A Certain Stock Can Allow But A
Certain Payment; For If The Land Be Doubled, And The Stock Remains
The Same, The Tenant Becomes No Richer.
The proprietors of the
Highlands might perhaps often increase their income, by subdividing
the farms, and allotting to every occupier only so many acres as he
can profitably employ, but that they want people.
There seems now, whatever be the cause, to be through a great part
of the Highlands a general discontent. That adherence, which was
lately professed by every man to the chief of his name, has now
little prevalence; and he that cannot live as he desires at home,
listens to the tale of fortunate islands, and happy regions, where
every man may have land of his own, and eat the product of his
labour without a superior.
Those who have obtained grants of American lands, have, as is well
known, invited settlers from all quarters of the globe; and among
other places, where oppression might produce a wish for new
habitations, their emissaries would not fail to try their
persuasions in the Isles of Scotland, where at the time when the
clans were newly disunited from their Chiefs, and exasperated by
unprecedented exactions, it is no wonder that they prevailed.
Whether the mischiefs of emigration were immediately perceived, may
be justly questioned. They who went first, were probably such as
could best be spared; but the accounts sent by the earliest
adventurers, whether true or false, inclined many to follow them;
and whole neighbourhoods formed parties for removal; so that
departure from their native country is no longer exile. He that
goes thus accompanied, carries with him all that makes life
pleasant. He sits down in a better climate, surrounded by his
kindred and his friends: they carry with them their language,
their opinions, their popular songs, and hereditary merriment:
they change nothing but the place of their abode; and of that
change they perceive the benefit.
This is the real effect of emigration, if those that go away
together settle on the same spot, and preserve their ancient union.
But some relate that these adventurous visitants of unknown
regions, after a voyage passed in dreams of plenty and felicity,
are dispersed at last upon a Sylvan wilderness, where their first
years must be spent in toil, to clear the ground which is
afterwards to be tilled, and that the whole effect of their
undertakings is only more fatigue and equal scarcity.
Both accounts may be suspected. Those who are gone will endeavour
by every art to draw others after them; for as their numbers are
greater, they will provide better for themselves. When Nova Scotia
was first peopled, I remember a letter, published under the
character of a New Planter, who related how much the climate put
him in mind of Italy. Such intelligence the Hebridians probably
receive from their transmarine correspondents. But with equal
temptations of interest, and perhaps with no greater niceness of
veracity, the owners of the Islands spread stories of American
hardships to keep their people content at home.
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