Argyll Estate Instructions MULL, MORVERN, TIREE 1771-1805
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Argyll Estate Instructions MULL, MORVERN, TIREE 1771-1805 edited by Eric R.Cregeen m.a. ★ ★ EDINBURGH printed for the Scottish History Society by T. AND A. CONSTABLE LTD I964 Scottish History Society 1964 PREFACE My special thanks are due to His Grace the Duke of Argyll for permission to publish the documents which follow and for his kindness, over a number of years, in according me access to the papers at Inveraray Casde and generous hospitahty. I have benefited much from his wide knowledge of the Argyll family papers. The portrait of the 5th Duke is reproduced here, from the original at Inveraray Castle, by kind permission of the present Duke and through the generous co-operation of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. I am greatly in debt to Miss Marion Campbell for placing her family papers at Kilberry Castle at my disposal and for permission to quote from the Knockbuy papers. Mr Allan MacDougall, Comaigmore, Tiree, has generously per- mitted me to make use of a 19th-century tracing of James Turnbull’s map of Tiree in the editing of the text and the preparation of one of the maps. I am indebted to my wife for assisting me in preparing the maps, and for the re-drawing of the maps to Mr Ian Adams. I have been saved an immense amount of labour by Mr John Simpson, who prepared the index, and Miss Isabel Catto, who assisted me in pre- paring the text. Dr I. F. Grant first encouraged and sponsored the idea of publishing the instructions, and my editorial labours have been wisely guided by the late Dr E. W. M. Balfour-Melville and by Professor Gordon Donaldson and Mr Grant G. Simpson. I owe them my sincere thanks, as also to the Rev. William Matheson, Mr David Murison and Mr Duncan Hunter for expert advice on philological matters, and Mr B. R. S. Megaw and Dr Alan Gailey for their interest and fruitful suggestions. I have had the benefit of scholarly criticism from Professor Sydney Checkland, Dr Roy Campbell and Dr J. H. Plumb. Father James Webb and Mr Duncan Colville of Campbeltown, and Mr Robert D. Carr, Argyll County Planning Officer, have helped me out of their profound knowledge of Argyll, and Miss Mary Cosh from her intimate acquaintance with the ducal records. My researches have been assisted by the willing help of the staffs of the National Library of Scotland, the Scottish Record Office, the University of Glasgow Library, the Argyll County Library and Campbeltown Public Library. My thanks are due to the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scodand and to the University of Glasgow for enabling me to devote a year as a Carnegie Fellow to these researches. My release from my duties as Resident Tutor in Argyll during this period would not have been possible without the generous co-operation of my colleagues in the Extra-Mural Department and also of the ArgyU County Education Committee. Finally I have to express my gratitude to my wife and to my friends and students in all parts of Argyll. Their constant interest and encouragement have played an indispensable part in my researches. Eric Cregeen Kilmichael Glossary, Argyll. CONTENTS Preface v Introduction ix Instructions Tiree i Mull and Morvern 99 Glossary 209 Index 211 Maps in pocket A generous contributionfrom the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland towards the cost of producing this volume is gratefully acknowledged by the Council of the Society INTRODUCTION The present volume contains the instructions which John, 5th Duke of Argyll, gave to his Chamberlain of Mull and Morvem and his Chamberlain of Three.1 They reflect the interests and work of an exceptional man. He was bom in 1723, the second son of General John Campbell of Mamore and Mary Bellenden, his wife. He had a distinguished military career, but saw no action after early service abroad and in the ’Forty-five when he served under General Hawley at Falkirk and under the Duke of Cumberland at Culloden.2 He represented the Glasgow burghs in Parliament from 1744 until his father succeeded to the dukedom of Argyll in 1761. He was briefly in Parhament again, sitting for Dover in 1765, but in 1766 he was created a peer of Great Britain with the title of Baron Sundridge of Coombank and in 1770 he succeeded his father as 5th Duke of Argyll.3 From then until his death in May 1806 he was absorbed in the management of his great estate and in the development of the whole Highland area. The Instructions show us one of the most able and energetic landlords of his day going about his business, changing the face of the land, moving populations, setting down towns and villages, founding industries, meticulously controfling the life of the inhabi- tants of his estate. Yet it was partly a trick of circumstance that turned the Duke’s energies into these channels and away from the political career which he would certainly have followed if it had been open to him. The tradition of the family dictated it. Its members had, one after another, played a leading role in the history of Scotland and had helped to shape the destinies of the country. 1 It is hoped to publish the 5 th Duke’s Instructions to his Chamberlain of Argyll andlargely his confinedChamberlain to a discussion of Kintyre of in the a districtsfuture volume. to which Thethis volumepresent refers. introduction It is not is intendedCasde, in tothe be National exhaustive. Library Much of Scotland of it is basedand other on unpublishedpublic collections, papers and at Inverarayin private hands.2 The In Duke the interests was Colonel of economy of the of 54th space, Regiment references of have Foot been and keptof the to aArgyllshire minimum. andFencibles. was created He was a Field Commander-in-Chief Marshal in 1796. ofWhen the army he died, in Scotland he was the in 1762senior and field 1767-78, officer in 2the British Army, excepting only the Duke of York. (Scots Peerage, I, 386-7.) The H.Clan Paton Campbell (ed.): (1953),The Clan 23-5; Campbell, Scots Peerage,vol. IV (Edinburgh, ut supra. 1916), p. xx; A. McKerral: ARGYLL ESTATE INSTRUCTIONS They had espoused the Reformation, and for more than a decade in the religious struggles of the mid-seventeenth century the kingdom had been dominated by the massive figure of the Marquis of Argyll. Among the Duke’s immediate predecessors, the 2nd Duke and his brother, the 3rd Duke, had frequently enjoyed vast power and patronage in the northern kingdom. They were the principal pillar in Scotland of the Whig and Protestant cause with whose fortunes those of the house of Argyll rose and fell. The dukedom conferred on the 10th Earl in 1701 was a reward for a family which had twice in a century suffered forfeiture and execution for this cause. The accession of George III, the rise of Lord Bute, and the jockeying for position inevitable at the beginning of a new reign, meant for the house of Argyll the loss of the ascendancy in Scotland which they had come to regard as a birthright. The 5th Duke did not cease to be active in politics, but exclusion from high office gave him time and leisure for other things. One can think of few major enterprises in the Highlands in which he did not play a leading part. He was one of the pioneers of the Crinan Canal,1 Governor of the British Society, founded in 1786 to develop the resources of the Highlands and in particular the fishing industry,2 and first President of the newly formed Highland Society. But it was his estates in Argyll that enabled him to express his passion for improvement. Once again, as under the 3rd Duke, the domanial lands at Inveraray were the focus of vast and expensive schemes of building and improving, and from here his apparently inexhaustible energy flowed out in orders that penetrated to the remotest comers of his estate. It is surprising to realise that, until he grew old, he passed most of his time in London, and rarely spent more than several months in the year at Inveraray and Rosneath. Technically he was an absentee landlord, but in actuahty he controlled his estate with tighter reins than any of his predecessors and most of his contem- poraries and had a far more intimate and detailed knowledge of his lands and tenants than did the 3rd Duke. Absence brought no real interruption to the Duke’s interest and activity. He had a regular correspondence with James Perrier, his Edinburgh agent, and with his chamberlains. He required a weekly budget of news from his 1 2 See p. 155,45, n. n. 1,i, below. below. INTRODUCTION xi Rosneath chamberlain,1 and his own letters burst with advice on crops, prices, the treatment of animal ailments and whatever else seemed relevant to the better management of his lands. Meanwhile his Instructions, given in person at the time of the October meeting at Inveraray for the clearing of accounts, were in the hands of each chamberlain to reprove his past errors, encourage his zeal and control his future activities. The Duke’s interest in improvement was to a great extent con- trolled by the need for revenue. The management of a Highland estate was then, as now, a matter of business. This was an age of fast-rising rents, but it was also an age of insolvent landlords. In the county of Argyll, the two hundred proprietors of the middle of the century had dwindled to 156 by the end of it.2 There is scarcely an estate that comes to one’s attention but is encumbered by debts, a large part of them due to a more lavish style of living.