"Glenmoriston of the Past"

The bulk of the Government troops left Fort Augustus for the south in July 1746 and it seems that Glenmoriston was left in peace to lick its wounds. Garrisons had of course been kept at Fort Augustus and other strongholds interlinked by General Wade's Military roads to maintain order but Cumberland would have felt sure that there was little risk of another uprising after his punitive measures. Legislation was introduced forbidding the carrying of firearms, the wearing of Highland garb and other repressive measures designed to undermine the authority of the chiefs and stamp out the clan spirit. Although this legislation was, in part, repealed in 1782 it had the desired effect.

During the eighteenth century several notable persons from the south of the Border toured the Highlands and wrote interesting accounts of their experiences and opinions. Mention has already been made of Daniel Defoe. Pennant's account of his travels is most informative but the writer does not have his publications. Boswell and Dr. Johnson came up shortly after the Forty-Five Rebellion. Captain Burt, who appears to have been a Government agent of sorts, some say a spy, worked around the Highlands both before and after the Forty-Five Rebellion. He writes with scorn about the abject poverty of the peasantry but mentions that they still had an intense pride in their ancestry. He also refuted the popular notion of the time that the Highlander was indolent and mentions from his experience that they would eagerly take on work if offered to them. The following quotation from his writing is also of some interest:

“The Highlanders walk nimbly and upright so that you will never see among the meanest of them in the most remote parts the clumsy stooping gait of the French paisans or our own country fellows; but on the contrary a kind of stateliness in the midst of their poverty and in this I think. may be accounted for with much difficulty.”

Dr. Samuel Johnson in his writings on his journey through the Highlands with Boswell which took place shortly after the Rebellion makes the following comments which are a good example of the insight of that great philosopher:

“There was perhaps never any change of National manners so quick, so great, and so general, as that which operated in the Highlands by the last conquest and the subsequent laws. We came hither too late to see what we expected – a people of peculiar appearance and a system of antiquated life. The clans retain little now of their original character; their ferocity of temper is softened, their military ardour extinguished, their dignity of independence is depressed, their contempt of govern ment subdued, and their reverence for their chiefs abated. Of what they had before there remain only their language and their poverty.”

With garrisons throughout the Highlands, the Government were at last able to enforce the law and prevent further cattle lifting and inter-clan fighting, which had been the part-time occupation of the Highlander for centuries back.

Many of them were at 'a loose end' until the Earl of Chatham thought of the idea of establishing a number of Highland regiments who would be a very useful addition to the King's forces fighting on the Continent and elsewhere

The trustees for Fisheries and manufactures in Scotland; an offshoot of the defunct "Forfeited Estates Commission” embarked on a nine year plan (1753-1762) to establish the linen industry in the Highlands. Such a step "would create a spirit of industry counteracting idleness", would "lead to a freer communication with the inhabitants of the Low Countries”, enable the Highlanders "to acquire the English language and disuse their own". Indeed "no means so effectual as industry could be devised to civilize the wild and unruly spirit nursed and cherished by their arbitary chiefs". It should be mentioned that up to this time the spinning wheel had been unknown in the Highlands where the primitive distaff and spindle were still in use. The scheme also included the raising and processing of flax in addition to the instruction of the spinning wheel. It was intended to set up four such stations in the Highlands and in the year 1754, Robert Neilson, surveyor with two assistants was sent North to report on the most suitable sites, taking into consideration local population, access to and from the outside world and suitable land available for erection of stone and lime buildings. Mr. Neilson chose Invermoriston for one of the stations, and in due course what is known as the old Farmhouse was erected.

There were of course no proper roads leading out of the Glen but it was hoped that the Government sloop, stationed at Fort Augustus could be made available to carry goods to and from the Inverness end of the Loch to the proposed village. The scheme also envisaged the erection of a Church and School "They are born and bred in ignorance and if any of them have any kind of religeon it is popish". These views came from hard-headed Lowlanders, presumably Protestants, who like their English counterparts were unable to understand the old Celtic way of life.

Without going into details, the Trustees, finding that this Highland enterprise was running at a loss at the end of the nine years plan, leased out their stations to tenants. Shaw, who had been their Principal at Invermoriston took a nineteen years lease, free of rent provided that he maintained the buildings, but like others he was unable to fulfill the conditions. In one report to the Trustees he stated that the local people seemed to regard the work in the station as ‘a form of slavery'.

In the year 1789 the Laird repurchased the 107 acres of land that he had sold to the Trustees along with the buildings which they had erected and so ended the linen enterprise, which had been promoted with such good intentions.

Coming back to family affairs, Robert Neilson, mentioned above, reported that he found Mr. Grant of Glenmoriston ready to co-operate over the linen project and that he was particularly impressed by the Laird's brother James, whose farming activities showed him to be "a careful sober and industrious man". From the account it seems that he was working the Dalcattaig lands. James's wife was from 'the Low Country' and was endeavouring to show the women ‘the advantage on being industrious'. The two brothers, Patrick, the Laird, and James would have been two of the sons of Iain a' Cragain and his wife Janet who bore him fifteen children. Patrick had rebuilt Invermoriston House in the year 1751, five years after the previous building had been burnt to the ground by the Hanoverians.

When Patrick died at the age of 86, in 1786, he was succeeded by his eldest living son, also a Patrick, who had married a Rothiemurchus Grant (his first born, John, having been killed in Flanders). Two of his brothers, Alexander and Alpin, went abroad in the King's service, the former becoming eventually Commodore of the Great Lakes in Canada. Alpin, after military service on the Continent, came home to farm Aonach and was the first man to introduce 'the big sheep' from the south in the Glen. John, tenth Laird, who succeeded on his father's death in 1793 joined the 42 nd Regiment, the Black Watch, and saw considerable fighting in India in the war with the Tippoo. There is an interesting letter about the circumstances surrounding the granting of his army commission which illustrates the feudal customs that still existed in the eighteenth century. (See Appendix E.)

Chapter 9