necessity for change, but even yet attempting to live and act in
accordance with the old-fashioned clannish mode of managing men and
land.
The unsettled state of the Highlands, and the fact that many
Highlanders were leaving the country, attracted attention so
early as about 1750. For in 1752, a pamphlet was published by
a Mr John Campbell, pretending to give “A Full and Particular
Description of the Highlands,” and propounding a scheme which, in
the author’s estimation, would “prove effectual in bringing in the
most disaffected among them.” There is little said in this book of
the actual condition of the Highlanders at that time, only a few
details as to their manners, funeral-customs, marriages, &c., and a
lamentation, ever since repeated, that so many should be compelled
to leave their native land and settle among foreigners. The author
does not mention emigration to America; what he chiefly deplores
is the fact that so many Highlanders, from the unkindness of their
superiors at home, should have taken service in various capacities,
civil and military, in other European countries, frequently fighting
in foreign armies against their fellow-countrymen. However, from
the general tone of his remarks, it may be gathered that he refers
mainly to those who were compelled to leave the country on account
of the part they took in the late rebellion, and not on account of
any alterations which had yet taken place in the internal affairs of
the Highlands. Still it is plainly to be inferred that already much
misery and discontent prevailed in the country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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