A View Of The British Empire More Especially Scotland With Some Proposals For The Improvement Of That Country The Extension Of Its Fisheries And The Relief Of The People PDF Download

Excerpt from A View of the British Empire, More Especially Scotland, Vol. 1: With Some Proposals for the Improvement of That Country, the Extension of Its Fisheries, and the Relief of the People Having in 1764, been led through curiosity, to view the rude magnificence of the Highlands of Scotland, my attention was soon attracted by the less pleasing scenes of human misery in all its shapes; unalleviated by the chearing rays of hope, or any of the comforts which the lower ranks of mankind inhabiting richer foils, enjoy in a certain degree. Succeeding journies over the various districts of those mountainous wilds, served only to disclose similar distresses; and curiosity, the primary impulse, gave way to serious investigation. By hearing the complaints of those unhappy people; by comparing their various relations with each other, and with my own observations, I was enabled to ascertain those facts which form the ground-work of the following narrative. A tract of land, that composes a fifth part of Great Britain, appeared, with some few exceptions, to be in a state of nature; a great body of people, and these the most virtuous of our island, dragging out a wretched existence, perishing through want, or forced through wild despair to abandon their country, their kindred, and friends, and to embark, moneyless and unknown, the indented slaves to unremitting toil and drudgery, in boundless desarts, at the distance of 3000 miles. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.