his simple embassy to a discerning pope, from that bigot. Improveted prince James the Second. Besides these, a variety of other handsome residences of the gentry connected with the county are to be found in this quarter. In the parish of Gairloch, on the west coast, also, are several seats belonging to gentlemen of the name of M'Kenzie. ments. ments. Upon the whole, this county partakes of that spirit of Improveimprovement which is at present so active throughout Scotland. It has all the advantages which a maritime situation can bestow; but wanting the essential requisite of mineral coal, unless sea-borne, it is not likely to rival, as a manufacturing territory, those districts in which it abounds; more especially as the latter possess similar advantages in point of navigation. As the arable territory is of very limited extent, it could never support a very crowded population; and the interior of the country being occupied by lofty mountainous tracts, it can never afford a great market for any sort of commodities. The Scottish isles and Highland districts, intersected in all quarters by navigable lochs or branches of the sea, are sometimes rashly brought into comparison with the Dutch provinces; and it is said, that if the latter attained to such importance by manufactures and commerce, why may not our islands or maritime Highland districts do the same? But it ought to be recollected that the Dutch provinces occupy the territory around the mouths of some important navigable rivers, which descend from a fertile and populous territory. These provinces had a great back country, of which they formed the maritime and manufacturing towns. For though Holland was politi cally divided from Germany and France, and from the Austrian and French Netherlands, no such division existed in a commercial point of view; excepting perhaps ་ Improve- when war was waged against one or either of these parments. ties. On all other occasions, and even in a great measure in time of war, the Dutch were the mariners and trading merchants, who possessed a kind of monopoly of all the importation and exportation of Germany and the Netherlands, and had these great countries as the markets for all their commodities. But although it would be irrational to suppose, that on the shores of our Highland counties cities could ever rise, and be supported, that might rival the ancient commercial importance of Rotterdam or Amsterdam, yet it is evident that they are capable of considerable improvement, by the extension of the fisheries and the establishment of manufactures, for the purpose of giving occupation to commerce. With this view, it may be remarked, that many plans have been suggested; but the greater number of them seem to have taken a wrong direction. The Highland mountains, from the circumstance of their affording winter pasture in large sheltered glens, and from the winter being usually less severe than in the broad parts of the island, have been found adapted, in an uncommon degree, for the rearing of sheep. Even without these advantages, they are evidently much more fit for that object than for rearing black cattle, which cannot find suitable food where animals of a smaller species can be well supported. The great quantities of wool which are thus produced in the Highlands, have suggested the notion that the inhabitants ought to engage in the woollen manufacture; and accordingly most writers upon the subject have pointed out a variety of stations which they suppose to be well adapted for the establishment of such a manufacture. This notion, however, appears to be completely erroneous. The manufacture of wool into valuable cloths is so complicated, that it has succeeded only in a few places in England, and in still fewer in ments. Scotland; and that too only upon a small scale. The Improve apparatus is great and expensive which is necessary to carry it through the different processes; preparing, spinning, dressing, dyeing, &c. Hence large towns, or at least great capitals, must always take the lead in the establishment of such a manufacture. Excepting for very trifling articles, it is not of the nature of a domestic manufacture; and in all cases the wool must be purchased; that is to say, the store-farmer, who rears the sheep, will never be the person who spins it into cloth. In proportion, too, as the Highland sheep-farms enlarge, which they infallibly will do, the store-masters must become more unwilling to sell their wool in small quantities. Hence, at present, the wool is generally bought up by the agents of English mercantile houses, who for that purpose travel annually into the remotest corners of Rossshire and Sutherland. With these persons the petty dealers in the country evidently cannot come into competition. At the same time, it seems not improbable that the manufacture of woollen might prove successful, if limited to small articles, such as stockings. On the other hand, the manufactures of flax are much more suitable to the Highlands; and accordingly they prevail to a great extent in the Central Highlands, or Highlands of Perthshire. A moist climate and soil is suitable to the growth of that plant; especially a water-formed soil near the banks of rivers. Linen is in a great degree a domestic manufacture, and has long been established in that form in all quarters of Scotland. It requires no expensive establishment or great capital for carrying it on; the plant can be reared in small patches; and the whole process performed by a single family. The people know the whole process, from the sowing of the flax to the spinning into yarn. There is no risk of over-doing it i Improve as the quantity imported from Germany is perhaps still equal to the quantity made in Scotland. ments. It may next be remarked, that perhaps the cotton manufacture, in some of its branches, is no less adapted to what may be called a new country than any of the former. This manufacture has been brought to greater perfection in a few years than the linen or woollen in the course of many ages. Nature seems to have arranged her productions in such a way as to render different parts of the globe useful to each other by an interchange of commodities. As the wool cannot with success be manufactured among mountains, where it is originally produced; so the nations of Europe have of late derived a considerable proportion of the materials of their clothing from the tropical climates, and have converted it in Britain into a sort of staple manufacture. It is no unnatural commerce to exhange the salted fish of the Hebrides for the cotton of the West Indies and of the banks of the Missisippi; and it has already been found advantageous, as formerly remarked, to send cotton yarn from the mills where it is spun into the remote glens of the Highlands, for the purpose of being weaved; and as government is now resolved to make roads at the public expence into every corner of these northern regions, they will be rendered in all quarters accessible to commercial speculators. THE population of the county will appear from the following table. Loch Alsh 840 1019 1712 147 - 574 604 1121 828 1047 43 613|| 1334 744 862 369 46 Loch Broom 2211 3500 1663 1870 1463 334 Loch Carion 771 1058 Lochs.... 1267 1768 Logie, Easter 850 1125 1261 1133 Nigg.. Rosemarkie. 444 587 653 189 1859 1191 1606 1736 3533 14 1178 1875 189 1031 635 [14: 1262 579 710 8:8 777 609 57 1443 262 153 874 1289 211 128 Rosskeen .. 1958 1700 921 1153 1735 2074 781 2974 1114 222 941 2277 868 333 142 1343 300 328 1458 2086 2590 2901 1264 1556 1568 112 1140 2820 2456 1860 998 1085 1991 49 43 2083 Total... 424935014624143 28148230974589 1838252291 |