were often transmitted, with aggravated animosity, from generation to generation.

It would be curious to trace all the negotiations, treaties, and bonds of amity, (or manrent, as they were called,) with which opposing clans strengthened themselves, and their coalitions with friendly neighbours, against the attacks and encroachments of their enemies or rivals, or to preserve the balance of power. By these bonds, † they bound themselves to assist each other; but, however general their internal insurrections and disputes might be; however extended their cause of quarrel with rivals or neighbours, they always bound themselves to be loyal and true to the king. In these treaties of mutual support and pro

It is rather a humiliating consideration for the votaries of ambition, who have made war and politics their study, to find, from the history of past ages, that no less art, sagacity, address, and courage, have been displayed in the petty contests of illiterate mountaineers, than in their most refined schemes of policy and their most brilliant feats of arins. That they should be able, by intrigue and dexterity, to attach new allies, and detach hostile tribes from their confederates, is a still more mortifying proof how nearly the unassisted powers of natural talent approach to the practices of the deepest politicians.

† As a curious document of this nature, I may mention a bond of amity and mutual defence entered into by a number of gentlemen of the name of Stewart in Athole, Monteith, and Appin, to which each affixed his seal and signature, binding himself to support the others against all attacks and encroachments, especially from the Marquis of Argyle, who had sided with the Covenanters. This bond is dated at Burn of Keltney, 24th June 1654. The long continued feuds between the Argyle and Atholemen, which were latterly much embittered by political differences, were the cause of many skirmishes and battles. The last of these was a kind of drawn battle, in the reign of Charles II., each party retiring different ways. When the Atholemen heard that the Argylemen were on their march to attack them, they immediately flew to arms, and, moving forward, encountered their foes in Breadalbane, near the east end of Lochtay. The conflict was most desperate. The dead were carried off the field and buried in a small knoll, now included in the parks of Taymouth, where their bones were found in great numbers in 1816, when Lord Breadalbane cut down a corner of this knoll in the formation of a road.

These treaties ran thus :-" Always excepting my duty to our

tection, smaller clans, unable to defend themselves, were included, and also such families or clans as had lost their chiefs. Those of the name of Stewart, for instance, whose estates lay in the district of Athole, and whose chief, by birth, was at a distance, ranged themselves under the family of Athole, though they were themselves sufficiently numerous to raise 1000 fighting men. When such unions took place, the smaller clans followed the fortunes, engaged in the quarrels, and fought under the chiefs of the greater, * but their ranks were separately marshalled, and led by their own subordinate chieftains and lairds, who owned submission only when necessary, for the success of combined operations. From these, and other causes, the Highlands were, for ages, as constant a theatre of petty warfare, as Europe has been of important struggles. The smaller the society, and the more closely connected together, the more keenly did it feel an injury, or resent an insult offered by a rival tribe. A haughty or contemptuous expression uttered against a chief, was considered, by all his followers, in the light of a personal affront, † and the driving away the cattle of one clansman, was looked upon as an act of aggression against the whole. The swell of indignation, the rage for vengeance, and the desire of reprisals, spread

lord the king, and to our kindred and friends." When men who were not chiefs of clans, or of any subordinate tribes, thus bound themselves, their fidelity to the chiefs of their own blood and family formed a particular exception never to be forgotten or infringed.

In this manner the M'Raes followed the Earl of Seaforth, the M'Colls the Stewarts of Appin, and the M'Gillivrays and M'Beans the Laird of Mackintosh, &c. &c.

r

+"When a quarrel begins in words between two Highlanders of different clans, it is esteemed the very height of malice and rancour, and the greatest of all provocations, to reproach one another with the vices or personal defects of their chiefs, or that of the particular branch whence they sprung; and, in a third degree, to reproach the whole clan, or name whom they will assist, right or wrong, against those of any other tribe with which they are at variance, to whom their enmity, like that of exasperated brothers, is most outrageous."-Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland.

throughout the whole little community, like the violence of an insult offered to an individual, heightened by the sympathy of numbers. Submission to insult would have been present disgrace, and would have invited future aggression. Immediate hostility was therefore the result, and the ga thering word of the clan found an echo in every breast. *

If no immediate opportunity of obtaining complete satisfaction occurred; if the injured party was too weak to repel attack, and to vindicate their honour in the field, or to demand compensation for their property, still the hostile act was not forgotten, nor the resolution of avenging it abandoned. Every artifice by which cunning could compensate the want of strength was practised, alliances were courted, and favourable opportunities watched. Even an appearance of conciliation and friendship was assumed, to cover the darkest purposes of hatred; and as revenge is embittered in all countries where the laws are ill executed, and where the hand of the individual must vindicate those rights which public justice does not protect, so this feeling was cherished and honoured when directed against rival tribes. +

To such a pitch were those feelings carried, that there are instances, both in tradition and on record, in which these feuds led to the most sanguinary conflicts, and ended in the extermination of one of the adverse parties.

The spirit of opposition and rivalry between the clans perpetuated a system of hostility, encouraged the cultiva

* See Appendix, D.

+ In the present enlightened times, were the laws unable to afford protection, and were individuals, or collective bodies, forced to arm in order to redress their own wrongs,—would murder, turbulence, and spoliation of property, be less prevalent than they were in the Highlands when unprotected by the general laws of the realm? I fear much the warmest advocate of modern civilization would hardly venture to anticipate, were the return of such scenes of licence and rapine a probable occurrence, that they would be blended with those frequent and softening traits of honourable feeling which distinguished the inroads of the wild mountaineers.

tion of the military at the expence of the social virtues, and perverted their ideas of both law and morality. Revenge was accounted a duty, the destruction of a neighbour a meritorious exploit, and rapine an honourable occupation. Their love of distinction, and their conscious reliance on their courage, when under the direc tion of these perverted notions, only tended to make their feuds more implacable, their condition more agitated, and their depredations more rapacious and desolating. Superstition added its influence in exasperating animosities, by teaching the clansmen, that, to revenge the death of a relation or friend, was a sacrifice agreeable to their shades: thus engaging on the side of the most implacable hatred, and the darkest vengeance, the most amiable and domestic of all our feelings,-reverence for the memory of the dead, and affection for the virtues of the living.

* Another custom contributed to perpetuate this spirit of lawless revenge. Martin, who studied, and understood the character and manners of the Highlanders, says, "Every heir or young chieftain of a tribe was obliged in honour to give a specimen of his valour before he was owned and declared governor or leader of his people, who obeyed and followed him on all occasions. This chieftain was usually attended with a retinue of young men, who had not before given any proof of their valour, and were ambitious of such an opportunity to signalize themselves. It was usual for the chief to make a desperate incursion upon some neighbour or other, that they were in feud with, and they were obliged to bring, by open foree, the cattle they found on the land they attacked, or to die in the attempt. After the performance of this achievment, the young chieftain was ever after reputed valiant, and worthy of government, and such as were of his retinue acquired the like reputation. This custom being reciprocally used among them, was not reputed robbery; for the damage which one tribe sustained by the inauguration of the chieftain of another was repaired when their chieftain came in his turn to make his specimen; but I have not heard of an instance of this practice for these sixty years since,' -Martin's Description of the Western Islands. London, printed 1703.

SECTION IV.

Mode of supporting feuds and petty warfare-Creachs-All property safe, except cattle-Black mail-Air of authority as sumed in sanctioning hostile expeditions--Effects of the want of laws, and of constant agitation and alarms, on the character of the people--Compensation for injuries in absence of judicial punishment.

As the general riches of the country consisted in flocks and herds, the usual mode of commencing attacks, or of making reprisals, was by an incursion to carry off the cattle of the hostile clan. A predatory expedition was the general declaration of enmity, and a command given by the chief to clear the pastures of the enemy, constituted the usual letters of marque. Such inroads were frequently directed to the Lowlands, where the booty was richest, and where less vigilance was exercised in protecting it. Regarding every Lowlander as an alien, and his cattle as fair spoils of war, they considered no law for his protection as binding. The Lowlanders, on the other hand, regarded their neighbours of the mountains as a lawless banditti, whom it was dangerous to pursue to their fastnesses, in order to recover their property, or to punish aggressions. Yet these freebooters, except against the Lowlanders, or a hostile clan, maintained, in general, the strictest honesty towards one another, and inspired perfect confidence in their integrity. In proof of this, it may be mentioned, that instances of theft from dwelling-houses scarcely ever occurred, and highway robbery was totally unknown, except in one case so recent as the year 1770, when a man of education, and of respectable family, but of abandoned character, formed and headed a gang of robbers. * In the interior of their own society, all

• This was a man of education, and knowledge of the world, who disgraced the family from which he was descended, and the community to