■WILLIAM AND JIAUX.

13

Highlands. He was, by the acknowledgment of those whomost hated him, a man of large views. He justly thought it-monstrous that a third part of Scotland should be in a statescarcely less savage than New Guinea, that letters of fire andsword should, through a third part of Scotland, be, centuryafter century, a species of legal process, and that no attemptshould be made to apply a radical remedy to such evils. Theindependence affected by a crowd of petty sovereigns, the con-tumacious resistance which they were in the habit of offering tothe authority of the Crown and of the Court of Session, theirwars, their robberies, their fireraisings, their.practice of exact-ing black mail from people more peaceable and more usefulthan themselves, naturally excited the disgust and indignationof an enlightened and politic gownsman, who was, both by theconstitution of his mind and by the habits of his profession,a lover of law and order. His object was no less than a com-plete dissolution and reconstruction of society in the High-lands, such a dissolution and reconstruction as, two generationslater, followed the battle of Culloden. In his view the clans,as they existed, were the plagues of the kingdom; and of allthe clans, the worst was that which inhabited Glencoe. Hehad, it is said, been particularly struck by a frightful instanceof the lawlessness and ferocity of those marauders. Oneof them, who had been concerned in some act of violence orrapine, had given information against his companions. He hadbeen bound to a tree and murdered. The old chief had giventhe first stab; and scores of dirks had then been plunged intothe wretch’s body.* By the mountaineers such an act w : as

* Dalrymple, in liis Memoirs, relates this story, without referring toany authority. His authority probably was family tradition. That reportswere current in 1692 of horrible crimes committed by the Macdonalds ofGlencoe, is certain from the Burnet MS. Ilarl. G5S4. “They had indeedbeen guilty of many black murthers,” were Burnet’s words, written in 1G93.He afterwards softened down this expression.

CHAP

XVIII

1692.