A Soldier May Expedite His March By
Throwing Away His Arms.
To banish the Tacksman is easy, to make a
country plentiful by diminishing the people, is an expeditious mode
of husbandry; but little abundance, which there is nobody to enjoy,
contributes little to human happiness.
As the mind must govern the hands, so in every society the man of
intelligence must direct the man of labour. If the Tacksmen be
taken away, the Hebrides must in their present state be given up to
grossness and ignorance; the tenant, for want of instruction, will
be unskilful, and for want of admonition will be negligent. The
Laird in these wide estates, which often consist of islands remote
from one another, cannot extend his personal influence to all his
tenants; and the steward having no dignity annexed to his
character, can have little authority among men taught to pay
reverence only to birth, and who regard the Tacksman as their
hereditary superior; nor can the steward have equal zeal for the
prosperity of an estate profitable only to the Laird, with the
Tacksman, who has the Laird's income involved in his own.
The only gentlemen in the Islands are the Lairds, the Tacksmen, and
the Ministers, who frequently improve their livings by becoming
farmers. If the Tacksmen be banished, who will be left to impart
knowledge, or impress civility? The Laird must always be at a
distance from the greater part of his lands; and if he resides at
all upon them, must drag his days in solitude, having no longer
either a friend or a companion; he will therefore depart to some
more comfortable residence, and leave the tenants to the wisdom and
mercy of a factor.
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