Whether by disarming a people thus broken into several tribes, and thus remote from the seat of power, more good than evil has been produced, may deserve inquiry.  The supreme power in every community has the right of debarring every individual, and every subordinate society from self-defence, only because the supreme power is able to defend them; and therefore where the governor cannot act, he must trust the subject to act for himself.  These Islands might be wasted with fire and sword before their sovereign would know their distress.  A gang of robbers, such as has been lately found confederating themselves in the Highlands, might lay a wide region under contribution.  The crew of a petty privateer might land on the largest and most wealthy of the Islands, and riot without control in cruelty and waste.  It was observed by one of the Chiefs of Sky, that fifty armed men might, without resistance ravage the country.  Laws that place the subjects in such a state, contravene the first principles of the compact of authority:  they exact obedience, and yield no protection.

It affords a generous and manly pleasure to conceive a little nation gathering its fruits and tending its herds with fearless confidence, though it lies open on every side to invasion, where, in contempt of walls and trenches, every man sleeps securely with his sword beside him; where all on the first approach of hostility came together at the call to battle, as at a summons to a festal show; and committing their cattle to the care of those whom age or nature has disabled, engage the enemy with that competition for hazard and for glory, which operate in men that fight under the eye of those, whose dislike or kindness they have always considered as the greatest evil or the greatest good.

This was, in the beginning of the present century, the state of the Highlands.  Every man was a soldier, who partook of national confidence, and interested himself in national honour.  To lose this spirit, is to lose what no small advantage will compensate.

It may likewise deserve to be inquired, whether a great nation ought to be totally commercial? whether amidst the uncertainty of human affairs, too much attention to one mode of happiness may not endanger others? whether the pride of riches must not sometimes have recourse to the protection of courage? and whether, if it be necessary to preserve in some part of the empire the military spirit, it can subsist more commodiously in any place, than in remote and unprofitable provinces, where it can commonly do little harm, and whence it may be called forth at any sudden exigence?

It must however be confessed, that a man, who places honour only in successful violence, is a very troublesome and pernicious animal in time of peace; and that the martial character cannot prevail in a whole people, but by the diminution of all other virtues.  He that is accustomed to resolve all right into conquest, will have very little tenderness or equity.  All the friendship in such a life can be only a confederacy of invasion, or alliance of defence.  The strong must flourish by force, and the weak subsist by stratagem.