Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

78 HISTORY OF THE WESTERN ISLANDS.
The events of 1745 are too well known to require even
tlie barest notice. Where Home has not rendered exact
justice, for reasons now well known and little creditable
to a historian, he has been corrected by ColonelJohnstone
and by that more accurate estimate of things which has
been formed since the heat of party feeling- or ancient
attachment has cooled. The sword then did its duty, and
somewhat over much of that ; and, by one sudden and
violent catastrophe, was for ever terminated a system
which, for so many ages, had been the cause of terror,
and misery, and poverty, to the actors and sufferers ;
to us, it remains a source either of wonder, or admira-
tion, or delight, or horror. What the sword left unfi-
nished, the law perfected ;
as,
and, by the Act for abolishing
the heritable jurisdictions in 1748, the Highland system
of policy became what my long-winded story is, a tale of
other times,
I have a remark to add. The Highlanders speak of an
ancient independent kingdom. I have shown that the
Western country was a Feudal and a Norwegian dominion.
This is the only sera, and place, and quality, of any known
Highland kingdom. If it was ever perfectly indepen-
dent after 1266, the governors were still of Norwegian
blood. The Celts were the conquered and governed
we know not when they were ever governors. It is also
doubtful if ever Scotland, as such, had even pretended to
govern the Islands. Dr. Macpherson takes the reverse
" for granted ;" it should be proved. The Scots affirm
that she had possessed them from the most remote times :
but the fictitious history of Donald Bane is part of that
affirmation. Norway had the right of remote conquest
and possession ; and had she held the Sudereys to this
day, it would have been as the English Duke of Nor-
wegian Normandy now holds the Channel islands.
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