Napoleon Bonaparte, at one time, took 500 prisoners and was unable to
provide food for them. Let them go he would not, though he saw that
they would perish by famine. His ideas of mercy suggested to him to
have them all shot. They were by his orders formed into a square, and
2000 French muskets with ball cartridge was simultaneously levelled at
them, which soon put the disarmed mass of human beings out of pain.
Donald Macleod refers to this painful act as follows:--
“All the Christian nations of Europe were horrified, every breast was
full of indignation at the perpetrator of this horrible tragedy, and
France wept bitterly for the manner in which the tender mercies of
their wicked Emperor were exhibited. Ah! but guilty Christians, you
Protestant law-making Britain, tremble when you look towards the great
day of retribution. Under the protection of your law, Colonel Gordon
has consigned 1500 men, women, and children, to a death a hundred-fold
more agonising and horrifying. With the sanction of your law he
(Colonel Gordon) and his predecessors, in imitation of his Grace the
Duke of Sutherland and his predecessors, removed the people from the
land created by God, suitable for cultivation, and for the use of man,
and put it under brute animals; and threw the people upon bye-corners,
precipices, and barren moors, there exacting exorbitant rack-rents,
until the people were made penniless, so that they could neither
leave the place nor better their condition in it. The potato-blight
blasted their last hopes of retaining life upon the unproductive
patches--hence they became clamourous for food. Their distress was made
known through the public press; public meetings were held, and it was
managed by some known knaves to saddle the God of providence with the
whole misery--a job in which many of God’s professing and well-paid
servants took a very active part. The generous public responded;
immense sums of money were placed in the hands of Government agents and
other individuals, to save the people from death by famine on British
soil.
“Colonel Gordon and his worthy allies were silent contributors, though
terrified. The gallant gentleman solicited Government, through the
Home Secretary, to purchase the Island of Barra for a penal colony,
but it would not suit. Yet our humane Government sympathised with the
Colonel and his coadjutors, and consulted the honourable and brave
MacNeil, the chief pauper gauger of Scotland, upon the most effective
and speediest scheme to relieve the gallant Colonel and colleagues
from this clamour and eye-sore, as well as to save their pockets
from able-bodied paupers. The result was, that a liberal grant from
the public money, which had been granted a twelve-month before for
the purpose of improving and cultivating the Highlands, was made to
Highland proprietors to assist them to drain the nation of its best
blood, and to banish the Highlanders across the Atlantic, there to
die by famine among strangers in the frozen regions of Canada, far
from British sympathy, and far from the resting-place of their brave
ancestors, though the idea of mingling with kindred dust, to the
Highlanders, is a consolation at death, more than any other race of
people I have known or read of under heaven.
“Oh! Christian people, Christian people, Christian fathers and mothers,
who are living at ease, and never experienced such treatment and
concomitant sufferings; you Christian rulers, Christian electors, and
representatives, permit not Christianity to blush and hide her face
with shame before heathenism and idolatry any longer. I speak with
reverence when I say, permit not Mahomet Ali to deride our Saviour
with the conduct of His followers--allow not demons to exclaim in the
face of heaven, ‘What can you expect of us, when Christians, thy chosen
people, are guilty of such deeds of inhumanity to their own species?’
“Come, then, for the sake of neglected humanity and prostrated
Christianity, and look at this helpless, unfortunate people; place
yourselves for a moment in their hopeless condition at their
embarkation, decoyed, in the name of the British Government, by false
promises of assistance, to procure homes and comforts in Canada,
which were denied to them at home--decoyed, I say, to an unwilling
and partial consent--and those who resisted or recoiled from this
conditional consent, and who fled to the caves and mountains to
hide themselves from the brigands, look at them, chased and caught
by policemen, constables, and other underlings of Colonel Gordon,
handcuffed, it is said, and huddled together with the rest on an
emigrant vessel. Hear the sobbing, sighing, and throbbings of
their guileless, warm Highland hearts, taking their last look, and
bidding a final adieu to their romantic mountains and valleys, the
fertile straths, dales, and glens, which their forefathers from time
immemorial inhabited, and where they are now lying in undisturbed and
everlasting repose, in spots endeared and sacred to the memory of
their unfortunate offspring, who must now bid a mournful farewell to
their early associations, which were as dear and as sacred to them
as their very existence, and which had hitherto made them patient in
suffering. But follow them on their six weeks’ dreary passage, rolling
upon the mountainous billows of the Atlantic, ill-fed, ill-clad,
among sickness, disease, and excrements. Then come ashore with them
where death is in store for them--hear the captain giving orders to
discharge the cargo of live stock--see the confusion, hear the noise,
the bitter weeping and bustle; hear mothers and children asking fathers
and husbands, where are we going? hear the reply, ‘chan eil fios
againn’--we know not; see them in groups in search of the Government
Agent, who, they were told, was to give them money; look at their
despairing countenances when they come to learn that no agent in Canada
is authorised to give them a penny; hear them praying the captain to
bring them back that they might die among their native hills, that
their ashes might mingle with those of their forefathers; hear this
request refused, and the poor helpless wanderers bidding adieu to the
captain and crew, who showed them all the kindness they could, and to
the vessel to which they formed something like an attachment during
the voyage; look at them scantily clothed, destitute of food, without
implements of husbandry, consigned to their fate, carrying their
children on their backs, begging as they crawl along in a strange land,
unqualified to beg or buy their food for want of English, until the
slow moving and mournful company reach Toronto and Hamilton, in Upper
Canada, where, according to all accounts, they spread themselves over
their respective burying-places, where famine and frost-bitten deaths
were awaiting them.
“This is a painful picture, the English language fails to supply me
with words to describe it. I wish the spectrum would depart from me to
those who could describe it and tell the result. But how can Colonel
Gordon, the Duke of Sutherland, James Loch, Lord Macdonald, and others
of the unhallowed league and abettors, after looking at this sight,
remain in Christian communion, ruling elders in Christian Churches,
and partake of the emblems of Christ’s body broken and shed blood?
But the great question is, Can we as a nation be guiltless and allow
so many of our fellow creatures to be treated in such a manner, and
not exert ourselves to put a stop to it and punish the perpetrators?
Is ambition, which attempted to dethrone God, become omnipotent, or
so powerful, when incarnated in the shape of Highland dukes, lords,
esquires, colonels, and knights, that we must needs submit to its
revolting deeds? Are parchment rights of property so sacred that
thousands of human beings must be sacrificed year after year, till
there is no end of such, to preserve them inviolate? Are sheep walks,
deer forests, hunting parks, and game preserves, so beneficial to the
nation that the Highlands must be converted into a hunting desert, and
the aborigines banished and murdered? I know that thousands will answer
in the negative; yet they will fold their arms in criminal apathy until
the extirpation and destruction of my race shall be completed. Fearful
is the catalogue of those who have already become the victims of the
cursed clearing system in the Highlands, by famine, fire, drowning,
banishment, vice, and crime.”
He then publishes the following communication from an eye-witness, on
the enormities perpetrated in South Uist and in the Island of Barra in
the summer of 1851:--
“The unfeeling and deceitful conduct of those acting for Colonel Gordon
cannot be too strongly censured. The duplicity and art which was used
by them in order to entrap the unwary natives, is worthy of the craft
and cunning of an old slave-trader. Many of the poor people were told
in my hearing that Sir John M’Neil would be in Canada before them,
where he would have every necessary prepared for them. Some of the
officials signed a document binding themselves to emigrate, in order
to induce the poor people to give their names; but in spite of all
these stratagems, many of the people saw through them and refused out
and out to go. When the transports anchored in Loch Boisdale these
tyrants threw off their masks, and the work of devastation and cruelty
commenced. The poor people were commanded to attend a public meeting
at Loch Boisdale, where the transports lay, and, according to the
intimation, any one absenting himself from the meeting was to be fined
in the sum of two pounds sterling. At this meeting some of the natives
were seized and, in spite of their entreaties, sent on board the
transports. One stout Highlander, named Angus Johnston, resisted with
such pith that they had to handcuff him before he could be mastered;
but in consequence of the priest’s interference his manacles were
removed, and he was marched between four officers on board the emigrant
vessel. One morning, during the transporting season, we were suddenly
awakened by the screams of a young female who had been re-captured
in an adjoining house, she having escaped after her first capture.
We all rushed to the door, and saw the broken-hearted creature, with
dishevelled hair and swollen face, dragged away by two constables and
a ground officer. Were you to see the racing and chasing of policemen,
constables, and ground officers, pursuing the outlawed natives, you
would think, only for their colour, that you had been, by some miracle,
transported to the banks of the Gambia, on the slave coast of Africa.
“The conduct of the Rev. H. Beatson on that occasion is deserving of
the censure of every feeling heart. This ‘wolf in sheeps’ clothing’
made himself very officious, as he always does, when he has an
opportunity of oppressing the poor Barra men, and of gaining the favour
of Colonel Gordon. In fact, he is the most vigilant and assiduous
officer Colonel Gordon has. He may be seen in Castle Bay, the principal
anchorage in Barra, whenever a sail is hoisted, directing his men,
like a gamekeeper with his hounds, in case any of the doomed Barra men
should escape. He offered one day to board an Arran boat, that had a
poor man concealed, but the master, John Crawford, lifted a hand-spike
and threatened to split the skull of the first man who would attempt to
board his boat, and thus the poor Barra man escaped their clutches.
“I may state in conclusion that, two girls, daughters of John
Macdougall, brother of Barr Macdougall, whose name is mentioned in Sir
John M’Neil’s report, have fled to the mountains to elude the grasp
of the expatriators, where they still are, if in life. Their father,
a frail, old man, along with the rest of the family, has been sent to
Canada. The respective ages of these girls are 12 and 14 years. Others
have fled in the same way, but I cannot give their names just now.”[19]
[19] See Note B in Appendices.
We shall now take the reader after these people to Canada, and witness
their deplorable and helpless condition and privations in a strange
land. The following is extracted from a Quebec newspaper:--
“We noticed in our last the deplorable condition of the 600 paupers
who were sent to this country from the Kilrush Unions. We have to-day
a still more dismal picture to draw. Many of our readers may not be
aware that there lives such a personage as Colonel Gordon, proprietor
of large estates in South Uist and Barra, in the Highlands of Scotland.
We are sorry to be obliged to introduce him to their notice under
circumstances which will not give them a very favourable opinion of his
character and heart.
“It appears that his tenants on the above-mentioned estates were on
the verge of starvation, and had probably become an eye-sore to the
gallant Colonel! He decided on shipping them to America. What they were
to do there was a question he never put to his conscience. Once landed
in Canada, he had no further concern about them. Up to last week, some
1100 souls from his estates had landed at Quebec, and begged their way
to Upper Canada; when in the summer season, having only a daily morsel
of food to procure, they probably escaped the extreme misery which
seems to be the lot of those who followed them.
“On their arrival here, they voluntarily made and signed the following
statement:--‘We, the undersigned passengers per _Admiral_, from
Stornoway, in the Highlands of Scotland, do solemnly depose to the
following facts:--That Colonel Gordon is proprietor of estates in South
Uist and Barra; that among many hundreds of tenants and cottars whom
he has sent this season from his estates to Canada, he gave directions
to his factor, Mr. Fleming of Cluny Castle, Aberdeenshire, to ship on
board of the above-named vessel a number of nearly 450 of said tenants
and cottars, from the estate in Barra; that, accordingly, a great
majority of these people, among whom were the undersigned, proceeded
voluntarily to embark on board the _Admiral_, at Loch Boisdale, on
or about the 11th August, 1851; but that several of the people who
were intended to be shipped for this port, Quebec, refused to proceed
on board, and, in fact, absconded from their homes to avoid the
embarkation. Whereupon Mr. Fleming gave orders to a policeman, who
was accompanied by the ground officer of the estate in Barra, and
some constables, to pursue the people, who had run away, among the
mountains; which they did, and succeeded in capturing about twenty from
the mountains and islands in the neighbourhood; but only came with the
officers on an attempt being made to handcuff them; and that some who
ran away were not brought back, in consequence of which four families
at least have been divided, some having come in the ships to Quebec,
while the other members of the same families are left in the Highlands.
“‘The undersigned further declare that those who voluntarily embarked
did so under promises to the effect that Colonel Gordon would defray
their passage to Quebec; that the Government Emigration Agent there
would send the whole party free to Upper Canada, where, on arrival, the
Government agents would give them work, and furthermore, grant them
land on certain conditions.
“‘The undersigned finally declare, that they are now landed in Quebec
so destitute, that if immediate relief be not afforded them, and
continued until they are settled in employment, the whole will be
liable to perish with want.’
(Signed) “HECTOR LAMONT,
and 70 others.
“This is a beautiful picture! Had the scene been laid in Russia or
Turkey, the barbarity of the proceeding would have shocked the nerves
of the reader; but when it happens in Britain, emphatically the land
of liberty, where every man’s house, even the hut of the poorest, is
said to be his castle, the expulsion of these unfortunate creatures
from their homes--the man-hunt with policemen and bailiffs--the violent
separation of families--the parent torn from the child, the mother
from her daughter, the infamous trickery practised on those who did
embark--the abandonment of the aged, the infirm, women, and tender
children, in a foreign land--forms a tableau which cannot be dwelt on
for an instant without horror. Words cannot depict the atrocity of the
deed. For cruelty less savage, the slave-dealers of the South have been
held up to the execration of the world.
“And if, as men, the sufferings of these our fellow-creatures find
sympathy in our hearts, as Canadians their wrongs concern us more
dearly. The fifteen hundred souls whom Colonel Gordon has sent to
Quebec this season have all been supported for the past week, at least,
and conveyed to Upper Canada at the expense of the colony; and on their
arrival in Toronto and Hamilton the greater number have been dependent
on the charity of the benevolent for a morsel of bread. Four hundred
are in the river at present, and will arrive in a day or two, making a
total of nearly 2000 of Colonel Gordon’s tenants and cottars whom the
province will have to support. The winter is at hand, work is becoming
scarce in Upper Canada. Where are these people to find food?”[20]
[20] _Quebec Times._
We take the following from an Upper Canadian paper describing the
position of the same people after finding their way to Ontario:--
“We have been pained beyond measure for some time past to witness
in our streets so many unfortunate Highland emigrants, apparently
destitute of any means of subsistence, and many of them sick from
want and other attendant causes. It was pitiful the other day to view
a funeral of one of these wretched people. It was, indeed, a sad
procession. The coffin was constructed of the rudest material; a few
rough boards nailed together was all that could be afforded to convey
to its last resting-place the body of the homeless emigrant. Children
followed in the mournful train; perchance they followed a brother’s
bier, one with whom they had sported and played for many a healthful
day among their native glens. Theirs were looks of indescribable
sorrow. They were in rags; their mourning weeds were the shapeless
fragments of what had once been clothes. There was a mother, too, among
the mourners, one who had tended the departed with anxious care in
infancy, and had doubtless looked forward to a happier future in this
land of plenty. The anguish of her countenance told too plainly these
hopes were blasted, and she was about to bury them in the grave of her
child.
“There will be many to sound the fulsome noise of flattery in the
ear of the generous landlord, who had spent so much to assist the
emigration of his poor tenants. They will give him the misnomer of
a _benefactor_, and for what? Because he has rid his estates of the
encumbrance of a pauper population.
“Emigrants of the poorer class who arrive here from the Western
Highlands of Scotland are often so situated that their emigration is
more cruel than banishment. Their last shilling is spent probably
before they reach the upper province--they are reduced to the necessity
of begging. But, again, the case of those emigrants of whom we speak is
rendered more deplorable from their ignorance of the English tongue. Of
the hundreds of Highlanders in and around Dundas at present, perhaps
not half-a-dozen understand anything but Gaelic.
“In looking at these matters, we are impressed with the conviction
that, so far from emigration being a panacea for Highland destitution,
it is fraught with disasters of no ordinary magnitude to the emigrant
whose previous habits, under the most favourable circumstances, render
him unable to take advantage of the industry of Canada, even when
brought hither free of expense. We may assist these poor creatures for
a time, but charity will scarcely bide the hungry cravings of so many
for a very long period. Winter is approaching, and then--but we leave
this painful subject for the present.[21]”
[21] _Dundas Warder_, 2nd October, 1851.