[458] Mr. Carruthers, in his edition of Boswell’s Hebrides, says (p. xiv):—­’The new management and high rents took the tacksmen, or larger tenants, by surprise.  They were indignant at the treatment they received, and selling off their stock they emigrated to America.  In the twenty years from 1772 to 1792, sixteen vessels with emigrants sailed from the western shores of Inverness-shire and Ross-shire, containing about 6400 persons, who carried with them in specie at least L38,400.  A desperate effort was made by the tacksmen on the estate of Lord Macdonald.  They bound themselves by a solemn oath not to offer for any farm that might become vacant.  The combination failed of its object, but it appeared so formidable in the eyes of the “English-bred chieftain,” that he retreated precipitately from Skye and never afterwards returned.’

[459] Dr. Johnson seems to have forgotten that a Highlander going armed at this period incurred the penalty of serving as a common soldier for the first, and of transportation beyond sea for a second offence.  And as for ‘calling out his clan,’ twelve Highlanders and a bagpipe made a rebellion.  WALTER SCOTT.

[460] Mackintosh (Life ii. 62) says that in Mme. du Deffand’s Correspondence there is ’an extraordinary confirmation of the talents and accomplishments of our Highland Phoenix, Sir James Macdonald.  A Highland chieftain, admired by Voltaire, could have been no ordinary man.’

[461] This extraordinary young man, whom I had the pleasure of knowing intimately, having been deeply regretted by his country, the most minute particulars concerning him must be interesting to many.  I shall therefore insert his two last letters to his mother, Lady Margaret Macdonald, which her ladyship has been pleased to communicate to me.  ’Rome, July 9th, 1766.  ’My DEAR MOTHER, ’Yesterday’s post brought me your answer to the first letter in which I acquainted you of my illness.  Your tenderness and concern upon that account are the same I have always experienced, and to which I have often owed my life.  Indeed it never was in so great danger as it has been lately; and though it would have been a very great comfort to me to have had you near me, yet perhaps I ought to rejoice, on your account, that you had not the pain of such a spectacle.  I have been now a week in Rome, and wish I could continue to give you the same good accounts of my recovery as I did in my last; but I must own that, for three days past, I have been in a very weak and miserable state, which however seems to give no uneasiness to my physician.  My stomach has been greatly out of order, without any visible cause; and the palpitation does not decrease.  I am told that my stomach will soon recover its tone, and that the palpitation must cease in time.  So I am willing to believe; and with this hope support the little remains of spirits which I can be supposed to have, on the forty-seventh day of such an illness.