LAW RELATING TO THE FORFEITED ESTATES IN SCOTLAND.

The law relating to the highlands of Scotland was well calculated for promoting, among the inhabitants of that country, such a spirit of industry as might detach them from their dangerous connexions, and gradually supersede that military genius which had been so productive of danger and alarm to the southern part of Great Britain. The king, by this act, was empowered to appoint commissioners for managing the forfeited estates, who were enabled to grant leases of small farms, not above twenty pounds a-year, to individuals, who should take an oath to government to reside upon and cultivate the lands thus let. It was also provided, that no lease should be granted for a longer term than twenty-one years; and that the leases should not pay above three-fourths of the annual value. Although these forfeited estates were generally encumbered with claims beyond their real value, and the act directed that they should be disposed of by public sale; yet, as they lay in the most disaffected parts of the highlands, it was thought necessary that they should remain in the possession of the crown, because, in case of their being publicly sold, they might be purchased in trust for the families of the persons by whom they were forfeited, and thus the spirit of disaffection would still survive. A valuation, therefore, was made by the court of session in Scotland, at the joint suit of the crown and the creditors; and the value being ascertained, the just claimants were paid out of the next aids granted by parliament. The bill met with considerable opposition in the house of peers from the duke of Bedford and the earl of Bath, who probably foresaw that the good effects of this scheme, so laudable in itself, would be frustrated in the execution; and that the act, instead of answering the purposes for which it was intended, would serve only as a job to gratify the rapacious retainers to the government, and their emissaries in that country. After a warm debate, however, it was adopted by a great majority, and obtained the royal assent.