property was safe, without the usual security of bolts, locks, and bars. * An open barn, or shed, was the common

which he belonged. He was bred in a school such as the Highlands had rarely witnessed. His father, who, by a base stratagem, had usurped possession of an estate to which he had no right, lived in a kind of se◄ raglio after the death of his wife, despised and shunned by the neighbouring gentry, though his abilities were good, and his manners prepossessing. He was the Colonel Charteris of his district, with this honourable distinction in favour of the Highlanders, that he was shunned as much as the other was countenanced. This example accounts too well for the bold profligacy of his heir, who excelled in all personal accomplishments, being of engaging and elegant manners, and remarkably handsome. The last exploit of this man was an attempt to rob Sir Hector Munro on his journey to the north, after his return from India in 1770. Mackintosh escaped to America, and afterwards joined Washington's army. Three of his accomplices were taken and executed at Inverness.

* A late scientific tourist gives an unintentional testimony to the probity and honesty of the people towards one another. Noticing the wretched dwellings of the inhabitants of St Kilda, with an interior dark and smoky, he adds, "Each house has a door with a lock and key, a luxury quite unknown in other parts of the Highlands." It were well that this luxury should long continue unknown, and that the people should remain ignorant of the necessity of securing their houses. If the progress of civilization compel the Highlanders to lock their doors against nightly depredators, it may afford a question whether ignorance and integrity, or knowledge and knavery, be preferable, or whether people may indeed be called ignorant, who are attentive to their religious duties,-who exercise the moral virtues of integrity and filial reverence, who are loyal to their king, brave and honourable in the field, and equally firm in opposing an enemy, and in supporting a friend. If these traits of character are exhibited by a people who are called ignorant and uncivilized, the terms may have perhaps been misapplied. On this subject Martin says of the Highlanders of the seventeenth century, "I am not ignorant that foreigners have been tempted, from the sight of so many wild hills, to imagine that the inhabitants, as well as the places of their residence, are equally barbarous, and to this opinion their habit as well as their language has contributed. The like is supposed by many that live in the south of Scotland, but the lion is not fierce as he is painted, neither are the people here so barbarous as people imagine. The inhabitants have humanity, and use strangers hospitably and charitably. I could bring several instances of barbarity and theft by stranger seamen in the Isles, but there is not one instance of any injury offered by the islanders to any seaman or stranger. For the

summer receptacle of their clothes, cheese, and every thing that required air; and although iron bars and gates were necessary to protect the houses and castles of the chiefs and lairds from hostile inroads, when at feud, no security was required when at peace; and while the castle gates were open, the dwellings of the people had no safeguard.* But, on the other hand, open depredations were carried on with systematic order, and they saw no greater moral turpitude in levying a creach,† heading a foray, or in lifting the cattle

humanity and hospitable temper of the islanders to sailors I shall only give two instances.” *

A friend of mine, still following old customs, does not lock his doors to this day. I know not how long this custom may with safety be continued; recent symptoms of a deplorable change in morals will undoubtedly compel people to guard their property with more care. It will then no longer be, as I have known it, that gentlemen have been half their lives in the commission of the peace, without having occasion to act against a criminal, unless in issuing warrants to recover the fines of Excise Courts, or on account of assaults on Excise officers, and accidental frays. Clothes and linens will no longer be seen drying and bleaching in all parts of the country, and at all hours, without guard or protection; nor open sheds hung round with all the Sunday's apparel of the lads and lasses. The rude Highlanders are undergoing a process of civilization by new manners, new morals, and new religion, the progress of which is at once rapid and deplorable. An inquiry into the cause of this loss of principles and morals in an age when so much is done to enlighten and educate, would certainly be extremely interesting. † Creach is a very appropriate term, and means spoliation. If much resisted in these forays, and if lives were lost, great destruction frequently ensued in revenge for the loss sustained, but in common incursions, either against the Lowlanders, or rival tribes, personal hostilities were avoided, except in retaliation of some previous death or insult. The Creachs of the Highlanders, though sufficiently calamitous, were trifling when compared with the raids or forays on the borders of England and Scotland. The following account of devastation committed by the English upon the Scotch, in the year 1544, will serve as a specimen of the miseries to which the border countries were exposed. The sum total of mischief done in different forays, from the 2d of July to the 17th November of that year, is thus computed:-" Towns, towers, steads, parish churches, castle houses, cast down or burnt, 192;

* See Appendix, F.

which "cropped the grass of an enemy," than we now discover in the reprisals and exploits of our men of war and privateers, or in the killing of deer and game, which subjects the offenders to punishment, if detected, while no shame or disgrace attaches to the deed, whether discovered or not.

In a country in which the ablest and most active of the people despised the labour necessary to raise their subsistence from the soil, and in which the use of arms was thought the most honourable occupation, every excuse was eagerly seized for commencing hostilities. If overtaken in their depredations, the plunderers were generally prepared for resistance, and for ennobling an act of robbery, by the intrepidity of their defence. Such an event, however, was rather avoided than courted; and the rapidity of their retreat, joined to the acuteness of their vision, formed generally their best security. It is said, that habit had rendered their sight so acute, that, where a common observer could perceive nothing, they could trace the cattle, by the yielding of the heath over which they had passed. If cattle were thus traced to a man's property, without any marks of their having proceeded beyond his boundary, he was held responsible, and an immediate quarrel ensued, unless he agreed to make ample restitution, or compensation for the loss.

Besides the occasional spoliations committed by those who did not regard them as dishonourable, but exercised them at times, as the means of weakening or punishing their enemies, there was a peculiar class, called Cearnachs.

Scots slain, 403; prisoners taken, 816; nolts, i. e. horned cattle, taken, 10,386; sheep, 12,198; nags and geldings, 1296; goats, 200; bolls of corn, 850; insight gear, (i. e. household furniture,) not reckoned." In another inroad by the Earl of Hertford, in the year 1545, he burnt, rased, and destroyed, in the counties of Berwick and Roxburgh, "Monasteries and friars' houses, 7; castles, towers, and piles, 16; market towns, 5; villages, 243; inilns, 13; hospitals, 3. All these were cast down or burnt." As the Scots were equally ready and skil ful in this irregular warfare, we have many instances of the damage done in their wasteful and destructive raids or inroads into England.

This term, originally applied to the character of soldiers, was equivalent to the catherons of the Lowlands, the kernes of the English, and the catervæ of the Romans,-denominations, doubtless, of the same import. * In their best days, the cearnachs were a select band, and were employed in all en

* It has been suggested by a learned author that the Lake, celebrated in the poem of the "Lady of the Lake," and known by the name of Loch Kathrine, derives its name from the word above mentioned, and is the Loch of Cearnachs, or Catherons. Some of these cearnachs died in my remembrance. They had completely abandoned their old habits, and lived a quiet domestic life, but retained much of the chivalrous spirit of their youth, and were respected in the country. One man was considered an exception to this general description, as it was supposed that he was not altogether convinced of the turpitude of cattle-lifting. However, as he had the character of being a brave soldier, these suspicions against his moral opinions were less noticed. His name was Robert Robertson, but he was called in the country Rob Bune. He was very old when I knew him, but he had not lost the fire and animation of earlier years.-In autumn, 1746, a party, consisting of a corporal and eight soldiers, marching north to Inverness, after passing Tummel Bridge, halted on the road side, and placed their arms against a large stone some yards behind them. Robert Bane observed the soldiers, and the manner in which they disposed of their arms. This, as he said, was a good opportunity to make a dash at his old friends the Seidar dearg, or red coat soldiers, whom he had met at Gladsmuir, Falkirk, and Culloden. None of his neighbours were at home to assist him, but he sallied out by himself, armed with his gun, pistols, and broadsword; and, proceeding with great caution, got close to the party undiscovered, when he made a sudden spring, and placed himself between the soldiers and their guns. Brandishing his sword in one hand, and pointing his gun with the other, he called out to them, in broken English, to surrender instantly, or he would call his party, who were in the wood behind, and would kill them all. The soldiers were so alarmed and taken by surprise, that they permitted the cearnach to carry off their arms for the purpose of delivering them, as he said, to his companions in the wood. He quickly returned, however, and desiring the soldiers to follow him quietly, else those in the woods would be out, he conducted them to Tummel Bridge inn, where he left them, and, repairing to the wood, took possession of the arms as fair spoils of war. The soldiers soon discovered the truth, and hurried back to recover their arms, and to get hold of the man who, by his address and courage, had thus disgraced them; but the cearnach took care to place himself and his prize out of danger. When the soldiers reached Inverness, they were tried and punished for the loss of their arms.

granted to Ballechen is highly characteristic of the times. It prescribes all the intended operations, and grants the estates to be conquered with an air of authority resembling the solemnity of a royal mandate.

How little the Highlanders were accustomed to attach any ideas of moral turpitude to such exploits may be learned from the conduct and sentiments of several of those freebooters, who, at no very distant period, became the victims of a more regular administration of the laws, and who were unable to comprehend in what their criminality consisted. After the troubles of 1745, many who had been engaged in them, afraid to return to their own country, over which the king's troops were dispersed, and having no settled residence or means of support, formed several associations of freebooters, which laid the borders of the Highlands under contributions.

An active leader among these banditti, Donald Cameron, or Donald Bane Leane, was tried in Perth for cattle stealing, and executed at Kinloch Rannoch in 1752, in order to strike terror into his band in that district. At his execution he dwelt with surprise and indignation on his hard fate. He had never committed murder, nor robbed man or house, or taken any thing but cattle off the grass of those with whom he was at feud. Another freebooter, Alexander Stewart, (commonly called Alister Breac, from his being marked with the small-pox,) was executed in 1753. He was despised as a pitiful thief, who deserved his fate, because he committed such acts as would have degraded a genuine cearnach. But it was not the actors alone who attached no criminality, or at least disgrace, to the "lifting of cattle," as we find from a letter of Field Marshal Wade to Mr Forbes of Culloden, then Lord Advocate, dated October 1729, describing an entertainment given him on a visit to a party of cearnachs. The Marshal says, "The

dence and authority of Ballechen, Flemyng of Moness, Steuart of Dalguise, and other commanders of the expedition, otherwise many more lives would have been lost.