MALT RIOTS.

Other disturbances began in a resolution of the House of Commons, at the end of 1724, not to impose a Malt Tax equal to that of England (this had been successfully resisted in 1713), but to levy an additional sixpence on every barrel of ale, and to remove the bounties on exported grain.  At the Union Scotland had, for the time, been exempted from the Malt Tax, specially devised to meet the expenses of the French war of that date.  Now, in 1724-1725, Scotland was up in arms to resist the attempt “to rob a poor man of his beer.”  But Walpole could put force on the Scottish Members of Parliament,—­“a parcel of low people that could not subsist,” says Lockhart, “without their board wages.”  Walpole threatened to withdraw the ten guineas hitherto paid weekly by Government to those legislators.  He offered to drop the sixpence on beer and put threepence on every bushel of malt, a half of the English tax.  On June 23, 1725, the tax was to be exacted.  The consequence was an attack on the military by the mob of Glasgow, who wrecked the house of their Member in Parliament, Campbell of Shawfield.  Some of the assailants were shot:  General Wade and the Lord Advocate, Forbes of Culloden, marched a force on Glasgow, the magistrates of the town were imprisoned but released on bail, while in Edinburgh the master brewers, ordered by the Court of Session to raise the price of their ale, struck for a week; some were imprisoned, others were threatened or cajoled and deserted their Union.  The one result was that the chief of the Squadrone, the Duke of Roxburgh, lost his Secretaryship for Scotland, and Argyll’s brother, Islay, with the resolute Forbes of Culloden, became practically the governors of the country.  The Secretaryship, indeed, was for a time abolished, but Islay practically wielded the power that had so long been in the hands of the Secretary as agent of the Court.

THE HIGHLANDS.

The clans had not been disarmed after 1715, moreover 6000 muskets had been brought in during the affair that ended at Glenshiel in 1719.  General Wade was commissioned in 1724 to examine and report on the Highlands:  Lovat had already sent in a report.  He pointed out that Lowlanders paid blackmail for protection to Highland raiders, and that independent companies of Highlanders, paid by Government, had been useful, but were broken up in 1717.  What Lovat wanted was a company and pay for himself.  Wade represented the force of the clans as about 22,000 claymores, half Whig (the extreme north and the Campbells), half Jacobite.  The commandants of forts should have independent companies:  cavalry should be quartered between Inverness and Perth, and Quarter Sessions should be held at Fort William and Ruthven in Badenoch.  In 1725 Wade disarmed Seaforth’s clan, the Mackenzies, easily, for Seaforth, then in exile, was on bad terms with James, and wished to come home with a pardon.  Glengarry, Clanranald, Glencoe, Appin, Lochiel, Clan Vourich, and the Gordons affected submission—­but only handed over two thousand rusty weapons of every sort.  Lovat did obtain an independent company, later withdrawn—­with results.  The clans were by no means disarmed, but Wade did, from 1725 to 1736, construct his famous military roads and bridges, interconnecting the forts.