NOTE 10.--THE LEVYING OF BLACKMAIL
Mac-Donald of Barrisdale, one of the very last Highland gentlemen who
carried on the plundering system to any great extent, was a scholar and
a well-bred gentleman. He engraved on his broadswords the well-known
lines--
Hae tibi erunt artes--pacisque imponere morem,
Parcere subiectis, et debellare superbos.
Indeed, the levying of blackmail was, before 1745, practised by several
chiefs of very high rank, who, in doing so, contended that they were
lending the laws the assistance of their arms and swords, and affording
a protection which could not be obtained from the magistracy in
the disturbed state of the country. The author has seen a memoir of
Mac-Pherson of Cluny, chief of that ancient clan, from which it appears
that he levied protection-money to a very large amount, which was
willingly paid even by some of his most powerful neighbours. A gentleman
of this clan hearing a clergyman hold forth to his congregation on the
crime of theft, interrupted the preacher to assure him, he might leave
the enforcement of such doctrines to Cluny Mac-Pherson, whose broadsword
would put a stop to theft sooner than all the sermons of all the
ministers of the synod.
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