REPORT

BY THE

COMMITTEE ON THE DESTITUTION IN THE HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS,

APPOINTED BY THE

COMMISSION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, NOVEMBER 1846,

TO THE

GENERAL ASSEMBLY, MAY 1847.

EDINBURGH:

PRINTED BY JOHN GREIG, LAWNMARKET.

MDCCCXLVII.

REPORT.

THIS Committee, presuming that the approbation and sanction of the General Assembly will be readily given to the step taken, in its appointment, by the Commission of last General Assembly, proceed to submit their report to this General Assembly, as if their appointment had been made by the Assembly of last year. The Committee was appointed by the following deliverance of the Commission, 18th November 1846, viz. :

"Mr Speirs having called the attention of the Commission to the great and alarming destitution presently existing in many parts of the Highlands, and especially the Islands of Scotland, in consequence of the failure of the potato crop, and the Commission having taken the same into their serious consideration, and being addressed on the subject by several ministers from the Highlands, express their deep sympathy with their brethren and fellow-countrymen now suffering from this severe dispensation of the providence of God; and farther, conceiving that a loud call is addressed to this Church to employ such means as lie in her power, and that without delay, to alleviate the distress now existing, enjoin a collection to be made in all the Congregations and Mission-stations of this Church, on Sabbath the 6th of December next; and the Commission appoint the following Committee to conduct the distribution of the funds which may be raised, as also to make application, if they see cause, to the proprietors of the destitute districts; and to appoint a deputation of their number to proceed to London to represent the present state of the Highlands to her Majesty's Government, with the view of obtaining such relief as the pressing emergency so imperatively demands. The Committee is also instructed to prepare a statement of facts relative to the existing des

titution, and to transmit the same to the ministers of the Church in sufficient time to enable them to bring the matter fully before their congregations previously to the collection being made. And farther, the Commission hereby give power to the Committee to do, in the whole of this very important matter, as to them shall best appear The events in the providence of God which influenced the Commission to nominate this Committee are of such a nature, and their operation and effects so extensive and painful; and the operations of the Committee have also been matter of such concern to the Church, and embracing so largely the efforts of so many of the members and congregations of the Church, that the Committee would respectfully crave the privilege of rendering full and detailed account of their actings in the important matters entrusted to their care by the Commission, to this Venerable House, to be by it, as to its wisdom may seem expedient, made known throughout the bounds of the Church.

The calamity with which it has pleased God in His wisdom and sovereignty to visit this land, in blighting and taking away so important a portion of the fruits of the earth, made its appearance suddenly, in course of July and August last, when the prospects of a coming harvest were full of hope. It was seen falling with peculiar severity on the surface of the Highlands and Islands, the latter especially, and on the west and north-western coasts of the Highlands. The previous economic condition of the bulk of the population in those extensive districts, made it tell with a severity as rapid, and as immediate, as was the calamity itself in its mysterious working and nature. Dependant for immediate supply of bodily nourishment on this special portion of their soil's annual produce, and waiting for its maturity with anxious hope for immediate use, the force of the calamity could not but be immediately felt; and the cry of hunger and want almost immediately was heard to arise from thousands of destitute families. The reports communicated in course of the autumn from ministers of this church, and others, and reaching the more central parts of the country, setting forth the destitution then already existing, made manifest, that a season of such trial and soreness was impending, as did truly call for every exertion that benevolence could suggest, and Christian sympathy could render. The calamity has been solemnly ac knowledged by this Church as the judgment of God; the Church has been solemnly called to humiliation under His mighty hand, and to confess its own sins and those of our land as its procuring causes. Nor will it be deemed invidious that the Committee should even at this advanced period, remind the General Assembly of the slowness to realize the calamity, while evidently impending, which was seen to pervade the public mind. Spiritually viewed, this was a fact and feature of our

national state, which next to the causes of chastisement, was most to be mourned.

The peculiar circumstances of the economic condition of our Highland and Island population were not generally known or adverted to at the earlier periods of the past season; if judgment may be formed, upon the evidence afforded by the absence of any general movement or public effort on their behalf. Their almost entire dependance for bodily aliment on that portion of the fruits of the earth, which now the hand of the Lord had touched, was best known to those conversant with their circumstances, and their habits, and lot. This fact has been pretty largely brought out in course of this Committee's operations, by returns from most of the localities, to the schedule of queries issued by this Committee, and published in the Committee's Second Statement now submitted, together with this Report. But by the time it fell to the Commission of the General Assembly of the Free Church to hold its statutory meeting in the month of November, such reports from various parts of the Highlands and Islands as already referred to, and from eye-witnesses, of the sufferings which very many of the people were then already enduring, these had so accumulated in number, and increased in painfulness, and that while yet no movement of the public mind was seen, that the Commission at its meeting in November, on having such numerous facts of the existing distress certified to it, felt itself constrained and shut up to the course indicated in its deliverance on that occasion; and this Committee was by the same deliverance nominated, and received its instructions. And by the same deliverance also, a public collection on behalf of our suffering countrymen was ordered to be made throughout all the congregations of the Free Church.

The Commission of the Free Church, undoubtedly, did adopt these measures under the full conviction, both that in her ecclesiastical capacity the church was entering upon a field of labour, not ecclesiastically her more immediate province; and also, that however inactive the public mind might have hitherto been, with respect to the destitution impending and already existing, there was too much of active benevolence and of Christian sympathy existent in our favoured land, to permit this distress of our countrymen to exist unrelieved; when once its imminency and extent would be adequately made known. they grounded their hopes of successful effort, under the thorough conviction expressed by them from the outset, that the existing distress was too extensive and general to be met successfully by the utmost exertions or efforts which the Free Church, alone, could make. Still, the danger to human life was fully ascertained to be even at that period already imminent, and the sense of duty was proportionally

On this