slavery, the stand made for Fremont has been felt, and all the energies of the slave-owners are directed to preparation for future contests.

But we are anxious to direct the attention of our readers to a most important aspect of slavery, as bearing upon the prospects of its discontinuance.

From the inquiries of Mr. Stirling, it appears that the money cost of free and slave labour at the South is very nearly on a par. In some great railways, Irish and negroes are indiscriminately employed. At some hotels the waiters are all Irish, at others they are slaves, and the experience of New Orleans, Savannah, and Charleston is, that so far as regards cost, there is little difference between the one class and the other, But this, our author adds, is not a fair comparison of the cost of free labour and slave labour. Few Irish, comparatively, come to the South. There is a natural aversion in the free labourer to put himself on a footing with the slave. Free labour, therefore, is scarce and dear in the Slave States, and to form a fair comparison of the cost of free and slave labour, we must take the former as it exists in the Northern States, and contrast it with the slave labour of the North. In Eastern Virginia the average hire of slaves was 120 dollars, with board, lodging, and clothing. The average hire of free labourers at the same period in New York is put down at 120 dollars for Americans, and 108 for Irish and Germans, in both cases with board and lodging, but without clothing. The comparison of free and slave labour, therefore, would stand thus, board being included:

So that there is an actual pecuniary loss in the employment of slave labour. To this direct and evident loss has to be added that resulting from the universal law that voluntary labour is far more efficient than compulsory. Indeed those who are able to form a judgment estimate the value of one free labourer as equal to two slaves.

The slaves, further, work with inferior tools; their numbers are diminished by sickness, real or feigned. The free labourer has no motive to pretend sickness: the slave has. Again, while slave labour did very well so long as only fertile lands were cultivated, when inferior soils are turned to account better labour is required, and something more than a mere human machine is neeessary. These facts are highly important. The cost of slave labour will be its doom. As Mr. Stirling remarks, every dollar added to the price of a slave is a nail in the coffin of slavery.

In his nineteenth letter, Mr. Stirling points out the difficulties of emancipation, and the clearness with which he explains these is a proof that he is no mere Utopian dreamer. That the South, if it means to retain its influence and its power, must put an end to slavery is plain; but as to the mode in which this is to be accomplished, the Southerns

must themselves judge. Public opinion everywhere may tell them trumpet-tongued that justice demands the freedom of the slave; but the South must devise and execute the plans by which this is to be accomplished. Mr. Stirling treats in detail of self-emancipation, and shows what will be the absolute gain to be derived from the abolition of slavery, but we must refer to his work upon these points.

The prospects of slavery are discussed in a most able letter, the twenty-fourth:—

"I put no faith in political or philanthropic nostrums. If the South is to be regenerated, it must be by economical influences. Slavery will be abolished now as heretofore; because slavery is unprofitable. An unworthy motive, some may say. True, but it is the way of God to bring good out of evil: turning even our unworthy motives to his own good ends."-(p. 302.)

Emancipation has always proceeded from South to North, and it will advance in the same direction. It is a remarkable fact, one perhaps not much known, or if known, not considered in this country that all emancipation in the United States has proceeded from the recognised unprofitableness of slave labour. The same result indeed occurred in Europe, with mutual benefit both to employer and employed.

Mr. Stirling is strongly impressed with the conviction that the great social reformation which for a time has been suspended is again assuming an onward direction and the circumstances which are producing this course he indicates. There is in the South a strong demand for cheaper and better labour. The increase of population requires an increase of food; but this can only be obtained through cheaper and better labour. "Now, slave labour being a limited commodity, any increase in the demand for it immediately raises its price. It is estimated that every additional cent per lb. of cotton adds a hundred dollars to the average value of negroes. This rise in the price of slaves is an important consideration, not only in the economy of cotton culture, but in the whole social system of the South. There is no doubt that cotton culture, in its earlier stages, by giving increased value to negro property arrested the progress of emancipation; but the exorbitant value now attained bids fair to reverse this influence, and to force on a renewal of emancipation, in order to enable negro labour to compete with free labour." We shall not follow out the economic argument as given by Mr. Stirling; but its force and weight must be apparent to any one who reflects on the subject. In letter 26th, Mr Stirling recapitulates the main facts on which, as it seems to him, the issue of the contest between the North and South-between the anti-slavery and the slavery parties-depends; and the conclusion he draws is that which must be the most satisfactory to every mind, that slavery cannot continue in the South. He points out that a barbarous institution cannot long be maintained among a civilised people-and the South is a refined community in spite of slavery. While in Brazil or Cuba it is possible for such an institution to subsist, the races being degenerate and sensual, it is an incongruity among an Anglo-Saxon people.

Finally the question arises, will the Slave Question of the Southern States be settled without a disunion of North and South? Mr. Stirling is so firmly impressed with the strength of the natural feeling in America that he answers this question in the affirmative, excluding

of course the influence of accidental circumstances which may occur, and bring about a result opposed to the tendencies and wishes of the American people. While in former times each individual State stood by itself, now the national supplants the provincial in interest and feeling. The American is proud of his flag, of his navy, of his power, and disunion would only destroy and weaken that, which as it stands is powerful and great. Further, disunion is rendered less probable by the advances of modern times-by the telegraph and the railway. But a stronger reason exists against disunion; and that is that the South is divided against itself, and that "the first note of civil war with the North would rend in twain the population of the South." "So long as the American Union continues to grow naturally it will continue, for it will retain all the natural elements of cohesion; harmony of race, religion, language, laws, and history, cemented by industrial and material connexion. It is when she shall have forcibly added to her confederation elements of heterogeneous nature, and have extended her empire beyond reasonable limits, that the union will break of its own weight and fall asunder. But though political disunion may be far distant, moral disunion already exists; and for this there is no remedy but the removal of the bone of contention. The abolition of slavery is the only radical cure of that sectionalism which now afflicts the otherwise united States. Peace never will exist while slavery continues. Destroy slavery and the distinction between North and South falls, and with it the angry passions that now exist. If the lovers of union who, in the North, would sacrifice principle for 'peace' could take a larger view of politics, they would reverse their ruinous, spiritless policy, and strain every nerve to overthrow an institution whose existence must ever keep alive a warfare of ideas between the Northern and Southern sections of the country." p. 351-52. It may be that guided by a nobler instinct than has yet been made apparent, the slaveholders of the South may succumb to the influence of public opinion, bearing upon them from every land where liberty exists. It may be that the noble spectacle may yet be seen, of a class submitting even to temporary disaster in order to yield to the demands of justice and of right; or it may even be that actuated by the more selfish principle of expediency, the slaveowners may relinquish those claims upon the negro which have been transmitted to them. But most assuredly, whether they yield or whether they resist, the result must be the same. That result may not follow from the peaceful efforts of philanthropists; it may not be due to better impulses, and a more correct appreciation of morality and religion; but come it will. Most earnestly is it to be hoped that the solution of the question may be accomplished peaceably. But if not, we cannot withhold the expression of our opinion that the curse of America must be washed out in blood. What the end of a struggle between the abolitionists and the advocates of slavery would be it is not difficult to forsee, but for the sake of humanity, and for the prosperity of America most earnestly is it to be hoped that no such contest may be evoked. Not many years, at all events, can now elapse before the question is finally agitated, and while the one party will have all the moral support which the public opinion of Europe affords, the other will be left alone to fight its own battle.

We have said that the chief interest of Mr. Stirling's letters lies in the accounts he has given, and the opinions he has expressed, on this all absorbing topic of slavery. It would be, however, doing him a great injustice if before we closed this very brief and imperfect notice of his work we did not add that his volume treats of many other important topics connected with the rise and progress of America. We will only allude to the light he throws upon the present state of the great question of Free Trade, as an example. But beyond this, there will be found in these letters graphic descriptions of the rise and progress of towns and districts, and the progress and extension of the railway system, together with commentaries on many of the social phenomena and social wants of America.

We throw down our pen in the earnest hope that this notice may induce the readers of the WEST OF SCOTLAND MAGAZINE carefully to peruse and weigh the contents of Mr. Stirling's book, in the full conviction that from its pages they will derive much and solid information.

THE POETRY AND TRADITIONS OF THE HIGHLAND CLANS.

JOHN M'DONALD, commonly called Ian Lom, or John the bare, from his sarcastic humour, was descended from the founder of the Keppoch family, and therefore, according to Celtic Heraldry and usages, by birth a gentleman. He was not an educated man in the present acceptation of the word; but his mind was cultivated by the oral and traditional education instituted by the Druids, and which was in operation in the Highlands down to his day. Hence the singular difference in manners and intelligence between persons apparently of the same class in the Highlands, and in the Lowlands and England, even to the present time, and which can scarcely escape the notice of the observant tourist, however much at variance with his preconceptions. Yet we confess that we have met with learned gentlemen, who, while they admitted that lecturing, or oral teaching, has great advantages over book-learning, were unwilling to believe that, from the system of oral education, the Highlands produced men who could neither read nor write, whose poems (the subject being similar) will bear comparison with those of their domini-taught contemporaries either of the Lowlands or England. The Gælic being a natural, the English an artificial, language, we found, on beginning to translate the specimens we meant to submit to the reader, that we could give a better idea of the originals by imitations than translations. If we have succeeded in our imitations, the reader will admit that the bards, though not lettered, were not uneducated, and that free imitations of their best remains might not be unworthy the encouragement of an enlightened people. The poems of Ian Lom were of a high order, otherwise he had not been appointed to the office of Royal Celtic Bard by Charles the First and Second, and James the Second-for the Stewart kings, though unnational in their politics, were truly national both in their feelings and characters, and never were without their royal celtic bard from the date of their accession to

the date of their expulsion from the throne. Hence it is a matter of surprise and regret among the lovers of Highland literature, that her Majesty, who inherits much of the Stewart character, has not restored the office, and thus placed our Celtic scholars in a position to rescue all that remains of the literature of an interesting and now almost-at least nationally-extinct people. We may remark, en passant, that a petition, numerously and respectably signed, was forwarded, by permission, to his late Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, to be presented to her Majesty in Holyrood Palace on her first visit to Scotland, praying that she would be graciously pleased to restore the office of the Royal Celtic Bard; but, from the state of his health, his grace was unable to accompany her Majesty. His Royal Highness's letter, agreeing to present the petition, was, after his decease, sent to Mr. Walker, for the perusal of his trustees, with a respectful request that they would present it to her Majesty; but, after making a particular search, Mr. Walker wrote that it could not be found. There is little doubt, from the Royal Duke's love of the Gael, that he had entrusted the petition for presentation to some friend, otherwise it would have been found among his papers. In the present paper we mean to present our readers with a tradition respecting an attempt to introduce Feudalism into one of the clans, and in reference to which a number of Ian Lom's pieces were written.

Alastair, son of Donald Glas of Keppoch, having been educated abroad, and a Colonel in the army, had returned home with strong predilections in favour of the feudal system, and was sufficiently imprudent to make no secret of his intention of putting an end to the long-pending controversy between his family and that of Macintosh, in reference to a large part of the lands of the clan, by accepting a charter, and thus reducing the clan into vassalage. The clan, determined to resist every attempt to deprive them of their native rights, of which the election of their chief and chieftains was not the least, called a meeting of the clan, at which it was determined to cite and try the chief, and his two brothers, before the Brehon Court-the brothers being also open converts to feudalism as traitors to the cleachda or custom of the country, and, if found guilty, to banish them from the district. This meeting is mentioned by Ian Lom as "camhairle na h aone." (The council of Friday). It was also determined, should the chief and his brothers be banished, to elect his uncles, Donald and Allan, the former as chief, and the latter as tainist.

From carrying matters to such an extremity, however, the clan were saved by the rashness of the chieftain himself, and of a bold and determined warrior, well known to Highland tradition, Alastair Mac Dhughail Mhoir-Alexander, son of Dugald.

Alastair, son of Dugald, was of the Macdonalds of Moidart, but had settled in Braelochaber in his younger days, where he became an extensive and successful cattle-dealer-a business which, in those days, required not only a shrewd, but also a daring character-with the assistance of a strong and well armed party of adherents. To this man Macintosh granted a charter of the lands of Inverlair, belonging to the Macdonalds of Keppoch, where he was then residing with his family and adherents.