The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles

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*[9] The white witches are kindly disposed, the black cast the
"evil eye," and the grey are consulted for the discovery of theft,
&c.

*[10] See 'The Devonshire Lane', above quoted

*[11] Willow saplings, crooked and dried in the required form.

CHAPTER IV.

ROADS AND TRAVELLING IN SCOTLAND IN THE LAST CENTURY.

The internal communications of Scotland, which Telford did so much
in the course of his life to improve, were, if possible, even worse
than those of England about the middle of last century. The land
was more sterile, and the people were much poorer. Indeed, nothing
could be more dreary than the aspect which Scotland then presented.
Her fields lay untilled, her mines unexplored, and her fisheries
uncultivated. The Scotch towns were for the most part collections
of thatched mud cottages, giving scant shelter to a miserable
population. The whole country was desponding, gaunt, and haggard,
like Ireland in its worst times. The common people were badly fed
and wretchedly clothed, those in the country for the most part
living in huts with their cattle. Lord Kaimes said of the Scotch
tenantry of the early part of last century, that they were so
benumbed by oppression and poverty that the most able instructors
in husbandry could have made nothing of them. A writer in the
'Farmer's Magazine' sums up his account of Scotland at that time in
these words:--"Except in a few instances, it was little better than
a barren waste."*[1]

The modern traveller through the Lothians--which now exhibit
perhaps the finest agriculture in the world--will scarcely believe
that less than a century ago these counties were mostly in the
state in which Nature had left them. In the interior there was
little to be seen but bleak moors and quaking bogs. The chief part
of each farm consisted of "out-field," or unenclosed land, no
better than moorland, from which the hardy black cattle could
scarcely gather herbage enough in winter to keep them from
starving. The "in-field" was an enclosed patch of illcultivated
ground, on which oats and "bear," or barley, were grown; but the
principal crop was weeds.

Of the small quantity of corn raised in the country, nine-tenths
were grown within five miles of the coast; and of wheat very little
was raised--not a blade north of the Lothians. When the first crop
of that grain was tried on a field near Edinburgh, about the middle
of last century, people flocked to it as a wonder. Clover,
turnips, and potatoes had not yet been introduced, and no cattle
were fattened: it was with difficulty they could be kept alive.

All loads were as yet carried on horseback; but when the farm was
too small, or the crofter too poor to keep a horse, his own or his
wife's back bore the load. The horse brought peats from the bog,
carried the oats or barley to market, and bore the manure a-field.
But the uses of manure were as yet so little understood that, if a
stream were near, it was usually thrown in and floated away, and in
summer it was burnt.

What will scarcely be credited, now that the industry of Scotland
has become educated by a century's discipline of work, was the
inconceivable listlessness and idleness of the people. They left
the bog unreclaimed, and the swamp undrained. They would not be at
the trouble to enclose lands easily capable of cultivation.
There was, perhaps, but little inducement on the part of the
agricultural class to be industrious; for they were too liable to
be robbed by those who preferred to be idle. Andrew Fletcher,
of Saltoun--commonly known as "The Patriot," because he was so
strongly opposed to the union of Scotland with England*[2]--
published a pamphlet, in 1698, strikingly illustrative of the
lawless and uncivilized state of the country at that time.
After giving a dreadful picture of the then state of Scotland:
two hundred thousand vagabonds begging from door to door and robbing
and plundering the poor people,-- "in years of plenty many
thousands of them meeting together in the mountains, where they
feast and riot for many days; and at country weddings, markets,
burials, and other like public occasions, they are to be seen, both
men and women, perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and
fighting together,"--he proceeded to urge that every man of a
certain estate should be obliged to take a proportionate number of
these vagabonds and compel them to work for him; and further,
that such serfs, with their wives and children, should be incapable
of alienating their service from their master or owner until he had
been reimbursed for the money he had expended on them: in other
words, their owner was to have the power of selling them.
"The Patriot" was, however, aware that "great address, diligence,
and severity" were required to carry out his scheme; "for," said he,
"that sort of people are so desperately wicked, such enemies of all
work and labour, and, which is yet more amazing, so proud in
esteeming their own condition above that which they will be sure to
call Slavery, that unless prevented by the utmost industry and
diligence, upon the first publication of any orders necessary for
putting in execution such a design, they will rather die with
hunger in caves and dens, and murder their young children, than
appear abroad to have them and themselves taken into such
service."*[3]

Although the recommendations of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun were
embodied in no Act of Parliament, the magistrates of some of the
larger towns did not hesitate to kidnap and sell into slavery lads
and men found lurking in the streets, which they continued to do
down to a comparatively recent period. This, however, was not so
surprising as that at the time of which we are speaking, and,
indeed, until the end of last century, there was a veritable slave
class in Scotland--the class of colliers and salters--who were
bought and sold with the estates to which they belonged, as forming
part of the stook. When they ran away, they were advertised for
as negroes were in the American States until within the last few
years. It is curious, in turning over an old volume of the 'Scots
Magazine,' to find a General Assembly's petition to Parliament for
the abolition of slavery in America almost alongside the report of
a trial of some colliers who had absconded from a mine near
Stirling to which they belonged. But the degraded condition of the
home slaves then excited comparatively little interest. Indeed, it
was not until the very last year of the last century that praedial
slavery was abolished in Scotland--only three short reigns ago,
almost within the memory of men still living.*[4] The greatest
resistance was offered to the introduction of improvements in
agriculture, though it was only at rare intervals that these were
attempted. There was no class possessed of enterprise or wealth.
An idea of the general poverty of the country may be inferred from
the fact that about the middle of last century the whole circulating
medium of the two Edinburgh banks--the only institutions of the
kind then in Scotland--amounted to only 200,000L., which was
sufficient for the purposes of trade, commerce, and industry.
Money was then so scarce that Adam Smith says it was not uncommon
for workmen, in certain parts of Scotland, to carry nails instead
of pence to the baker's or the alehouse. A middle class could
scarcely as yet be said to exist, or any condition between the
starving cottiers and the impoverished proprietors, whose available
means were principally expended in hard drinking.*[5]

The latter were, for the most part, too proud and too ignorant to
interest themselves in the improvement of their estates; and the few
who did so had very little encouragement to persevere. Miss Craig,
in describing the efforts made by her father, William Craig,
laird of Arbigland, in Kirkcudbright, says, "The indolent obstinacy
of the lower class of the people was found to be almost
unconquerable. Amongst other instances of their laziness, I have
heard him say that, upon the introduction of the mode of dressing
the grain at night which had been thrashed during the day, all the
servants in the neighbourhood refused to adopt the measure, and
even threatened to destroy the houses of their employers by fire if
they continued to insist upon the business. My father speedily
perceived that a forcible remedy was required for the evil.
He gave his servants the choice of removing the thrashed grain in
the evening, or becoming inhabitants of Kirkcudbright gaol: they
preferred the former alternative, and open murmurings were no
longer heard."*[6]

The wages paid to the labouring classes were then very low. Even
in East Lothian, which was probably in advance of the other Scotch
counties, the ordinary day's wage of a labouring man was only five
pence in winter and six pence in summer. Their food was wholly
vegetable, and was insufficient in quantity as well as bad in
quality. The little butcher's meat consumed by the better class
was salted beef and mutton, stored up in Ladner time (between
Michaelmas and Martinmas) for the year's consumption. Mr. Buchan
Hepburn says the Sheriff of East Lothian informed him that he
remembered when not a bullock was slaughtered in Haddington market
for a whole year, except at that time; and, when Sir David Kinloch,
of Gilmerton sold ten wedders to an Edinburgh butcher, he
stipulated for three several terms to take them away, to prevent
the Edinburgh market from being overstocked with fresh butcher's
meat!*[7]

The rest of Scotland was in no better state: in some parts it was
even worse. The rich and fertile county of Ayr, which now glories
in the name of "the garden of Scotland," was for the most part a
wild and dreary waste, with here and there a poor, miserable,
comfortless hut, where the farmer and his family lodged. There
were no enclosures of land, except one or two about a proprietor's
residence; and black cattle roamed at large over the face of the
country. When an attempt was made to enclose the lands for the
purposes of agriculture, the fences were levelled by the
dispossessed squatters. Famines were frequent among the poorer
classes; the western counties not producing food enough for the
sustenance of the inhabitants, few though they were in number.
This was also the case in Dumfries, where the chief part of the grain
required for the population was brought in "tumbling-cars" from the
sandbeds of Esk; "and when the waters were high by reason of spates
[or floods], and there being no bridges, so that the cars could not
come with the meal, the tradesmen's wives might be seen in the
streets of Dumfries, crying; because there was no food to be
had."*[8]

The misery of the country was enormously aggravated by the wretched
state of the roads. There were, indeed, scarcely any made roads
throughout the country. Hence the communication between one town
and another was always difficult, especially in winter. There were
only rough tracks across moors, and when one track became too
deep, another alongside of it was chosen, and was in its turn
abandoned, until the whole became equally impassable. In wet
weather these tracks became "mere sloughs, in which the carts or
carriages had to slumper through in a half-swimming state, whilst,
in times of drought it was a continual jolting out of one hole into
another."*[9]

Such being the state of the highways, it will be obvious that very
little communication could exist between one part of the country
and another. Single-horse traffickers, called cadgers, plied
between the country towns and the villages, supplying the
inhabitants with salt, fish, earthenware, and articles of clothing,
which they carried in sacks or creels hung across their horses'
backs. Even the trade between Edinburgh and Glasgow was carried on
in the same primitive way, the principal route being along the high
grounds west of Boroughstoness, near which the remains of the old
pack-horse road are still to be seen.

It was long before vehicles of any sort could be used on the Scotch
roads. Rude sledges and tumbling-cars were employed near towns,
and afterwards carts, the wheels of which were first made of
boards. It was long before travelling by coach could be introduced
in Scotland. When Smollett travelled from Glasgow to Edinburgh on
his way to London, in 1739, there was neither coach, cart, nor
waggon on the road. He accordingly accompanied the pack-horse
carriers as far as Newcastle, "sitting upon a pack-saddle between
two baskets, one of which," he says, "contained my goods in a
knapsack."

In 1743 an attempt was made by the Town Council of Glasgow to set
up a stage-coach or "lando." It was to be drawn by six horses,
carry six passengers, and run between Glasgow and Edinburgh, a
distance of forty-four miles, once a week in winter, and twice a
week in summer. The project, however, seems to have been thought
too bold for the time, for the "lando" was never started. It was
not until the year 1749 that the first public conveyance, called
"The Glasgow and Edinburgh Caravan," was started between the two
cities, and it made the journey between the one place and the other
in two days. Ten years later another vehicle was started, named
"The Fly" because of its unusual speed, and it contrived to make
the journey in rather less than a day and a half.

About the same time, a coach with four horses was started between
Haddington and Edinburgh, and it took a full winter's day to
perform the journey of sixteen miles: the effort being to reach
Musselburgh in time for dinner, and go into town in the evening.
As late as 1763 there was as only one stage-coach in all Scotland
in communication with London, and that set out from Edinburgh only
once a month. The journey to London occupied from ten to fifteen
days, according to the state of the weather; and those who
undertook so dangerous a journey usually took the precaution of
making their wills before starting.

When carriers' carts were established, the time occupied by them on
the road will now appear almost incredible. Thus the common
carrier between Selkirk and Edinburgh, a distance of only
thirty-eight miles, took about a fortnight to perform the double
journey. Part of the road lay along Gala Water, and in summer time,
when the river-bed was dry, the carrier used it as a road. The
townsmen of this adventurous individual, on the morning of his
way-going, were accustomed to turn out and take leave of him,
wishing him a safe return from his perilous journey. In winter the
route was simply impracticable, and the communication was suspended
until the return of dry weather.

While such was the state of the communications in the immediate
neighbourhood of the metropolis of Scotland, matters were, if
possible, still worse in the remoter parts of the country. Down to
the middle of last century, there were no made roads of any kind in
the south-western counties. The only inland trade was in black
cattle; the tracks were impracticable for vehicles, of which there
were only a few--carts and tumbling-cars--employed in the immediate
neighbourhood of the towns. When the Marquis of Downshire
attempted to make a journey through Galloway in his coach, about
the year 1760, a party of labourers with tools attended him, to
lift the vehicle out of the ruts and put on the wheels when it got
dismounted. Even with this assistance, however, his Lordship
occasionally stuck fast, and when within about three miles of the
village of Creetown, near Wigton, he was obliged to send away the
attendants, and pass the night in his coach on the Corse of Slakes
with his family.

Matters were, of course, still worse in the Highlands, where the
rugged character of the country offered formidable difficulties to
the formation of practicable roads, and where none existed save
those made through the rebel districts by General Wade shortly
after the rebellion of 1715. The people were also more lawless
and, if possible, more idle, than those of the Lowland districts
about the same period. The latter regarded their northern
neighbours as the settlers in America did the Red Indians round
their borders--like so many savages always ready to burst in upon
them, fire their buildings, and carry off their cattle.*[10]

Very little corn was grown in the neighbourhood of the Highlands,
on account of its being liable to be reaped and carried off by the
caterans, and that before it was ripe. The only method by which
security of a certain sort could be obtained was by the payment of
blackmail to some of the principal chiefs, though this was not
sufficient to protect them against the lesser marauders. Regular
contracts were drawn up between proprietors in the counties of
Perth, Stirling, and Dumbarton, and the Macgregors, in which it was
stipulated that if less than seven cattle were stolen--which
peccadillo was known as picking--no redress should be required; but
if the number stolen exceeded seven--such amount of theft being
raised to the dignity of lifting--then the Macgregors were bound to
recover. This blackmail was regularly levied as far south as
Campsie--then within six miles of Glasgow, but now almost forming
part of it--down to within a few months of the outbreak of the
Rebellion of 1745.*[11]

Under such circumstances, agricultural improvement was altogether
impossible. The most fertile tracts were allowed to lie waste, for
men would not plough or sow where they had not the certain prospect
of gathering in the crop. Another serious evil was, that the
lawless habits of their neighbours tended to make the Lowland
borderers almost as ferocious as the Higlanders themselves. Feuds
were of constant occurrence between neighbouring baronies, and even
contiguous parishes; and the country fairs, which were tacitly
recognised as the occasions for settling quarrels, were the scenes
of as bloody faction fights as were ever known in Ireland even in
its worst days. When such was the state of Scotland only a century
ago, what may we not hope for from Ireland when the civilizing
influences of roads, schools, and industry have made more general
progress amongst her people?

Yet Scotland had not always been in this miserable condition. There
is good reason to believe that as early as the thirteenth century,
agriculture was in a much more advanced state than we find it to
have been the eighteenth. It would appear from the extant
chartularies of monastic establishments, which then existed all
over the Lowlands, that a considerable portion of their revenue was
derived from wheat, which also formed no inconsiderable part of
their living. The remarkable fact is mentioned by Walter de
Hemingford, the English historian, that when the castle of
Dirleton, in East Lothian, was besieged by the army of Edward I.,
in the beginning of July, 1298, the men, being reduced to great
extremities for provisions, were fain to subsist on the pease and
beans which they gathered in the fields.*[12] This statement is all
the more remarkable on two accounts: first, that pease and beans
should then have been so plentiful as to afford anything like
sustenance for an army; and second, that they should have been fit
for use so early in the season, even allowing for the difference
between the old and new styles in the reckoning of time.
The magnificent old abbeys and churches of Scotland in early times
also indicate that at some remote period a degree of civilization
and prosperity prevailed, from which the country had gradually
fallen. The ruins of the ancient edifices of Melrose, Kilwinning,
Aberborthwick, Elgin, and other religious establishments, show that
architecture must then have made great progress in the North,
and lead us to the conclusion that the other arts had reached a like
stage of advancement. This is borne out by the fact of the number
of well-designed and well-built bridges of olden times which still
exist in different parts of Scotland. "And when we consider," says
Professor Innes, "the long and united efforts required in the early
state of the arts for throwing a bridge over any considerable
river, the early occurrence of bridges may well be admitted as one
of the best tests of civilization and national prosperity."*[13]
As in England, so in Scotland, the reclamation of lands, the
improvement of agriculture, and the building of bridges were mainly
due to the skill and industry of the old churchmen. When their
ecclesiastical organization was destroyed, the country speedily
relapsed into the state from which they had raised it; and Scotland
continued to lie in ruins almost till our own day, when it has
again been rescued from barrenness, more effectually even than
before, by the combined influences of roads, education, and industry.

Footnotes for Chapter IV.

*[1] 'Farmer's Magazine,' 1803. No. xiii. p. 101.

*[2] Bad although the condition of Scotland was at the beginning of
last century, there were many who believed that it would be made
worse by the carrying of the Act of Union. The Earl of Wigton was
one of these. Possessing large estates in the county of Stirling,
and desirous of taking every precaution against what he supposed to
be impending ruin, he made over to his tenants, on condition that
they continued to pay him their then low rents, his extensive
estates in the parishes of Denny, Kirkintulloch, and Cumbernauld,
retaining only a few fields round the family mansion ['Farmer's
Magazine,' 1808, No. xxxiv. p. 193]. Fletcher of Saltoun also
feared the ruinous results of the Union, though he was less
precipitate in his conduct than the Earl of Wigton. We need
scarcely say how entirely such apprehensions were falsified by the
actual results.

*[3] 'Fletcher's Political Works,' London, 1737, p. 149. As the
population of Scotland was then only about 1,200,000, the beggars
of the country, according to the above account, must have
constituted about one-sixth of the whole community.

*[4] Act 39th George III. c. 56. See 'Lord Cockburn's
Memorials,' pp. 76-9. As not many persons may be aware how recent
has been the abolition of slavery in Britain, the author of this
book may mention the fact that he personally knew a man who had
been "born a slave in Scotland," to use his own words, and lived to
tell it. He had resisted being transferred to another owner on the
sale of the estate to which he was "bound," and refused to "go below,"
on which he was imprisoned in Edinburgh gaol, where he lay for a
considerable time. The case excited much interest, and probably
had some effect in leading to the alteration in the law relating
to colliers and salters which shortly after followed.

*[5] See 'Autobiography of Dr. Alexander Carlyle,' passim.

*[6] 'Farmer's Magazine.' June. 1811. No. xlvi. p. 155.

*[7] See Buchan Hepburn's 'General View of the Agriculture and
Economy of East Lothian,' 1794, p. 55.

*[8]Letter of John Maxwell, in Appendix to Macdiarmid's 'Picture of
Dumfries,' 1823

*[9] Robertson's 'Rural Recollections,' p. 38.

*[10] Very little was known of the geography of the Highlands down
to the beginning of the seventeenth century The principal
information on the subject being derived from Danish materials.
It appears, however, that in 1608, one Timothy Pont, a young man
without fortune or patronage, formed the singular resolution of
travelling over the whole of Scotland, with the sole view of
informing himself as to the geography of the country, and he
persevered to the end of his task through every kind of difficulty;
exploring 'all the islands with the zeal of a missionary, though
often pillaged and stript of everything; by the then barbarous
inhabitant's. The enterprising youth received no recognition nor
reward for his exertions, and he died in obscurity, leaving his
maps and papers to his heirs. Fortunately, James I. heard of the
existence of Pont's papers, and purchased them for public use. They
lay, however, unused for a long time in the offices of the Scotch
Court of Chancery, until they were at length brought to light by
Mr. Robert Gordon, of Straloch, who made them the basis of the
first map of Scotland having any pretensions to accuracy that was
ever published.

*[11] Mr. Grant, of Corrymorry, used to relate that his father,
when speaking of the Rebellion of 1745, always insisted that a
rising in the Highlands was absolutely necessary to give employment
to the numerous bands of lawless and idle young men who infested
every property.--Anderson's 'Highlands and Islands of Scotland,'
p. 432.

*[12] 'Lord Hailes Annals,' i., 379.

*[13] Professor Innes's 'Sketches of Early Scottish History.' The
principal ancient bridges in Scotland were those over the Tay at
Perth (erected in the thirteenth century) over the Esk at Brechin
and Marykirk; over the Bee at Kincardine, O'Neil, and Aberdeen;
over the Don, near the same city; over the Spey at Orkhill; over
the Clyde at Glasgow; over the Forth at Stirling; and over the Tyne
at Haddington.

CHAPTER V.

ROADS AND TRAVELLING IN ENGLAND TOWARDS THE END OF LAST CENTURY.

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