The modern clearances which took place within the last quarter of
a century in Guisachan, Strathglass, by Sir Dudley Marjoribanks,
have been described in all their phases before a Committee of the
House of Commons in 1872. The Inspector of Poor for the parish of
Kiltarlity wrote a letter which was brought before the Committee, with
a statement from another source that, “in 1855, there were 16 farmers
on the estate; the number of cows they had was 62, and horses, 24; the
principal farmer had 2000 sheep, the next 1000, and the rest between
them 1200, giving a total of 4200. Now (1873) there is but one farmer,
and he leaves at Whitsunday; all these farmers lost the holdings on
which they ever lived in competency; indeed, it is well known that some
of them were able to lay by some money. They have been sent to the four
quarters of the globe, or to vegetate in Sir Dudley’s dandy cottages at
Tomich, made more for show than convenience, where they have to depend
on his employment or charity. To prove that all this is true, take at
random, the smith, the shoemaker, or the tailor, and say whether the
poverty and starvation were then or now? For instance, under the old
_régime_, the smith farmed a piece of land which supplied the wants
of his family with meal and potatoes; he had two cows, a horse, and a
score or two of sheep on the hill; he paid £7 of yearly rent; he now
has nothing but the bare walls of his cottage and smithy, for which
he pays £10. Of course he had his trade then as he has now. Will he
live more comfortably now than he did then?” It was stated, at the
same time, that, when Sir Dudley Marjoribanks bought the property,
there was a population of 255 souls upon it, and Sir Dudley, in his
examination, though he threw some doubt upon that statement, was quite
unable to refute it. The proprietor, on being asked, said that he did
not evict any of the people. But Mr. Macombie having said, “Then the
tenants went away of their own free will,” Sir Dudley replied, “I must
not say so quite. I told them that when they had found other places to
go to, I wished to have their farms.”
They were, in point of fact, evicted as much as any others of the
ancient tenantry in the Highlands, though it is but fair to say that
the same harsh cruelty was not applied in their case as in many of the
others recorded in these pages. Those who had been allowed to remain in
the new cottages, are without cow or sheep, or an inch of land, while
those alive of those sent off are spread over the wide world, like
those sent, as already described, from other places.