THE DISARMING ACT AND PROSCRIPTION BY J. G. MACKAY. II. SEVERAL of the loyal chiefs remonstrated with the Government, but to no purpose; the fates were against them; the Highlands must be subdued; it mattered little how, or at what cost of human suffering. Lord President Forbes, who had done such good service for the Government, in checking the rising of many of the disaffected clans in the North, entreated the Government on behalf of his countrymen, but his prayers and solicitations were in vain. When beseeching the Duke of Cumberland to spare the lives of the unfortunate rebels, he reminded the "Butcher" "that the slaughter that was going on was not only inhuman, and against the laws of God, but also against the laws of the land." "The laws of the country, my lord!" said the Duke. "I'll make a brigade give laws, by God!" Provost Hossack, of Inverness, who had also rendered good service to the Government, shared the same rebuff when craving mercy for the unfortunate victims. The Duke, after the battle of Culloden, accompanied by Generals Hawley and Huske, was consulting as to the quickest mode of putting the prisoners to death. The worthy Provost besought them-" As His Majesty's troops have happily been successful against the rebels, I hope your excellencies will be so good as to mingle mercy with judgment." Hawley, in a rage, cried out, "D-n the puppy! Does he pretend to dictate here? Carry him away." Such acts as this, of which unfortunately there were many, could not but impress upon the Highlanders the hopelessness of their cause. The Lord President had an equally unfavourable opinion of the "Dress Bill." In a letter to Brodie of Brodie, then Lord Lyon for Scotland, dated 8th July 1747, he says :— "The garb is certainly very loose, and fits men inured to it to make very quick marches, to go through very great fatigues, to bear out against the inclemency of the weather, to wade through rivers, and shelter in huts, woods, and rocks upon occasion, which men dressed in Low-Country garb could not possibly endure. "But it is to be considered, as the Highlands are circumstanced at present, it is—at least it seems to me to be—an utter impossibility, without the advantage of the dress, for the inhabitants to tend their cattle and go through the other parts of their business, not to speak of paying their landlords. Now, because too many of the Highlanders have offended, to punish all the rest who have not, and who, I venture to say, are the greatest number, seems to me to be very unreasonable." The value of any remonstrances on the part of the President may be seen by the following quotation from the Anti-jacobin Review, Vol. xiii. :-" When he visited London in the end of the year 1746, for the purpose of settling the accounts he had run with the loyal Highland Militia, he, as usual, went to Court. The King, whose ear had been offended with the repeated accounts of the conduct of the military, thus addressed him-' My Lord President, you are the person I most wished to see. Shocking reports have been circulated of the barbarities committed by my army in the North; your Lordship is, of all men, the most able to satisfy me.' 'I wish to God,' replied the President, that I could, consistently with truth, assure your Majesty that such reports are destitute of foundation.' The King, as was his custom, turned abruptly away from the President, whose accounts next day were passed with difficulty, and as report says, the balance, which was immense, never fully paid up." This was the treatment given to the man who of all others rendered the greatest service to the Government in those critical times; but the House of Hanover had discharged its debt of gratitude, and President Forbes was forgotten! To provide against the possibility of their evading the law, a form of oath was devised, by which all persons were required to swear that they neither had nor should have any arms in their possession, and should never wear any portion of the Highland garb. This atrocious oath was as follows: "I, do swear, and as I shall have to answer to God at the great Day of Judgment, I have not nor shall have in my possession, any gun, sword, pistol, or arm whatsoever; and never use any tartan, plaid, or any part of the Highland garb; and if I do so, may I be cursed in my undertakings, family, and property-may I never see my wife and children, father, mother, and relations--may I be killed in battle as a coward, and lie without Christian burial, in a strange land, far from the graves of my forefathers and kindred ;—may all this come across me if I break my oath." If the framer of this oath was not himself a Highlander, he at all events had a most intimate knowledge of their feelings and character, of which he took the fullest advantage. He well knew the Highlander's love for family and kin; his dread of being stigmatised as a coward; his warm attachment to the land of his birth; and what an awful destiny he would consider it to "lie without Christian burial in a strange land, far from the graves of his forefathers." It was not to be expected that the Highlanders would submit to such treatment with a good grace; and though we have no account of their making direct resistance, they took every possible means of evading the law. "The obstinacy," says General Stewart, "with which the law was resisted proceeded no less from their attachment to the proscribed garb, than from the irksomeness of the garb forced upon them. Habituated to the free use of their limbs, the Highlanders could ill brook the restraint and confinement of the Lowland dress, and many were the little devices which they adopted to retain their ancient garb, without incurring the penalties of the Act-devices which were calculated rather to excite a smile than rouse the vengeance of persecution. Instead of the prohibited tartan kilt, some wore pieces of blue, green, or red thin cloth, or course camblet, wrapped round the waist, and hanging down to the knees, like the feildag." [The feildag was the same as the feileadh-beag or kilt, but not plaited at the back.] "After being debarred the use of swords, they seldom went without a stick, and as a substitute for the dirk, they carried a short knife stuck in the side pocket of the breeches, or inserted between the garter and the leg, by those who ventured to wear the hose. Some, who fearful of offending, or wished to render obedience to the law, which had not specified on what part of the body the breeches were to be worn, satisfied themselves with having in their possession this article of legal or loyal dress, which, either as the signal of submission, or more probably to suit their own convenience when on journeys, they often suspended over their shoulders upon their sticks; others who were more wary, or less submissive, sewed up the centre of the kilt with a few stitches between the thighs, which gave it something of the form of the trousers worn by Dutch skippers." We have to this day an instance of the contempt in which the breeches were held in the dance, "SeannTriubhais," which is a burlesque on the awkward restraint of the Lowland garb in comparison with their own free and handy dress. At first these evasions of the law were punished with considerable severity; but at length its officers seemed to have assented to the interpretation put by the Highlanders upon the Act. This appears from the trial of a man of the name of Macalpin or Macgregor, from Breadalbane, in the year 1750, who was acquitted on his proving that the kilt was stitched up in the middle. The Dress Act remained in force for thirty-five years, though latterly it may be said to have been in abeyance, particularly in the well-affected districts; where, after the first stripping process, it was not so rigidly enforced. "Although," remarks General Stewart, "the severity of this wantonness of power began to be relaxed in 1757, it was not till the year 1772 that this Act, so ungenerous in itself, so unnecessary, and so galling, was repealed. In the session of that year the Duke of Montrose, then a member of the House of Commons, brought in a bill to repeal all penalties and restrictions on the Celtic Garb -it passed without a dissenting voice." We may well imagine the jubilance with which this would be received in the Highlands, particularly among the older people who had witnessed the disgrace of their cherished costume. Donnachadh Bàn gave vent to his joy on the occasion. He says in ORAN DO 'N EIDEADH GHAIDHEALACH. Fhuair mi naidheachd as ùr, Chunna' mi 'n diugh an Dun-eideann, Comunn na féile cruinn, Litir an fhortain thug sgeul, Air toiseach an eibhnis dhuinn. Piop gu loinneil an gleus, Air soilleireachd reidh an tuim; Thug sinn am follais ar 'n eideadh, Deich bliadhna fichead a's còrr, 'S cha bhuineadh an seors' ud dhuinn. 'S e 'm barr-iall bu bhoiche leinn, Fhuair sinn an cothrom an dràst, Chuir sinn a suas an deise, Am bitheadh a' charnaid dlù, Osan nach ceangail ar ceum, 'S nach ruigeadh mar reis an glùn. The garb was now, however, so long forbidden, and the habits and circumstances of the people so much changed, that, even after the repeal of the Act, the dress was not universally resumed. The younger generation had, by force of habit, become reconciled to the change, while the older portion could hardly be expected to resume the costume after thirty-five years of proscription. The "March of Progress and Civilisation" which followed the suppression of the rebellion, had brought so many changes in its wake, that now, the people found themselves in such altered circumstances that they could hardly resume the dress, however willing they might be. These changes were accelerated by the measures introduced by Government for the abolition of hereditary jurisdictions, and the consequent overthrow of the power of the chiefs, who now found time hanging idly on their hands. They had no further use for the faithful clansmen by whose claymores they had held their lands; their ideas had become modernised and their expenditure had increased to such an extent that to keep pace with their Saxon compeers, their limited incomes must be increased, and to this |