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Chapter 1 describes the history of Python and all the exciting things it's being used for
today. You find out why computers are both the fastest and dumbest things around. Best
of all, you discover why it's called Python anyway.

Chapter 2 lets you talk to Python via its interactive mode and IDLE environment. You
write a few basic programs and find out how to get Python to carry out commands for
you, how to get Python to tell you things, and how to import tools that let you do even
more.

Chapter 3 introduces you to Python's data types and code blocks, the chunks you use to
build programs.

Chapter 4 shows you a working program. You see how all the chunks of a Python
program talk to each other, and you find out something about the design philosophies
behind Python programs.

Chapter 5 lets you try on a programmer's hat to understand how programmers work and
why they make the design decisions they do. (Unfortunately, it doesn't explain the
relevance of caffeinated sodas to this process—you'll have to figure that out for yourself.)
There's also a very useful section on strategies for debugging programs, which is a huge
part of every programmer's job.

Chapter 1: Introducing Python

Welcome to Python! If you're the type of person who wants to know what you're getting
into, this chapter is for you. We give you a quick history of Python and its community of
developers. You find out what Python is and isn't good for (the "is" section is much
longer than the "isn't" section) and the most important principles of good Python
programming. If you're new to programming, you'll see how it's very similar to a task
you're probably familiar with.

The Right Tool for the Job

Python is a general-purpose, high-level language that can be extended and embedded
(included in applications as a tool for writing macros). That makes Python a smart choice
for many programming problems, both small and large, and not so good for a couple of
computing tasks.

Good uses of Python

Python is ideal for projects that require quick development. It supports multiple
programming philosophies, so it's good for programs that require flexibility. The many
packages and modules already written for Python provide versatility and save you time.

The story of Python

7
Guido van Rossum created Python and is affectionately bestowed with the title
"Benevolent Dictator For Life" by the Python community. In the late 1980s, Guido liked
features of several programming languages, but none of them had all the features he
wanted. Specifically, he wanted a language that had the following features:

• Scripting language: A script is a program that controls other programs. Scripting

languages are good for quick development and prototyping because they're good
at passing messages from one component to another and at handling fiddly stuff
like memory management so that the programmer doesn't have to. Python has
grown beyond scripting languages, which are used mostly for small applications.
The Python community prefers to call Python a dynamic programming language.
• Indentation for statement grouping: Python specifies that several statements are
part of a single group by indenting them. The indented group is called a code
block. Other languages use different syntax or punctuation for statement
grouping. For example, the C programming language uses { to begin an
instruction and } to end it. Indentation is considered good practice in other
languages also, but Python was one of the first to enforce indentation. Indentation
makes code easier to read, and code blocks set off with indentation have fewer
begin/end words and punctuation to accidentally leave out (which means fewer
bugs).
• High-level data types: Computers store everything in 1s and 0s, but humans need
to work with data in more complex forms, such as text. A language that supports
such complex data is said to have high-level data types. A high-level data type is
easy to manipulate. For example, Python strings can be searched, sliced, joined,
split, set to upper- or lowercase, or have white space removed. High-level data
types in Python, such as lists and dicts (which can store other data types),
encompass much more functionality than in other languages.
• Extensibility: An extensible programming language can be added to. These
languages are very powerful because additions make them suitable for multiple
applications and operating systems. Extensions can add data types or concepts,
modules, and plug-ins. Python is extensible in several ways. A core group of
programmers works on modifying and improving the language, while hundreds of
other programmers write modules for specific purposes.
• Interpreted: Interpreted languages run directly from source code that humans
generate (whereas programs written in compiled languages, like C++, must be
translated to machine code before they can run). Interpreted languages run more
slowly because the translation takes place on the fly, but development and
debugging is faster because you don't have to wait for the compiler. Interpreted
languages are easier to run on multiple operating systems. In the case of Python,
it's easy to write code that works on multiple operating systems—with no need to
make modifications.

People argue over whether Python is an interpreted or compiled language.

Although Python works like an interpreted language in many ways, its code is
compiled before execution (like Java), and many of its capabilities run at full
machine speed because they're written in C—leaving you free to focus on making

8
 your application work. Guido began writing Python during his Christmas vacation
in 1989, and over the next year, he added to the program based on feedback from
colleagues. He released it to the public in February 1991 by posting to the Usenet
system of newsgroups. In Guido's words: "The rest is in the Misc/HISTORY file."

Fast development

High-level features make Python a wise alternative for prototyping and fast development
of complex applications:

• Python is interpreted, so writing working programs and fixing mistakes in

programs is fast.
TECHNICAL Programs written in interpreted languages can be tested as
STUFF soon as they're written, without waiting for the code to
compile.
• Python takes care of such fiddly details as memory management behind the
scenes.
• Python has debugging features built in.

REMEMBER All these features make Python a good language for

• Off-the-cuff, quick programming

• Prototyping (sketching the design basics of complex programs, or
testing particular solutions)

• Applications that change, build on themselves, and add new

features frequently

Programming styles

Python is a multi-paradigm language (meaning it supports more than one style or

philosophy of programming). This makes it good for applications that benefit from a
flexible approach to programming. Python includes tools for the following paradigms:

• Object-oriented programming (OOP for short) is one of the popular programming

styles that Python supports. OOP breaks up code into individual units that pass
messages back and forth.
Tip Object-oriented programming is good for applications that have multiple
parts that need to communicate with each other.
• Python has features in common with the following languages. If you know these
languages, you'll find features in Python that you are familiar with, making
Python easier to learn:
o Java: An object-oriented language especially for applications used over
networks

9
 o Perl: A procedural language used for text manipulation, system
administration, Web development, and network programming
o Tcl: Used for rapid prototyping, scripting, GUIs, and testing
o Scheme: A functional programming language (a language that focuses on
performing actions and calculations by using functions.

For more about functions, see Chapter 11, and for an intro to functional
programming, see Chapter 16.)

REMEMBER Python For Dummies includes a brief introduction to object-oriented

programming (Chapter 13), an overview of using Python for Web
development (Chapter 20), and tips for scripting and testing.

Versatility

Python modules (collections of features for performing tasks) let Python work with

• Multiple operating systems and user interfaces

Tip With Python For Dummies, you can write and run programs on Windows,
Mac, and Unix (including Linux). Python programmers have also written
code for other operating systems, from cell phones to supercomputers.
• Special kinds of data (such as images and sound)

Python comes with dozens of built-in modules. New modules can be written in either
Python or C/C++.

Companies that use Python

The main portal to Python and the Python community is http://www.python.org. This
portal contains a page that lists some companies that use Python, including

• Yahoo! (for Yahoo! Maps)

• Google (for its spider and search engine)
• Linux Weekly News (published by using a Web application written in Python)
• Industrial Light & Magic (used in the production of special effects for such
movies as The Phantom Menace and The Mummy Returns).

Other commercial uses include financial applications, educational software, games, and
business software.

Convenience

Most programming languages offer convenience features, but none boast the combination
of convenience and power that Python offers:

10
 • Python can be embedded in other applications and used for creating macros.
For example, Python is embedded in Paint Shop Pro 8 and later versions as a
scripting language.
• Python is free for anyone to use and distribute (commercially or
noncommercially), so any individual or company can use it without paying
license fees.
• Python has powerful text manipulation and search features for applications
that process a lot of text information.
• You can build large applications with Python, even though it doesn't check
programs before they run. In technical terms, Python doesn't have compile-time
checking. Python supports large programs by connecting multiple modules
together and bundling them into packages. Each module can be built and tested
separately.
• Python includes support for testing and error-checking both of individual
modules and of whole programs.

Sometimes, Python isn't so hot

Python by itself isn't best for applications that need to interface closely with the
computer's hardware because

• Python is an interpreted language.

Interpreted languages are slower than compiled languages.

• Python is a high-level language that uses many layers to communicate with the
computer's hardware and operating system.

REMEMBER Python might not be the best choice for building the following types of
applications and systems:
• Graphics-intensive applications, such as action games

But some games use Python because specialized modules can be written to
interface with hardware. The pygame module is one such package. (Modern
computers are extremely fast, which means it's more important to be able to write
clean code quickly than to get maximum speed out of the software, except for the
most graphics-intensive games.)

• The foundations of an operating system

The Python developer community

Python has attracted many users who collectively make up a community that

• Promotes Python
• Discusses and implements improvements to the language

11
 • Supports newcomers
• Encourages standards and conventions that improve Python's usability and
readability
• Values simplicity and fun (after all, Python was named after Monty Python, the
British comedy troupe)

The Python community has created words to describe its philosophy:

Pythonic identifies code that meets the following criteria:

• It includes interfaces or features that work well with Python.

• It makes good use of Python idioms (standard ways of performing tasks) and
shows understanding of the language.

Unpythonic code is roughly translated from other languages instead of following Python's
philosophy.

Pythonistas are knowledgeable users of Python (especially users who promote the
language).

Cooking Up Programs
Writing programs is a little bit like working with recipes. For example, you can

• Write a recipe to make bread from scratch.

In Python, you can build a program from scratch, writing all your own code and
using only Python's basic built-in functions.

• Use the product of one recipe in another recipe (for example, a recipe for
turkey stuffing uses bread as an ingredient).

After you write program that performs a basic task, you can insert it into other
programs the same way you add any ingredient to a recipe.

• Buy premade bread.

Python comes with many modules, which are sets of programs other people have
written that you can plug into your program, just like you can buy bread at the
store without baking it yourself.

Python's even better than bread because most Python modules are free!

12
When you write a program, you are telling the computer to do something. Python For
Dummies gives you step-by-step instructions that help you understand how to write the
way a computer "thinks."

REMEMBER Unlike you, computers are pretty stupid. They can do only a few things.
All the actions that humans make them do are the result of the computer's
doing those few things over and over, in different combinations, very
quickly.

Training your assistant

Imagine that you're a baker, and you have taken on an apprentice baker who is as stupid
as a computer. If you want to show your baker how to make bread from scratch, you need
to start with very basic steps. You've already started by putting warm water and sugar in a
small bowl. Then you and the apprentice have this conversation:

• You: "Add a package of yeast."

• Apprentice: "I can't find a package of yeast."
• You: "The refrigerator is over there. Inside the refrigerator is a little package
labeled Yeast. Go get it."
• The apprentice gets the package and says, "Now what?"
• You: "Put the package in the bowl."
• The apprentice puts the package in the bowl.
• You: "Hey! Open the package first!"

By now you might doubt the wisdom of hiring an apprentice baker who needs to be told
things that seem completely obvious to you. But if you persevere, you'll come out ahead.
If this apprentice is like a computer, then after finally figuring out how to bake bread in
your kitchen, your new baker will be able to prepare 100 loaves a minute!

Combining ingredients

When your apprentice baker knows all the procedures involved in baking bread, such as
finding the ingredients on the shelves, finding the pots and pans, mixing ingredients, and
operating the oven, you can assign other tasks that use those same procedures. Baking
bread involves combining ingredients in a bowl, so if you need to combine ingredients
for another recipe, the apprentice already knows how to do that. So when you want to
explain how to make cookies, you can now say "combine sugar, flour, and butter in a
bowl" without explaining where to find the bowls or the sugar.

REMEMBER In Python, after you've written a program to do something, you can import
it into another program. So the more you work with Python, the faster
you'll be able to write programs.

13
Chapter 2: Getting your Hands on the
Keyboard—Using Help, Interactive
Mode, and IDLE
Overview
Even if you haven't used Python or another programming language before, it's easy to get
up and running with Python. You don't even have to know how to write a complete
program because you can run Python in interactive mode. In interactive mode, you can
tell Python what to do one instruction at a time, or you can write small portions of code to
see how Python handles them. In this way you can learn by doing, trying things out at
your own pace.

If you've worked with other programming languages, you're probably eager to get into
the workings of Python and see how it compares. This chapter introduces you to some of
the tools you'll use as you develop Python programs, as well as some of Python's basic
syntax.

Ready for a full-on development experience? Or just curious what a debugger is? Then
go on to the "IDLE Musings" section about Python's very own development environment,
IDLE (Integrated DeveLopment Environment). This comprehensive set of tools supports
you when you are writing, testing, and finding or fixing mistakes in programs.

Tip In most of this book, you read and experiment on your own; it's structured so that
you can pick up information without reading sequentially. However, if you're new to
programming, you might find it useful to read all of this chapter and try some
examples before going on to the rest of the book. In the following sections, you get a
good "hands-on" foundation with Python's interpreter, which will make you more
comfortable when you move on to writing your own programs.
Tip If you want to get an overview of Python's features, jump ahead to Chapter 3. We'll
be waiting for you here when you want to find out more about interactive mode or
the IDLE editor/debugger.

If you need to install Python, Appendix A has the instructions.

Two Ways to Interact with Python

One of the reasons Python is easy to use is that it comes with tools that help you design,
write, and debug your programs.

This chapter describes two of these tools:

14
 • Interactive mode: In interactive mode, you type instructions to Python one line
at a time—much the same way that an operating system (shell) accepts
instructions from a command line. You can also write short multiline programs or
import code from text files or from Python's builtin modules. Interactive mode
includes extensive help, too. With interactive mode, you can explore Python's
abilities.
• IDLE: The IDLE development environment includes Python's interactive mode
and more—tools for writing and running programs and for keeping track of
names.

IDLE is written in Python and shows off Python's considerable abilities.

Going One-on-One in Interactive Mode

You can do most anything in interactive mode that you can do in a Python program—
even write multiline programs. Think of interactive mode as

• A sandbox for experimenting safely with Python

• A tutor
• A tool to find and fix problems (bugs) in your programs

Warning You can't save what you type in interactive mode. If you want to keep a copy of
what you wrote, save your code and results in a file on your computer.

You can use interactive mode as a calculator. You can manipulate text and make
assignments in interactive mode. Finally, you can import modules, functions, or parts of a
longer program and test them. These features can help you

• Experiment with Python objects without writing long programs.

• Debug programs by importing parts of your program one at a time.

Starting interactive mode

To start Python's interactive mode, follow these steps:

1. Open a command window.

o If you're using Mac OS X, open the Terminal application and select File
New Shell.
o If you're using Windows, open the Command Prompt window.
o If you're using UNIX, either open a new shell window or just type in your
existing shell window.
2. Type python.

When Python opens, you see the text shown in Figure 2-1.

15
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When Python's interactive mode starts up, it tells you what version is running, the date
the version was released, and a few hints about what to do next. Then it displays the
Python prompt: >>>

Figure 2-1: Python's interactive mode in a Terminal window.

Why computers are always saying "Hello, World!"

"Hello, World" programs are a computer programming tradition. According to the free
Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org), the first instance of a
computer program that printed "Hello, World" occurred in 1973, in a book called A
Tutorial Introduction to the Language B, by Brian Kernighan. Since then, a "Hello,
World!" program has been written for almost every computer language. Wikipedia lists
more than 170 "Hello, World!" programs written in languages from 4GL and ActionScript
to UNIX shell and XUL.

One reason that "Hello, World" programs are popular is that a program that prints a single
statement is usually the shortest working program in a language.

• In Python, the shortest working program is one line long.

• In Java, the program is five lines long.

Aren't you glad you're using Python?

Following the rules of engagement

The basic method for working with interactive mode is simply this:

1. Type a statement or expression.

2. Press the Return or Enter key.

When you press Return, Python interprets your input and responds if what you typed
calls for a response or if the interpreter doesn't understand what you typed.

In the following example, the statement tells Python to print a string. Because the
statement doesn't specify where to print the string, Python prints it to the screen (the
default behavior in interactive mode).

>>> print "Hello, World!"

Hello, World!

16
This statement is a whole Python program! Pretty simple, eh? When you use interactive
mode, Python processes each line of code you type as soon as you press Return (unless it
sees that you are writing a multiline chunk of code), and the results appear underneath.

Seeing information about a Python object

In interactive mode, there are two ways to see information about an object:

• Type the object (or its name) and press Return.

• Type the print command and the object (or its name) and press Return.

What you see depends on what the object is.

• With some data types (integers and lists, for example), the two methods of seeing
the value give the same result—as in this example, in which the name stores a list:
• >>> x = [3,2]
• >>> x
• [3, 2]
• >>> print x
• [3, 2]
• With strings, the result of typing print name and pressing Return is slightly
different from the result you get by typing name and pressing Return. When you
just type name and press Return, the value is surrounded by quotation marks, but
when you type print name and press Return, there are no quotation marks. (To
find out why, see the sidebar, "Representing data".)

This example shows the difference between using just the name and using the
print statement with the name:

>>> x = "mystring"
>>> x
"mystring"
>>> print x
mystring

• When the name refers to a code block (for example, a function, module, or class
instance), looking at the name shows you information such as the kind of data, the
name, and the storage location.

This example creates a class called Message and displays information about the
class:

>>> class Message:

... pass
...
>>> Message
<class ___main___.Message at 0x58db0>
>>> print Message

17
 __main__.Message
Representing data

Why do you sometimes see different results when you type name and when you type
print name? Just typing name and pressing Return is a shortcut for using the function
repr() to display the result, whereas the print command uses the function str() to
display the result.

In technical terms, when you type an object name, literal, expression, or statement and
press Return, Python evaluates the object. That is, Python runs the code and
returns/displays the result.

According to Python's built-in documentation, the function str() returns a "nice" string
representation of an object. The function repr() returns the "canonical" string
representation of the object. Here's the difference between a "nice" and a "canonical"
representation of a floating point number:

>>> 3.2 # canonical

3.2000000000000002
>>> str(3.2) # nice
'3. 2'
>>> repr(3.2) # canonical
'3.2000000000000002'
>>> print 3.2 # nice
3.2

The canonical representation usually tries to be a chunk of text that, when pasted into the
interpreter, re-creates the object. This example shows how:

>>> mytuple = (3, 4)

>>> mylist = [1, "2", mytuple]
>>> print repr(mylist)
[1, '2', (3, 4)]
>>> mylist == [1, '2', (3, 4)]
True

(Note that some objects, such as files, can't be re-created by repr(). You can still use the
output of repr() as debugging info when working with such objects.)

Here's an example of what str() and repr() return when you give them a class as an
argument:

>>> class Message:

... pass
...
>>> str(Message)
'__main__.Message'
>>> repr(Message)
'<class __main__.Message at 0x58e40>'

18
Seeing the result of the last expression

When you type an expression by itself in interactive mode, or when Python returns an
expression as a result of something you typed, Python also stores the value of the
expression in a special name: _ (an underscore character). This name is available only in
interactive mode. To see the value stored, type _.

>>> "Hello, World!"

'Hello, World!'
>>> _
'Hello, World!'
TECHNICAL Note that _ doesn't store the results of any statements (assignments
STUFF such as x=25 or commands such as print). In the following example,
_ continues to hold the value of the expression even after a statement
was typed:

>>> "Hello, Nurse!"

'Hello, Nurse!'
>>> x = 35
>>> _
'Hello, Nurse!'
Warning Don't rely on _ in long segments of
code. The value stored in _ may change
unexpectedly if you aren't paying close attention to the difference between
statements and expressions.

Manipulating strings and lists

You can use Python's interactive mode to see a few of the interesting tricks Python can do
with string and list data. (We cover strings and lists in Chapters 6 and 8.)

Of printing, commas, and space

When you want to print several strings, or a string and the value of a name, you can use a
comma to stand for a single space in the printed output. The following example shows the
comma in action:

>>> y = "The meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything is"

>>> x = 42
>>> print y, x
The meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything is 42

Measuring and splitting strings

The function len() returns the length of a string, as illustrated here:

>>> x = "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"
>>> len(x)
34
REMEMBER len() works with other sequence data types, too—for example, if you

19
 give it a list as an argument, it returns the number of items in the list.

The method split() breaks a string into separate words and returns a list
of the words, like this:

>>> x = "This is an ex-parrot!"

>>> x.split()
['This', 'is', 'an', 'ex-parrot!']
TECHNICAL The split() method actually breaks a string wherever it finds white
STUFF space, so sometimes it doesn't break the string where you expect—
for example:

>>> 'one and/or two'

['one', 'and/or', 'two']

Using interactive mode as a calculator

The Python interpreter can be used like a calculator. If you just want to do simple
calculations, you can type numbers and operators and press Return to see the result, as in
the following example:

>>> (1 + 3) * (2 + 2)
16
>>> 1 + 3 * 2 + 2
9
Warning Don't use an equals sign (=) when doing calculations like these. In Python, an
equals sign gives a name to a value. If you use = to try to get the result of a
calculation, Python gives you an error message:

>>> 1 + 3 * 2 + 2 =
File "<stdin>", line 1
1 + 3 * 2 + 2 =
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

You can also use names to do math in the Python interpreter. This is easier when doing
calculations with several steps, like the following:

>>> x = 1 + 3
>>> y = 2 + 2
>>> x * y
16
Warning If you type all whole numbers (integers) when you're doing arithmetic, Python
returns the result in integers. If you want precise results in calculations
involving division, be sure that at least one of the numbers in a calculation is a
decimal number, or type the statement from __future__ import division
before doing your calculations. Doing the latter imports the true division feature
from a special module called __future__, which contains improvements that
will be automatically activated in later versions of Python. To find out more

20
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pick up a great deal of knowledge when working as ploughmen or
labourers on the more immediate grounds of the estate.
The head agent, Mr. Loch, has been kind enough to put into my
hands a general report of the condition of the estate, which he drew
up for the inspection of the duke, May 12, 1853, and in which he
goes minutely over the condition of every part of the estate.
One anecdote of the former Duke of Sutherland will show the spirit
which has influenced the family in their management of the estate.
In 1817, when there was much suffering on account of bad seasons,
the Duke of Sutherland sent down his chief agent to look into the
condition of the people, who desired the ministers of the parishes to
send in their lists of poor. To his surprise it was found that there
were located on the estate a number of people who had settled
there without leave. They amounted to four hundred and eight
families, or two thousand persons; and though they had no legal
title to remain where they were, no hesitation was shown in
supplying them with food in the same manner with those who were
tenants, on the sole condition that on the first opportunity they
should take cottages on the sea-shore, and become industrious
people. It was the constant object of the duke to keep the rents of
his poorer tenants at a nominal amount.
What led me more particularly to inquire into these facts was, that I
received by mail, while in London, an account containing some of
these stories, which had been industriously circulated in America.
There were dreadful accounts of cruelties practised in the process of
inducing the tenants to change their places of residence. The
following is a specimen of these stories:—
“I was present at the pulling down and burning of the house of
William Chisholm, Badinloskin, in which was lying his wife’s mother,
an old, bed-ridden woman of near one hundred years of age, none
of the family being present. I informed the persons about to set fire
to the house of this circumstance, and prevailed on them to wait till
Mr. Sellar came. On his arrival I told him of the poor old woman,
being a condition unfit for removal. He replied, ‘The old witch! she
has lived too long; let her burn.’ Fire was immediately set to the
house, and the blankets in which she was carried were in flames
before she could be got out. She was placed in a little shed, and it
was with great difficulty they were prevented from firing that also.
The old woman’s daughter arrived while the house was on fire, and
assisted the neighbours in removing her mother out of the flames
and smoke, presenting a picture of horror which I shall never forget
but cannot attempt to describe. She died within five days.”
With regard to this story, Mr. Loch, the agent, says: “I must notice
the only thing like a fact stated in the newspaper extract which you
sent to me, wherein Mr. Sellar is accused of acts of cruelty towards
some of the people. This Mr. Sellar tested, by bringing an action
against the then Sheriff-substitute of the county. He obtained a
verdict for heavy damages. The Sheriff, by whom the slander was
propagated, left the county. Both are since dead.”
Having, through Lord Shaftesbury’s kindness, received the benefit of
Mr. Loch’s corrections to this statement, I am permitted to make a
little further extract from his reply. He says:—
“In addition to what I was able to say in my former paper, I can now
state that the Duke of Sutherland has received from one of the most
determined opposers of the measures, who travelled to the north of
Scotland as editor of a newspaper, a letter regretting all he had
written on the subject, being convinced that he was entirely
misinformed. As you take so much interest in the subject, I will
conclude by saying that nothing could exceed the prosperity of the
county during the past year; their stock, sheep, and other things
sold at high prices; their crops of grain and turnips were never so
good, and the potatoes were free from all disease: rents have been
paid better than was ever known. * * * As an instance of the
improved habits of the farmers, no house is now built for them that
they do not require a hot bath and water-closets.”
From this long epitome you can gather the following results. First, if
the system were a bad one, the Duchess of Sutherland had nothing
to do with it, since it was first introduced in 1806, the same year her
grace was born; and the accusation against Mr. Sellar, dates in 1811,
when her grace was five or six years old. The Sutherland
arrangements were completed in 1819, and her grace was not
married to the duke till 1823, so that, had the arrangement been the
worst in the world, it is nothing to the purpose so far as she is
concerned.
As to whether the arrangement is a bad one, the facts which have
been stated speak for themselves. To my view it is an almost
sublime instance of the benevolent employment of superior wealth
and power in shortening the struggles of advancing civilization, and
elevating in a few years a whole community to a point of education
and material prosperity, which, unassisted, they might never have
obtained.

REPLY TO MRS. BEECHER STOWE BY DONALD

MACLEOD.[8]
From the year 1812 to 1820, the whole interior of the county of
Sutherland—whose inhabitants were advancing rapidly in the science
of agriculture and education, who by nature and exemplary training
were the bravest, the most moral and patriotic people that ever
existed—even admitting a few of them did violate the excise laws,
the only sin which Mr. Loch and all the rest of their avowed enemies
could bring against them—where a body of men could be raised on
the shortest possible notice that kings and emperors might and
would be proud of; and where the whole fertile valleys and straths
which gave them birth were in due season waving with corn; their
mountains and hill-sides studded with sheep and cattle; where
rejoicing, felicity, happiness, and true piety prevailed; where the
martial notes of the bagpipes sounded and reverberated from
mountain to glen, from glen to mountain. I say, marvellous! in eight
years converted to a solitary wilderness, where the voice of man
praising God is not to be heard, nor the image of God upon man to
be seen; where you can set a compass with twenty miles of a radius
upon it, and go round with it full stretched, and not find one acre of
land within the circumference which has come under the plough for
the last thirty years, except a few in the parishes of Lairg and
Tongue,—all under mute brute animals. This is the advancement of
civilization, is it not, madam?
Return now with me to the beginning of your elaborate eulogy on
the Duchess of Sutherland, and if you are open to conviction, I think
you should be convinced that I never published nor circulated in the
American, English, or Scotch public prints any ridiculous, absurd
stories about her Grace of Sutherland. An abridgment of my
lucubrations is now in the hands of the public, and you may peruse
them. I stand by them as facts (stubborn chiels). I can prove them
to be so even in this country (Canada), by a cloud of living
witnesses, and my readers will find that, instead of bringing absurd
accusations against her Grace, that I have endeavoured in some
instances to screen her and her predecessors from the public odium
their own policy and the doings of their servants merited. Moreover,
there is thirty years since I began to expostulate with the House of
Sutherland for their shortsighted policy in dealing with their people
as they were doing, and it is twenty years since I began to expose
them publicly, with my real name, Donald MacLeod, attached to each
letter, sending a copy of the public paper where it appeared, directed
by post, to the Duke of Sutherland. These exposing and
remonstrating letters were published in the Edinburgh papers, where
the Duke and his predecessors had their principal Scotch law agent,
and you may easily believe that I was closely watched, with the view
to find one false accusation in my letters, but they were baffled. I
am well aware that each letter I have written on the subject would,
if untrue, constitute a libel, and I knew the editors, printers, and
publishers of these papers were as liable or responsible for libel as I
was. But the House of Sutherland could never venture to raise an
action of damages against either of us. In 1841, when I published
my first pamphlet, I paid $4 50c., for binding one of them, in a
splendid style, which I sent by mail to his Grace the present Duke of
Sutherland, with a complimentary note requesting him to peruse it,
and let me know if it contained anything offensive or untrue. I never
received a reply, nor did I expect it; yet I am satisfied that his Grace
did peruse it. I posted a copy of it to Mr. Loch, his chief
commissioner; to Mr. W. Mackenzie, his chief lawyer in Edinburgh; to
every one of their underlings, to sheep farmers, and ministers in the
county of Sutherland, who abetted the depopulators, and I
challenged the whole of them, and other literary scourges who aid
and justified their unhallowed doings, to gainsay one statement I
have made. Can you or any other believe that a poor sinner like
Donald MacLeod would be allowed for so many years to escape with
impunity, had he been circulating and publishing calumnious, absurd
falsehoods against such personages as the House of Sutherland? No,
I tell you, if money could secure my punishment, without
establishing their own shame and guilt, that it would be considered
well-spent long ere now,—they would eat me in penny pies if they
could get me cooked for them.
I agree with you that the Duchess of Sutherland is a beautiful,
accomplished lady, who would shudder at the idea of taking a faggot
or a burning torch in her hand to set fire to the cottages of her
tenants, and so would her predecessor, the first Duchess of
Sutherland, her good mother; likewise would the late and present
Dukes of Sutherland, at least I am willing to believe that they would.
Yet it was done in their name, under their authority, to their
knowledge, and with their sanction. The dukes and duchesses of
Sutherland, and those of their depopulating order, had not, nor have
they any call to defile their pure hands in milder work than to burn
people’s houses; no, no, they had, and have plenty of willing tools at
their beck to perform their dirty work. Whatever amount of humanity
and purity of heart the late or the present Duke and Duchess may
possess or be ascribed to them, we know the class of men from
whom they selected their commissioners, factors, and underlings. I
knew every one of the unrighteous servants who ruled the
Sutherland estate for the last fifty years, and I am justified in saying
that the most skilful phrenologist and physiognomist that ever
existed could not discern one spark of humanity in the whole of
them, from Mr. Loch down to Donald Sgrios, or Damnable Donald,
the name by which the latter was known. The most of those cruel
executors of the atrocities I have been describing are now dead, and
to be feared but not lamented. But it seems their chief was left to
give you all the information you required about British slavery and
oppression. I have read from speeches delivered by Mr. Loch at
public dinners among his own party, “that he would never be
satisfied until the Gaelic language and the Gaelic people would be
extirpated root and branch from the Sutherland estate; yes, from the
Highlands of Scotland.” He published a book, where he stated as a
positive fact, “that when he got the management of the Sutherland
estate he found 408 families on the estate who never heard the
name of Jesus,”—whereas I could make oath that there were not at
that time, and for ages prior to it, above two families within the
limits of the county who did not worship that Name and holy Being
every morning and evening. I know there are hundreds in the
Canadas who will bear me out in this assertion. I was at the pulling
down and burning of the house of William Chisholm. I got my hands
burnt taking out the poor old woman from amidst the flames of her
once-comfortable though humble dwelling, and a more horrifying
and lamentable scene could scarcely be witnessed. I may say the
skeleton of a once tall, robust, high-cheek-boned, respectable
woman, who had seen better days; who could neither hear, see, nor
speak; without a tooth in her mouth, her cheek skin meeting in the
centre, her eyes sunk out of sight in their sockets, her mouth wide
open, her nose standing upright among smoke and flames, uttering
piercing moans of distress and agony, in articulations from which
could be only understood, “Oh, Dhia, Dhia, teine, teine—Oh God,
God, fire, fire.” When she came to the pure air, her bosom heaved to
a most extraordinary degree, accompanied by a deep hollow sound
from her lungs, comparable to the sound of thunder at a distance.
When laid down upon the bare, soft, moss floor of the roofless shed,
I will never forget the foam of perspiration which emitted and
covered the pallid death-looking countenance. This was a scene,
madam, worthy of an artist’s pencil, and of a conspicuous place on
the stages of tragedy. Yet you call this a specimen of the ridiculous
stories which found their way into respectable prints, because Mr.
Loch, the chief actor, told you that Sellar, the head executive,
brought an action against the sheriff and obtained a verdict for
heavy damages. What a subterfuge; but it will not answer the
purpose, “the bed is too short to stretch yourself, and the covering
too narrow and short to cover you.” If you took the information and
evidence upon which you founded your Uncle Tom’s Cabin from such
unreliable sources (as I said before), who can believe the one-tenth
of your novel? I cannot. I have at my hand here the grandchild of
the slaughtered old woman, who recollects well of the circumstance.
I have not far from me a respectable man, an elder in the Free
Church, who was examined as a witness at Sellar’s trial, at the
Spring Assizes of Inverness, in 1816, which you will find narrated in
letters four and five of my work. Had you the opportunity, madam,
of seeing the scenes which I, and hundreds more, have seen—the
wild ferocious appearance of the infamous gang who constituted the
burning party, covered over face and hands with soot and ashes of
the burning houses, cemented by torch-grease and their own sweat,
kept continually drunk or half-drunk while at work; and to observe
the hellish amusements some of them would get up for themselves
and for an additional pleasure to their leaders! The people’s houses
were generally built upon declivities, and in many cases not far from
pretty steep precipices. They preserved their meal in tight-made
boxes, or chests, as they were called, and when this fiendish party
found any quantity of meal, they would carry it between them to the
brink, and dispatch it down the precipice amidst shrieks and yells. It
was considered grand sport to see the box breaking to atoms and
the meal mixed with the air. When they would set fire to a house,
they would watch any of the domestic animals making their escape
from the flames, such as dogs, cats, hens, or any poultry; these
were caught and thrown back to the flames—grand sport for
demons in human form!
As to the vaunted letter which his “Grace received from one of the
most determined opposers of the measures, who travelled in the
north of Scotland as editor of a newspaper, regretting all that he had
written on the subject, being convinced that he was misinformed,” I
may tell you, madam, that this man did not travel to the north or in
the north of Scotland, as editor; his name was Thomas Mulock; he
came to Scotland a fanatic speculator in literature in search of
money, or a lucrative situation, vainly thinking that he would be a
dictator to every editor in Scotland. He first attacked the immortal
Hugh Miller of the Witness, Edinburgh, but in him he met more than
his match. He then went to the north, got hold of my first pamphlet,
and by setting it up in a literary style, and in better English than I,
he made a splendid and promising appearance in the northern
papers for some time; but he found out that the money expected
was not coming in, and that the hotels, head inns, and taverns
would not keep him up any longer without the prospect of being
paid for the past or for the future. I found out that he was hard up,
and a few of the Highlanders in Edinburgh and myself sent him from
twenty to thirty pounds sterling. When he saw that that was all he
was to get, he at once turned tail upon us, and instead of expressing
his gratitude, he abused us unsparingly, and regretted that ever he
wrote in behalf of such a hungry, moneyless class. He smelled (like
others we suspect) where the gold was hoarded up for hypocrites
and flatterers, and that one apologising letter to his Grace would be
worth ten times as much as he could expect from the Highlanders all
his lifetime; and I doubt not it was, for his apology for the sin of
misinformation got wide circulation.
He then went to France and started an English paper in Paris, and
for the service he rendered Napoleon in crushing republicanism
during the besieging of Rome, etc., the Emperor presented him with
a gold pin, and in a few days afterwards sent a gendarme to him
with a brief notice that his service was not any longer required, and
a warning to quit France in a few days, which he had to do. What
became of him after I know not, but very likely he is dictating to
young Loch, or some other Metternich.
No feelings of hostile vindictiveness, no desire to inflict
chastisement, no desire to make riches, influenced my mind,
pourtraying the scenes of havoc and misery which in those past days
darkened the annals of Sutherland. I write in my own humble style,
with higher aims, wishing to prepare the way for demonstrating to
the Dukes of Sutherland, and all other Highland proprietors, great
and small, that the path of selfish aggrandisement and oppression
leads by sure and inevitable results, yea to the ruin and destruction
of the blind and misguided oppressors themselves. I consider the
Duke himself victimised on a large scale by an incurably wrong
system, and by being enthralled by wicked counsellors and servants.
I have no hesitation in saying, had his Grace and his predecessors
bestowed one-half of the encouragement they had bestowed upon
strangers on the aborigines—a hardy, healthy, abstemious people,
who lived peaceably in their primitive habitations, unaffected with
the vices of a subtle civilization, possessing little, but enjoying much;
a race devoted to their hereditary chief, ready to abide by his
counsels; a race profitable in peace, and loyal, available in war; I
say, his Grace, the present Duke of Sutherland, and his beautiful
Duchess, would be without compeers in the British dominions, their
rents, at least doubled; would be as secure from invasion and
annoyance in Dunrobin Castle as Queen Victoria could, or can be, in
her Highland residence, at Balmoral, and far safer than she is in her
English home, Buckingham Palace; every man and son of Sutherland
would be ready, as in the days of yore, to shed the last drop of their
blood in defence of their chief, if required. Congratulations,
rejoicings, dancing to the martial notes of the pipes, would meet
them at the entrance to every glen and strath in Sutherlandshire,
accompanied, surrounded, and greeted, as they proceeded, by the
most grateful, devotedly attached, happy, and bravest peasantry that
ever existed; yes, but alas! where there is nothing now, but
desolation and the cries of famine and want, to meet the noble pair
—the ruins of once comfortable dwellings—will be seen the
landmarks of the furrows and ridges which yielded food to
thousands, the footprints of the arch-enemy of human happiness,
and ravager—before, after, and on each side, solitude, stillness, and
the quiet of the grave, disturbed only at intervals by the yells of a
shepherd, or fox-hunter, and the bark of a collie dog. Surely we must
admit that the Marquises and Dukes of Sutherland have been duped
and victimised to a most extraordinary and incredible extent; and we
have Mr. Loch’s own words for it in his speech in the House of
Commons, June 21st, 1845: “I can state, as from facts, that from
1811 to 1833, not one sixpence of rent has been received from that
county; but, on the contrary, there has been sent there for the
benefit and improvement of the people a sum exceeding sixty
thousand pounds sterling.” Now think you of this immense wealth
which has been expended. I am not certain, but I think the rental of
the county would exceed £60,000 a year; you have then from 1811
to 1833, twenty-two years, leaving them at the above figures, and
the sum total will amount to £1,320,000 expended upon the self-
styled Sutherland improvements; add to this £60,000 sent down to
preserve the lives of the victims of those improvements from death
by famine, and the sum total will turn out in the shape of
£1,380,000. It surely cost the heads of the house of Sutherland an
immense sum of money to convert the county into the state I have
described it in a former part of this work (and I challenge
contradiction).
You should be surprised to hear and learn, madam, for what
purposes most of the money drained from the Duke’s coffers yearly
are expended since he became the Duke and proprietor of
Sutherland, upholding the Loch policy. There are no fewer than
seventeen who are known by the name of water bailiffs in the
county, who receive yearly salaries, what doing, think you?
Protecting the operations of the Loch policy, watching day and night
the freshwater lakes, rivers, and creeks, teeming with the finest
salmon and trout fish in the world, guarding from the famishing
people, even during the years of famine and dire distress, when
many had to subsist upon weeds, sea-ware, and shell-fish, yet
guarded and preserved for the amusement of English anglers; and
what is still more heartrending, to prevent the dying by hunger to
pick up any of the dead fish left by the sporting anglers rotting on
the lake, creek, and river sides, when the smallest of them, or a
morsel, would be considered by hundreds, I may say thousands, of
the needy natives, a treat; but they durst not touch them, or if they
did and were found out to jail they were conducted, or removed
summarily from his Grace’s domains; (let me be understood, these
gentlemen had no use for the fish, killing them for amusement, only
what they required for their own use, and complimented to the
factors; they were not permitted to cure them).
You will find, madam, that about three miles from Dunrobin Castle
there is a branch of the sea which extends up the county about six
miles, where shell-fish, called mussels, abound. Here you will find
two sturdy men, called mussel bailiffs, supplied with rifles and
ammunition, and as many Newfoundland dogs as assistants,
watching the mussel scalps, or beds, to preserve them from the
people in the surrounding parishes of Dornoch, Rogart, and Golspie,
and keep them, to supply the fishermen, on the opposite side of the
Moray Firth, with bait, who come there every year and take away
thousands of tons of this nutritive shell-fish, when many hundreds of
the people would be thankful for a diet per day of them, to pacify
the cravings of nature. You will find that the unfortunate native
fishermen, who pay a yearly rent to his Grace for bait, are only
permitted theirs from the refuse left by the strangers of the other
side of the Moray Firth, and if they violate the iron rule laid down to
them, they are entirely at the mercy of the underlings. There has
been an instance of two of the fishermen’s wives going on a cold,
snowy, frosty day to gather bait, but on account of the boisterous
sea, could not reach the place appointed by the factors; one took
what they required from the forbidden ground, and was observed by
some of the bailiffs, in ambush, who pursued them like tigers. One
came up to her unobserved, took out his knife, and cut the straps by
which the basket or creel on her back was suspended; the weight on
her back fell to the ground, and she, poor woman, big in the family
way, fell her whole length forward in the snow and frost. Her
companion turned round to see what had happened, when she was
pushed back with such force that she fell; he then trampled their
baskets and mussels to atoms, took them both prisoners, ordered
one of them to call his superior bailiff to assist him, and kept the
other for two hours standing, wet as she was, among frost and
snow, until the superior came a distance of three miles. After a short
consultation upon the enormity of the crime, the two poor women
were led, like convicted criminals, to Golspie, to appear before
Lycurgus Gunn, and in that deplorable condition were left standing
before their own doors in the snow, until Marshall Gunn found it
convenient to appear and pronounce judgment,—verdict: You are
allowed to go into your houses this night; this day week you must
leave this village for ever, and the whole of the fishermen of the
village are strictly prohibited from taking bait from the Little Ferry
until you leave; my bailiffs are requested to see this my decree
strictly attended to. Being the middle of winter and heavy snow, they
delayed a week longer: ultimately the villagers had to expel the two
families from among them, so that they would get bait, having
nothing to depend upon for subsistence but the fishing, and fish
they could not without bait. This is a specimen of the injustice to
and subjugation of the Golspie fishermen, and of the people at
large; likewise of the purposes for which the Duke’s money is
expended in that quarter. If you go, then, to the other side of the
domain, you will find another Kyle, or a branch of the sea, which
abounds in cockles and other shell-fish, fortunately for the poor
people, not forbidden by a Loch ukase. But in the years of distress,
when the people were principally living upon vegetables, sea-weeds,
and shell-fish, various diseases made their appearance amongst
them hitherto unknown. The absence of meal of any kind being
considered the primary cause, some of the people thought they
would be permitted to exchange shell-fish for meal with their more
fortunate neighbours in Caithness, to whom such shell-fish were a
rarity, and so far the understanding went between them, that the
Caithness boats came up loaded with meal, but the Loch embargo,
through his underling in Tongue, who was watching their
movements, was at once placed upon it; the Caithness boats had to
return home with the meal, and the Duke’s people might live or die,
as they best could. Now, madam, you have steeped your brains, and
ransacked the English language to find refined terms for your
panegyric on the Duke, Duchess, and family of Sutherland. (I find no
fault with you, knowing you have been well paid for it.) But I would
briefly ask you (and others who devoted much of their time and
talents in the same strain), would it not be more like a noble pair—if
they did merit such noble praise as you have bestowed upon them—
if they had, especially during years of famine and distress, freely
opened up all these bountiful resources which God in His eternal
wisdom and goodness prepared for His people, and which should
never be intercepted nor restricted by man or men. You and others
have composed hymns of praise, which it is questionable if there is a
tune in heaven to sing them to.
 So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are
done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were
oppressed, and they had no comforter: and on the side of
their oppressors there was power; but they had no
comforter.—Ecclesiastes iv. 1.

The wretch that works and weeps without relief

Has one that notices his silent grief.
He, from whose hands all pow’r proceeds
Ranks its abuse among the foulest deeds,
Considers all injustice with a frown,
But marks the man that treads his fellow down.
Remember Heav’n has an avenging rod—
To smite the poor is treason against God.—Cowper.

But you shall find the Duke’s money is expended for most
astonishing purposes; not a little of it goes to hire hypocrites, and
renowned literary flatterers, to vindicate the mal-administration of
those to whom he entrusted the management of his affairs, and
make his Grace (who is by nature a simple-minded man) believe his
servants are innocent of all the charges brought against them, and
doing justice to himself and to his people, when they are doing the
greatest injustice to both; so that instead of calling his servants to
account at any time, and enquiring into the broad charges brought
against them—as every wise landlord should do—it seems the
greater the enormities of foul deeds they commit, and the louder
their accusations may sound through the land, the farther they are
received into his favour. The fact is, that James Loch was Duke of
Sutherland, and not the “tall, slender man with rather a thin face,
light brown hair, and mild blue eyes,” who armed you up the
extraordinary elegant staircase in Stafford House.
The Duchess of Sutherland pays a visit every year to Dunrobin
Castle, and has seen and heard so many supplicating appeals
presented to her husband by the poor fishermen of Golspie,
soliciting liberty to take mussels from the Little Ferry Sands to bait
their nets—a liberty of which they were deprived by his factors,
though paying yearly rent for it; yet returned by his Grace with the
brief deliverance, that he could do nothing for them. Can I believe
that this is the same personage who can set out from Dunrobin
Castle, her own Highland seat, and after travelling from it, then can
ride in one direction over thirty miles, in another direction forty-four
miles, in another, by taking the necessary circuitous route, sixty
miles, and that over fertile glens, valleys, and straths, bursting with
fatness, which gave birth to, and where were reared for ages,
thousands of the bravest, the most moral, virtuous, and religious
men that Europe could boast of; ready to a man, at a moment’s
warning from their chiefs, to rise in defence of their king, queen, and
country; animated with patriotism and love to their chief, and
irresistible in the battle contest for victory? But these valiant men
had then a country, a home, and a chief worth the fighting for. But I
can tell her that she can now ride over these extensive tracts in the
interior of the county without seeing the image of God upon a man
travelling these roads, with the exception of a wandering Highland
shepherd, wrapped up in a grey plaid to the eyes, with a collie dog
behind him as a drill sergeant to train his ewes and to marshal his
tups. There may happen to travel over the dreary tract a geologist, a
tourist, or a lonely carrier, but these are as rare as a pelican in the
wilderness, or a camel’s convoy caravan in the deserts of Arabia. Add
to this a few English sportsmen, with their stag hounds, pointer
dogs, and servants, and put themselves and their bravery together,
and one company of French soldiers would put ten thousand of them
to a disorderly flight, to save their own carcases, leaving their ewes
and tups to feed the invaders!
The question may arise, where those people, who inhabited this
country at one period, have gone? In America and Australia the most
of them will be found. The Sutherland family and the nation had no
need of their services; hence they did not regard their patriotism or
loyalty, and disregarded their past services. Sheep, bullocks, deer,
and game, became more valuable than men. Yet a remnant, or in
other words a skeleton, of them is to be found along the sea shore,
huddled together in motley groups upon barren moors, among cliffs
and precipices, in the most impoverished, degraded, subjugated,
slavish, spiritless, condition that human beings could exist in. If this
is really the lady who has “Glory to God in the highest, peace on
earth, and good will to men,” in view, and who is so religiously
denouncing the American statute which “denies the slave the
sanctity of marriage, with all its joys, rights, and obligations—which
separates, at the will of the master, the wife from the husband, the
children from the parents,” I would advise her in God’s name to take
a tour round the sea-skirts of Sutherland, her own estate, beginning
at Brora, then to Helmsdale, Portskerra, Strathy, Farr, Tongue,
Durness, Eddrachillis, and Assynt, and learn the subjugated,
degraded, impoverished, uneducated condition of the spiritless
people of that sea-beaten coast, about two hundred miles in length,
and let her with similar zeal remonstrate with her husband, that their
condition is bettered; for the cure for all their misery and want is
lying unmolested in the fertile valleys above, and all under his
control; and to advise his Grace, her husband, to be no longer
guided by his Ahitophel, Mr. Loch, but to discontinue his
depopulating schemes, which have separated many a wife from her
husband, never to meet—which caused many a premature death,
and that separated many sons and daughters, never to see each
other; and by all means to withdraw that mandate of Mr. Loch,
which forbids marriage on the Sutherland estate, under pains and
penalties of being banished from the county; for it has already
augmented illegitimate connections and issues fifty per cent above
what such were a few years ago—before this unnatural, ungodly law
was put in force.
Let us see what the character of these ill-used people was! General
Stewart of Garth, in his “Sketches of the Highlands” says: In the
words of a general officer by whom the 93rd Sutherlanders were
once reviewed, “They exhibit a perfect pattern of military discipline
and moral rectitude. In the case of such men disgraceful punishment
would be as unnecessary as it would be pernicious.” “Indeed,” says
the General, “so remote was the idea of such a measure in regard to
them, that when punishments were to be inflicted on others, and the
troops in garrison assembled to witness their execution, the
presence of the Sutherland Highlanders was dispensed with, the
effects of terror as a check to crime being in their case uncalled for,
as examples of that nature were not necessary for such honourable
soldiers. When the Sutherland Highlanders were stationed at the
Cape of Good Hope anxious to enjoy the advantages of religious
instruction agreeably to the tenets of their national church, and
there being no religious service in the garrison except the customary
one of reading prayers to the soldiers on parade, the Sutherland
men formed themselves into a congregation, appointed elders of
their own number, engaged and paid a stipend (collected among
themselves) to a clergyman of the Church of Scotland, and had
divine service performed agreeably to the ritual of the Established
Church every Sabbath, and prayer meetings through the week.” This
reverend gentleman, Mr. Thom, in a letter which appeared in the
Christian Herald of October, 1814, writes thus: “When the 93rd
Highlanders left Cape Town last month, there were among them 156
members of the church, including three elders and three deacons, all
of whom, so far as men can know the heart from the life, were pious
men. The regiment was certainly a pattern of morality, and good
behaviour to all other corps. They read their Bibles and observed the
Sabbath. They saved their money to do good. 7000 rix dollars, a
sum equal to £1200, the non-commissioned officers and privates
saved for books, societies, and for the spread of the Gospel, a sum
unparalleled in any other corps in the world, given in the short space
of eighteen months. Their example had a general good effect on
both the colonists and the heathen. If ever apostolic days were
revived in modern times on earth, I certainly believe some of those
to have been granted to us in Africa.” Another letter of a similar kind,
addressed to the Committee of the Edinburgh Gaelic School Society
(fourth annual report), says: “The 93rd Highlanders arrived in
England, when they immediately received orders to proceed to North
America; but before they re-embarked the sum collected for your
society was made up and remitted to your treasurer, amounting to
seventy-eight pounds, sterling.” “In addition to this,” says the noble-
minded, immortal General, “such of them as had parents and friends
in Sutherland did not forget their destitute condition, occasioned by
the operation of the fire and faggot, mis-improved state of the
county.” During the short period the regiment was quartered at
Plymouth, upwards of £500 was lodged in one banking-house, to be
remitted to Sutherland, exclusive of many sums sent through the
Post Office and by officers; some of the sums exceeding £20 from an
individual soldier. Men like these do credit to the peasantry of a
country. “It must appear strange, and somewhat inconsistent,”
continues the General, “when the same men who are so loud in their
profession of an eager desire to promote and preserve the religious
and moral virtues of the people, should so frequently take the lead
in removing them from where they imbibed principles which have
attracted the notice of Europe and of measures which lead to a
deterioration, placing families on patches of potato ground as in
Ireland, a system pregnant with degradation, poverty, and
disaffection.” It is only when parents and heads of families in the
Highlands are moral, happy, and contented, that they can instil
sound principles into their children, who in their intercourse with the
world may become what the men of Sutherland have already been,
“an honourable example, worthy the imitation of all.”
I cannot help being grieved at my unavoidable abbreviation of these
heart-stirring and heart-warming extracts, which should ornament
every mantel-piece and library in the Highlands of Scotland; but I
could refer to other authors of similar weight; among the last
(though not the least), Mr. Hugh Millar of the Witness, in his
“Sutherland as it was and is: or, How a country can be ruined;” a
work which should silence and put to shame every vile, malignant
calumniator of Highland religion and moral virtue in bygone years,
who in their sophistical profession of a desire to promote the
temporal and spiritual welfare of the people, had their own sordid
cupidity and aggrandisement in view in all their unworthy
lucubrations.
At the commencement of the Russian war a correspondent wrote as
follows: “Your predictions are making their appearance at last, great
demands are here for men to go to Russia, but they are not to be
found. It seems that the Secretary of War has corresponded with all
our Highland proprietors, to raise as many men as they could for the
Crimean war, and ordered so many officers of rank to the Highlands
to assist the proprietors in doing so—but it has been a complete
failure as yet. The nobles advertised, by placards, meetings of the
people; these proclamations were attended to, but when they came
to understand what they were about, in most cases the recruiting
proprietors and staff were saluted with the ominous cry of ‘Maa!
maa! boo! boo!’ imitating sheep and bullocks, and, ‘Send your deer,
your roes, your rams, dogs, shepherds, and gamekeepers to fight
the Russians, they have never done us any harm.’ The success of his
Grace the Duke of Sutherland was deplorable; I believe you would
have pitied the poor old man had you seen him.
“In my last letter I told you that his head commissioner, Mr. Loch,
and military officer, was in Sutherland for the last six weeks, and
failed in getting one man to enlist; on getting these doleful tidings,
the Duke himself left London for Sutherland, arriving at Dunrobin
about ten days ago, and after presenting himself upon the streets of
Golspie and Brora, he called a meeting of the male inhabitants of the
parishes of Clyne, Rogart, and Golspie; the meeting was well
attended; upwards of 400 were punctual at the hour; his Grace in
his carriage, with his military staff and factors appeared shortly
after; the people gave them a hearty cheer; his Grace took the chair.
Three or four clerks took their seats at the table, and loosened down
bulky packages of bank notes, and spread out platefuls of glittering
gold. The Duke addressed the people very seriously, and entered
upon the necessity of going to war with Russia, and the danger of
allowing the Czar to have more power than what he holds already;
of his cruel, despotic reign in Russia, etc.; likewise praising the
Queen and her government, rulers and nobles of Great Britain, who
stood so much in need of men to put and keep down the tyrant of
Russia, and foil him in his wicked schemes to take possession of
Turkey. In concluding his address, which was often cheered, the
Duke told the young able-bodied men that his clerks were ready to
take down the names of all those willing to enlist, and everyone who
would enlist in the 93rd Highlanders, that the clerk would give him,
there and then, £6 sterling; those who would rather enter any other
corps, would get £3, all from his own private purse, independently of
the government bounty. After advancing many silly flattering
decoyments, he sat down to see the result, but there was no
movement among the people; after sitting for a long time looking at
the clerks, and they at him, at last his anxious looks at the people
assumed a somewhat indignant appearance, when he suddenly rose
up and asked what was the cause of their non-attention to the
proposals he made, but no reply; it was the silence of the grave. Still
standing, his Grace suddenly asked the cause; but no reply; at last
an old man, leaning upon his staff, was observed moving towards
the Duke, and when he approached near enough, he addressed his
Grace something as follows: ‘I am sorry for the response your
Grace’s proposals are meeting here to-day, so near the spot where
your maternal grandmother, by giving forty-eight hours’ notice,
marshalled fifteen hundred men to pick out of them the nine
hundred she required, but there is a cause for it, and a grievous
cause, and as your Grace demands to know it, I must tell you, as I
see no one else are inclined in this assembly to do it. Your Grace’s
mother and predecessors applied to our fathers for men upon former
occasions, and our fathers responded to their call; they have made
liberal promises, which neither them nor you performed; we are, we
think, a little wiser than our fathers, and we estimate your promises
of to-day at the value of theirs, besides you should bear in mind that
your predecessors and yourself expelled us in a most cruel and
unjust manner from the land which our fathers held in lien from your
family, for their sons, brothers, cousins, and relations, which were
handed over to your parents to keep up their dignity, and to kill the
Americans, Turks, French, and the Irish; and these lands are
devoted now to rear dumb brute animals, which you and your
parents consider of far more value than men. I do assure your Grace
that it is the prevailing opinion in this county, that should the Czar of
Russia take possession of Dunrobin Castle and of Stafford House
next term, that we could not expect worse treatment at his hands,
than we have experienced at the hands of your family for the last
fifty years. Your parents, yourself, and your commissioners, have
desolated the glens and straths of Sutherland, where you should find
hundreds, yea, thousands of men to meet you, and respond
cheerfully to your call, had your parents and yourself kept faith with
them. How could your Grace expect to find men where they are not,
and the few of them which are to be found among the rubbish or
ruins of the county, has more sense than to be decoyed by chaff to
the field of slaughter; but one comfort you have, though you cannot
find men to fight, you can supply those who will fight with plenty of
mutton, beef, and venison.’ The Duke rose up, put on his hat, and
left the field.”
Whether my correspondent added to the old man’s reply to his Grace
or not, I cannot say, but one thing is evident, it was the very reply
his Grace deserved.
I know for a certainty this to be the prevailing feeling throughout the
whole Highlands of Scotland, and who should wonder at it? How
many thousands of them who served out their 21, 22, 25, and 26
years, fighting for the British aristocracy, and on their return—
wounded, maimed, or worn out—to their own country, promising
themselves to spend the remainder of their days in peace, and
enjoying the blessings and comfort their fathers enjoyed among
their Highland, healthy, delightful hills, but found to their grief, that
their parents were expelled from the country to make room for
sheep, deer, and game, the glens where they were born, desolate,
and the abodes which sheltered them at birth, and where they were
reared to manhood, burnt to the ground; and instead of meeting the
cheers, shaking-hands, hospitality, and affections of fathers,
mothers, brothers, sisters, and relations, met with desolated glens,
bleating of sheep, barking of dogs; and if they should happen to rest
their worn-out frame upon the green sod which has grown upon
their father’s hearth, and a gamekeeper, factor, or water bailiff, to
come round, he would very unceremoniously tell them to absent
themselves as smart as they could, and not to annoy the deer. No
race on record has suffered so much at the hands of those who
should be their patrons, and proved to be so tenacious of patriotism
as the Celtic race, but I assure you it has found its level now, and
will disappear soon altogether; and as soon as patriotism shall
disappear in any nation, so sure that nation’s glory is tarnished,
victories uncertain, her greatness diminished, and decaying
consumptive death will be the result. If ever the old adage, which
says, “Those whom the gods determine to destroy, they first deprive
them of reason,” was verified, it was, and is, in the case of the
British aristocracy, and Highland proprietors in particular. I am not so
void of feeling as to blame the Duke of Sutherland, his parents, or
any other Highland absentee proprietor for all the evil done in the
land, but the evil was done in their name, and under the authority
they have invested in wicked, cruel servants. For instance, the only
silly man who enlisted from among the great assembly which his
Grace addressed, was a married man, with three of a family and his
wife; it was generally believed that his bread was baked for life, but
no sooner was he away to Fort George to join his regiment, than his
place of abode was pulled down, his wife and family turned out, and
only permitted to live in a hut, from which an old female pauper was
carried a few days before to the churchyard; there the young family
were sheltered, and their names registered upon the poor roll for
support; his Grace could not be guilty of such low rascality as this,
yet he was told of it, but took no cognisance of those who did it in
his name. It is likewise said that this man got a furlough of two
weeks to see his wife and family before going abroad, and that
when the factor heard he was coming, he ordered the ground officer
of the parish of Rogart, named MacLeod, to watch the soldier, and
not allow him to see nor speak to his wife, but in his (the officer’s)
presence. We had at the same time, in the parish, an old bachelor of
the name of John Macdonald, who had three idiot sisters, whom he
upheld, independent of any source of relief; but a favourite of
George, the notorious factor, envied this poor bachelor’s farm, and
he was summoned to remove at next term. The poor fellow
petitioned his Grace and Loch, but to no purpose; he was doomed to
walk away on the term day, as the factor told him, “to America,
Glasgow, or to the devil if he choosed.” Seeing he had no other
alternative, two days before the day of his removal he yoked his
cart, and got neighbours to help him to haul the three idiots into it,
and drove away with them to Dunrobin Castle. When he came up to
factor Gunn’s door, he capsized them out upon the green, and
wheeled about and went away home. The three idiots finding
themselves upon the top of one another so sudden, they raised an
inhuman-like yell, fixed into one another to fight, and scratched,
yelled, and screeched so terrific that Mr. Gunn, his lady, his
daughters, and all the clerks and servants were soon about them;
but they hearkened to no reason, for they had none themselves, but
continued their fighting and inharmonious music. Messenger after
messenger was sent after John, but of no use; at last the great
Gunn himself followed and overtook him, asked him how did he
come to leave his sisters in such a state? He replied, “I kept them
while I had a piece of land to support them; you have taken that
land from me, then take them along with the land, and make of
them what you can; I must look out for myself, but I cannot carry
them to the labour market.” Gunn was in a fix, and had to give John
assurance that he would not be removed if he would take his sisters,
so John took them home, and has not been molested as yet.
I have here beside me (in Canada) a respectable girl of the name of
Ann Murray, whose father was removed during the time of the
wholesale faggot removals, but got a lot of a barren moor to
cultivate. However barren-like it was, he was raising a family of
industrious young sons, and by dint of hard labour and
perseverance, they made it a comfortable home; but the young sons
one by one left the country (and four of them are within two miles of
where I sit); the result was, that Ann was the only one who
remained with the parents. The mother, who had an attack of palsy,
was left entirely under Ann’s care after the family left; and she took
it so much to heart that her daughter’s attention was required day
and night, until death put an end to her afflictions, after twelve
years’ suffering. Shortly after the mother’s death, the father took ill,
and was confined to bed for nine months; and Ann’s labour re-
commenced until his decease. Though Ann Murray could be
numbered among the most dutiful of daughters, yet her incessant
labour, for a period of more than thirteen years, made visible inroads
upon her tender constitution; yet by the liberal assistance of her
brothers, who did not loose sight of her and their parent (though
upon a foreign strand), Ann Murray kept the farm in the best of
order, no doubt expecting that she would be allowed to keep it after
her parent’s decease, but this was not in store for her; the very day
after her father’s funeral, the officer came to her and told her that
she was to be removed in a few weeks, that the farm was let to
another, and that Factor Gunn wished to see her. She was at that
time afflicted with jaundice, and told the officer she could not
undertake the journey, which was only ten miles. Next day the
officer was at her again, more urgent than before, and made use of
extraordinary threats; so she had to go. When she appeared before
this Bashaw, he swore like a trooper, and damned her soul, why she
disobeyed his first summons; she excused herself, trembling, that
she was unwell; another volley of oaths and threats met her
response, and told her to remove herself from the estate next week,
for her conduct; and with a threat, which well becomes a Highland
tyrant, not to take away, nor sell a single article of furniture,
implements of husbandry, cattle, or crop; nothing was allowed but
her own body clothes; everything was to be handed over to her
brother, who was to have the farm. Seeing there was neither mercy
nor justice for her, she told him the crop, house, and every other
thing belonging to the farm, belonged to her and her brothers in
America, and that the brother to whom he (the factor) intended to
hand over the farm and effects never helped her father or mother
while in trouble; and that she was determined that he should not
enjoy what she laboured for, and what her other brothers paid for.
She went and got the advice of a man of business, advertised a sale,
and sold off, in the face of threats of interdict, and came to Canada,
where she was warmly received by brothers, sisters, and friends,
now in Woodstock, and can tell her tale better than I can. No one
could think nor believe that his Grace would ever countenance such
doings as these; but it was done in his name.
I have here within ten miles of me, Mr. William Ross, once taxman of
Achtomleeny, Sutherlandshire, who occupied the most convenient
farm to the principal deer-stalking hills in the county. Often have the
English and Irish lords, connected in marriage with the Sutherlands,
dined and took their lunch at William Ross’s table, and at his
expense; and more than once passed the night under his roof. Mr.
Ross being so well acquainted among the mountains and haunts of
the deer, was often engaged as a guide and instructor to these
noblemen on their deer-stalking and fishing excursions, and became
a real favourite with the Sutherland family, which enabled him to
erect superior buildings to the common rule, and improve his farm in
a superior style; so that his mountain-side farm was nothing short of
a Highland paradise. But unfortunately for William, his nearest
neighbour, one Major Gilchrist, a sheep farmer, coveted Mr. Ross’s
vineyard, and tried many underhand schemes to secure the place for
himself, but in vain. Ross would hearken to none of his proposals.
But Ahab was a chief friend of Factor Gunn; and William Ross got
notice of removal. Ross prepared a memorial to the first and late
Duchess of Sutherland, and placed it in her own hand. Her Grace
read it, instantly went into the factor’s office, and told him that
William Ross was not to be removed from Achtomleeny while he
lived; and wrote the same on the petition, and handed it back to
Ross, with a graceful smile, saying, “You are now out of the reach of
factors; now, William, go home in peace.” William bowed, and
departed cheerfully; but the factor and ground-officer followed close
behind him, and while Ross was reading her Grace’s deliverance, the
officer, David Ross, came and snapped the paper out of his hand,
and ran to Factor Gunn with it. Ross followed, but Gunn put it in his
pocket, saying, “William, you would need to give it to me afterwards,
at any rate, and I will keep it till I read it, and then return it to you,”
and with a tiger-like smile on his face, said, “I believe you came
good speed to-day, and I am glad of it;” but William never got it in
his hand again. However, he was not molested during her Grace’s
life. Next year she paid a visit to Dunrobin Castle, when Factor
William Gunn advised Ross to apply to her for a reduction of rent,
under the mask of favouring him. He did so, and it was granted
cheerfully. Her Grace left Dunrobin that year never to return; in the
beginning of the next spring she was carried back to Dunrobin a
corpse, and a few days after was interred in Dornoch. William Ross
was served with a summons of removal from Achtomleeny, and he
had nothing to show. He petitioned the present Duke, and his
commissioner, Mr. Loch, and related the whole circumstances to
them, but to no avail, only he was told that Factor Gunn was ordered
to give him some other lot of land, which he did: and having no
other resource, William accepted of it to his loss; for between loss of
cattle, building and repairing houses, he was minus one hundred and
fifty pounds sterling, of his means, and substance, from the time he
was removed from Achtomleeny till he removed himself to Canada.
Besides, he had a written agreement or promise for melioration or
valuation for all the farm improvements and house building at
Achtomleeny, which was valued by the family surveyor at £250.
William was always promised to get it, until they came to learn that
he was leaving for America, then they would not give him a cent.
William Ross left them with it to join his family in Canada; but he
can in his old age sit at as comfortable a table, and sleep on as
comfortable a bed, with greater ease of mind and a clearer
conscience, among his own dutiful and affectionate children, than
the tyrant factor ever did, or ever will among his. I know as well as
any one can tell me, that this is but one or two cases out of the
thousand I could enumerate, where the liberality and benevolence of
his Grace, and of his parents, were abused, and that to their patron’s
loss. You see in the above case that William was advised to plead for
a reduction of rent, so that the factor’s favourite, Ahab Gilchrist,
would have the benefit of Naboth Ross’s improvement, and the
reduction he got on his rent, which would not be obtained
otherwise.
The unhallowed crew of factors and officials, from the highest to the
lowest grade, employed by the family of Sutherland, got the corrupt
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