of which on the present occasion the statesmen only availed themselves rather than created it for the immediate purpose. That the Mac Donalds really were a nest of thieves rests not only on the evidence of the time, but Mr. Burton has gathered a further curious proof of it on grounds not liable to the errors into which the prejudices of contemporaries may betray their formal statements, and which may serve as a correction to the romantic sympathies that are excited by the Glencoe scenery :

The tourist in Glencoe (he says) finds himself in a singularly solitary road, with conical mountains rising on either side, nearly as abruptly as the Aiguillettes of the Alps burst out of the coating of snow. There is a narrow strip of grazing ground between these Alpine walls. There are a few, still narrower, scattered here and there in the upper level, whence start the scaurs and mural precipices. He remarks the absence of population, as he passes, after a series of miles, a solitary farm-house, and one or two shepherd huts. This solitude he naturally associates with the tragedy of which he has heard. But to the historical observer it may call forth the question, since the means of subsistence in this wild spot are so scanty, how, when there was a considerable population there, did they subsist? In equally arid districts of the Jura, we find a population subsisting by the making of watches; but we know well that neither this nor any other productive occupation fed the Mac Donalds of Glencoe. In short, they lived by plunder, and were, with the exception of the MacGregors, who had been nearly exterminated, the most accomplished and indomitable freebooters within the circuit of the Grampians. If they had not lived on the reft produce of other people's industry, their arid glen could not have supported the population which made the massacre a considerable feature in the history of the seventeenth century.

Persons who in the midst of orderly and industrious neighbours choose to live like beasts of prey, have no right to be surprised if they find themselves treated as such. No matter what courage, fidelity, self-devotion, or other high feature of character there may have been among them, the propensity to thieve is utterly intolerable, and the alternative of correction or destruction becomes matter of simple

necessity. It is a necessity, however, which will not even palliate the manner in which the punishment was inflicted. In ages of barbarism, when governments are without the power to punish, offenders are left to the wild justice' of private revenge, and during the slow advances of society the avenger of blood' is recognised by the law as a legiti

6

mate executioner of the natural penalties against crime. But the close of the seventeenth century was not a period when recourse might be had to so rude an expedient; and that such a practice should have survived to so late a time is but a slight excuse for the statesman who employed it, and a disgrace to the nation who had consented so long to endure it.

Disappointed in his hope that any considerable number of the clans would refuse obedience to the proclamtion, Dalrymple discovered that at least one, and that among the worst, of the offenders had fallen within his power. The 1st of January was the last day fixed on which the oath could be received (of course, in such a matter, some last day must have been fixed), and MacDonald, who had held out to the latest moment, with a clear purpose of remaining disloyal if he dared, and if the refusal were general, finding that he was being left alone, and knowing the vengeance which would fall upon him, hastened, at the extreme limit of the time, to follow the universal example. Circumstances, over which he had no control, interfered with his purpose, and he had not formally made his submission till five days beyond the time named in the proclamation. He was, therefore, technically and legally in the power of the Government; and as MacDonald, by the fact of his delaying to the last, showed sufficiently the animus with which he was actuated, they saw no reason why they should not make use of it.

The final tragedy was now resolved on. The letters of Breadalbane, Dalrymple, and one or two others in the secret, have a very fiendish appearance. They speak about mauling them on the cold long nights when they cannot live on the mountains; about not troubling the government with prisoners; seeing that

the old fox and his cubs do not escape; about striking the blow silently and secretly, otherwise the victims may flee to the mountains; and the like. To carry out the plan, the old wellestablished resource of clan animosity was appealed to. For ages even before the horrible exhibition on the North Inch of Perth, it had been the policy of the Government to set these unruly septs against each other. It was in every respect the most easy, simple, and economical method of destruction; and the deadly hatred which neighbouring

clans had to each other was sometimes piously viewed as a wise dispensation of Providence, like that which provides for the destruction of one noxious animal by the enmity it inspires in another. The conduct of the affair in hand required so much treachery and duplicity, that nothing but clan-hatred could supply the necessary amount of these vices. The Campbells were the natural enemies of the MacDonalds, and they had been embodied in an independent regiment, which gave them the means, as they possessed the hearty will, to execute what was desired. Towards the branch of the MacDonalds who lived in Glencoe, the Campbells had a special ground of hatred. Their inaccessible mountain fastnesses protruded, as it were, into the Campbell country, and were in that shire of Argyle which they loved to consider entirely their own. Glencoe was thus invested with all the hatred of a hostile frontier fortress; and these mountains, raising their conical peaks above their neighbours, were contemplated by the followers of MacCallum Mohr as Gibraltar is by the Spaniard. The Campbell territory, more productive than that of the MacDonalds, was often mercilessly ravaged by the banditti of this stronghold, and at the conference which Breadalbane held with the chiefs as ambassador, he had high words with Glencoe about stolen cattle,-the main source, besides clan-rivalries, of highland bloodshed.

There is no occasion to follow the story of the massacre. Frightful as it was, it fell far short of what had been intended; for the entire clan was marked for destruction, and the actual victims were under forty. But the circumstances under which it was perpetrated were such as to call out universal sympathy and horror; and a powerful party opposed to the Government made the most of the opportunity of holding them up to execration. The age was outgrowing such ferocious forms of justice; and Dalrymple had the

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bad luck to be the last statesman who made use of a method which had been employed before a thousand times without challenge, and even with applause. Happy in his comparative insignificance, however, Dalrymple's name is seldom mentioned in connexion with the business; and the odium has been popularly, but without justice, transferred to the English King. The latter had signified his approva of the proposal to punish the Highlanders he had even specified the MacDonalds as desirable to be selected for an example; but the manner in which the punishment was to be inflicted, and the extent to which it was to be carried, were left to the local authorities, who alone are responsible for them; while the deep, malignant treachery in the actual execution-the revolting features of which are sometimes spoken of as if they had been prescribed in detail by William-are due to the fiendish nature of the men into whose hands the work was given.

It will have been perceived, that for the act itself Mr. Burton offers no sort of apology. It was a horrible crime, which he sees with the eyes of a wise and humane man, who is yet too humane to let his judgment be betrayed by his feeling, and distributes the guilt with an equitable hand. The parallel, indeed, which he endeavours to establish between this massacre and Cromwell's military executions at Drogheda will not bear examining. The garrison of Drogheda was summoned to surrender, and after its refusal the town was taken by storm. Cromwell was not a man to take advantage of a technical flaw in the acceptance of his terms-in an accidental delay of hours or days; and justice with him was a thing too sacred and too solemn for the infliction of its penalties to be committed to the passion of private enemies, or extended to helpless women and innocent children. The Drogheda victims were grown men taken in arms, the offscouring of the population of the three kingdoms, scarcely one among whom had not richly earned his own fate by his own individual crimes. But it is remarkable in this Glencoe business, that it may be questioned

which was the most surprised at the ebullition of popular feeling that was caused by it-the minister who had commanded the act, or the survivors among the sufferers who found themselves so unexpectedly the object of general sympathy. The latter,

Unconscious of the greatness of the crime by which they suffered-because, in the ferocious social system in which they lived, they knew nothing of the moral obligations incumbent on a higher civilization-they doubtless were much astonished when they found themselves objects of national and even of European interest, and saw Parliamentary parties seeking influence and eminence by the advocacy of their cause.

While for Sir John Dalrymple, Not the powerful, respected, and pious slave-holder of Carolina, when, emerging from his own circle, he has first heard an emancipist call him a robber of the worst kind, nor the hard-working conscientious lawlord, when, after labouriously carrying an act to make it death to steal five shillings in a dwelling-house, he is called a murderer by an abolitionist of death punishment,-could be more astonished than the Secretary of State when he heard the terms in which his meritorious services to the Government in the affair of Glencoe were attacked. . . . . The rule had always been to show no more consideration to Highlanders than to wild beasts. The previous Stewart kings would have put every human being who spoke the Gaelic language to death had it been possible, as, to their great mortification, they found it was not. James V1., for instance, made a bargain with Argyle in the South and Huntly in the North, 'to extirpate the barbarous people,' each taking his department and fixing a time within which the thing was to be accomplished, but it was found that it could not be done.

If there is anything in the undoubted spirit of extermination with which our ancestors viewed the Celtic races to excite disgust, let us look at the notions which our American, African, and Australian colonists form at this day of the value of the lives of any given number of 'black fellows,' when compared with the advantage of preserving industry and property.

The affair of Glencoe was one among a number of causes which pressed upon the statesmen of the day the necessity of a union between the two kingdoms, and at the same time called out a variety of angry feelings, which made the

carrying it into effect so difficult. Looking back from our present point of view, when the enormous advantages which have resulted from the Union both to England and to Scotland can so easily be discerned, with no apparent evils whatsoever to countervail them, it is not easy to understand where the difficulty could have lain in carrying through a measure of such large and obvious benefit. United from

the time of the Reformation in what, as long as Romanism was dangerous, was a common faith, they had already been governed long enough by a common sovereign for the ancient national animosities to have died away and been forgotten. It is true that under the two last sovereigns the power of England had been employed to persecute the Scotch Presbyterians. But the persecuting princes were themselves Scotchmen of the old royal line; and England had been a common sufferer under the same tyranny; which had rather served, therefore, to draw them together than to separate them. The fighting era of their rivalry had past away, and a new industrial era had commenced, in which the real interests of the two countries were the same; and a glance at the map is sufficient to show that an industrial development of two independent peoples in so small an island could not continue for ever. On terms either of agreement or of compulsion sooner or later they must unite; and, while experience had taught Scotland that she could not preserve her independence without assistance from abroad, more dangerous to her than alliance with England, England, too, had learnt from it, that if united to Scotland on any terms short of absolute equality, her proud and hardy neighbour could task her strength to its utmost to preserve the chain unbroken, and that she would be powerless either to develope further her own internal force, or to resist an external enemy. If either country was to prosper it was essential that they should be heartily and cordially united; and such a union, it was equally clear, was only possible upon terms of mutual respect and conciliation.

That this really was the case, and that every thinking person must

for all, and was to suffer no further interference. Of vital moment nothing remained to keep the two countries asunder; and of the obstacles which did remain we English have little reason to be proud. On the Scotch side there remained a feeling of intense nationality, a high value of the independence which they had so gallantly won, and a fear that 'the ancient kingdom' would subside into a province of the aggressive neighbour, whose efforts to subdue it they had for centuries successfully defied. Such a feeling and such a pride were honourable to them; and it was more honourable, that while they estimated the sacrifice which was required perhaps beyond its value, they were prepared to venture it. The real difficulty in accomplishing the union lay at the outset of the negotiation, not with Scotland, but with the ignorant selfishness of the English trading interests.

It is remarkable, that the broad sense of Cromwell had perceived, as well what would most ensure cordiality between the two peoples as the elements which, remaining unsettled, might make a disagreement between them dangerous. He had established perfect freedom of trade, and he had abolished the petty sovereignties of the Highland chiefs, which afterwards twice enabled the Stuarts to organize an army of insurrection. The belief which prevailed at the Restoration, that right and justice lay in the contradictory of everything which had been done by the Protector, restored the occasion of discord in giving back to the English their monopolies, and restored to the chieftains their hereditary privileges of leadership. To the first of these two acts is to be traced the tempest of animosity which preceded the passing of the Union, and rendered the working of it for many years so unsatisfactory. The other gave

the Stuarts the means of twice appearing at the head of Highland

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armies to reconquer the throne; and the second time on which they descended from their mountains it was into the midst of a people too deeply alienated from England to lift a finger to resist them.

The whole of this remarkable drama-for in the consistency of its parts it has all the completeness of a poetical composition-is admirably told by Mr. Burton, who opens it with the singular history of the Darien Company. William had, early in his reign, made an effort to induce the English Parliament to consider the question of the Union; but since it had to be acknowledged that the passing of such a measure would involve the extension of English trade privileges to Scotland, and since the English traders were still, as Mr. Burton says, 'possessed by the shallow belief that what was gained by their neighbours was something lost by themselves,' the proposal was coldly received, and was dropped without an effort to carry it into effect. Scotland, injured in purse and wounded in feeling, had soon an opportunity of showing her natural resentment. The success of the East India Company had excited a general emulation, and a few leading men in Edinburgh determined, since they were excluded from a share in their neighbours' advantages, to rival them in their own field. Their imaginative enthusiasm conjured up the wildest Anaschar visions of what their scheme was to achieve; but after allowing the natural deduction which must always be made from sanguine expectation, the association which they proposed to form, if successful at all, would trench deeply into the profits of the English companies. The principal feature in the plan was to form a settlement on the Isthmus of Darien, which, like Alexandria in the old world, was to be the centre of the trade between Eastern Asia and Europe; and by a single powerful effort the poor Scots were thus to seat themselves on the throne of the commerce of the world. The plan was no sooner published than it was caught up by the entire eager nation. Injured and slighted as they had been by the jealousy of the English, an opportunity of reta

liating appeared to open itself, of rivalling, perhaps of eclipsing them. Money poured in from every side, the great nobles leading the subscription list, and the poorest traders finding a place in it. The whole realized capital of the country was cast into the venture with as eager a patriotism as if the owners of it were volunteering into an army to defend their country from invasion. The opposition of the English, which soon displayed itself, increased their resolution.

If their rivals were afraid, it was a reason why they should hope. The spirit of Bruce and Wallace had awoke again, somewhat metamorphosed indeed, in the merchants' counting-houses. We I could wish that there had been more of Edward's chivalry in the London Exchange. The anomalous position of Scotland, which, though a free country, was subject to the English king, made it, in the eyes of other nations, appear a dependent province; and the English merchants, very little to their credit, took advantage of the opportunity which was thus afforded them. Having by their own act excluded Scotland from a share in their own commerce, they were bound in honour, even in ordinary honesty, to have left it free play to develope its own resources; but unhappily honour and justice were words not at that time inserted in the commercial dictionary of England.

Trade jealousies (says Mr. Burton) have, from time to time, made the English people frantic. The Commons were urged on to an immediate extermination of the upstart rival to English commerce. They utterly forgot that there was, in the other part of the island, an independent imperial Parliament, legislating for a free state; and an inquiry was instituted, as to those who had advised the passing of the act in Scotland, as if it had been the measure of some English dependency, for which the promoters were responsible to the English Parliament. Lords were roused as rapidly, and by the same influences. The two houses held that important conclave, little seen in later times-a conference; and united in an address to the Crown against the Scottish Company. To the address presented to him by the two Houses, the king was reported to have made an answer which became memorable in Scotland. It was in these terms:

The

That he had been ill served in Scot

land, but he hoped some remedies might be found to prevent the inconveniences that might arise from this act.' The Commons proceeded still further. They seized on the books and documents of the company, in London [for the subscription list had been opened to English capitalists], and conducted a threatening examination of the capitalists who had subscribed to the fund. In the end, they resolved that the directors of the company, acting under colour of a Scottish Act of Parliament, were guilty of a high crime and misdemeanour; and then they voted that Lord Belhaven, and the other eminent Scottish gentlemen whose names appeared in the Scottish Act as the directors of the company, should each be impeached of high crimes and misdemeanours. This denunciation was more insulting than prac tically operative; and it may be counted the commencement of that series of rash insults to Scotland, which, rendering the Union necessary, were at the same time a sad impediment to its progress.

The insult,' however, was followed up by other measures of a less ineffectual character. The English ambassadors were instructed to inform all foreign powers that the Government knew nothing of this new company, and that it was established without the sanction of the king. In consequence, when the directors endeavoured to negotiate a footing for themselves, they were met by a demand for an inspection of their charter, and were coldly informed that their incorporation by a Scottish parliament could not furnish them with a character which it was possible to acknowledge. The Spaniards, who from the first had regarded the settlement at Darien with extreme distrust and jealousy, on the receipt of such a communication, and learning further that the Anglo-American colonists had been forbidden to hold intercourse with or notice it, considered themselves at once entitled to treat the settlers as buccaneers; and cut off from support, and isolated from all foreign sympathy, the colony magnificently begun was blighted at its outset. Quarrels were caused by disasters, and crimes by quarrels; and at last they really became what the Spaniards considered them. The entire melancholy history is told by Mr. Burton in a tone of powerful emotion, and the career of the ill-fated company assumes in his hands a