but because he was born under particular circumstances, was a folly which the revolutionary temper of the eighteenth century was not likely to spare. The innovating spirit for which that age was remarkable, could hardly fail to attack so preposterous a custom; and its extinction was facilitated, both by the decline of the nobles who possessed the privilege, and by the rise of their natural opponents, the trading and commercial classes. The decay of the Scotch nobility, in the eighteenth century, may be traced to two special causes, in addition to those general causes which were weakening the aristocracy nearly all over Europe. With the general causes, which were common to England and to most parts of the Continent, we are not now concerned. It is enough to say, that they were entirely dependent on that advance of knowledge, which, by increasing the authority of the intellectual class, undermines, and must eventually overthrow, mere hereditary and accidental distinctions. But those causes which were confined to Scotland, had a more political character, and though they were purely local, they harmonized with the whole train of events, and ought to be noticed, as links of a vast chain, which connects the present state of that singular country with its past history.

The first cause was the Union of Scotland with England, in 1707, which struck a heavy blow at the Scotch aristocracy. By it, the legislature of the smaller country was absorbed in that of the larger, and the hereditary legislators suddenly sunk into insignificance. In the Scotch parliament, there were a hundred and forty-five peers, all of whom, except sixteen, were, by the Act of Union, deprived of the power of making laws.99 These

99

Laing (History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 345) says, that in 1706, "the commons in the Scottish parliament were 160; the peers 145." Of these peers, the Treaty of Union declared that "sixteen shall be the number to sit and vote in the House of Lords." De Foe's History of the Union between England and Scotland, London, 1786, 4to, pp. 205, 538. The English House of Lords consisted of 179 members. See The Lockhart Papers, London, 1817, 4to, vol. i. pp. 343, 547. It was impossible to mistake the result of this sweeping measure, by which, as was said at the time, "Scot