The Colonsay Catechist - PART VI
Dr. Domhnall Uilleam Stiubhart's series of articles has uncovered much outstanding information and is of such great interest that plans are now afoot to publish a printed copy of the finished work. When the series is complete, information about such a publication will appear here. Advance subscribers and expressions of interest will be welcomed by the Editor.
The Royal Bounty 1726-1728: trouble on the horizon
The second year of the Royal Bounty Committee saw a general hardening of attitudes among both committee members and those clergymen who served "on the front line", as it were. The conversion of Catholics and indeed Episcopalians to Presbyterianism was by no means as easy a matter as had been imagined. At the same time, the church in the Gàidhealtachd began to work ever more closely with the new army garrisons under General Wade. Continuing "insolence" from papists in the Rough Bounds, for instance, led the Presbytery of Lorn to lobby the church for official support for plans to settle entire military garrisons in their territory, in order to protect projected plantations of Protestants.
At the same time, the question of stipends – ministerial salaries – became ever more acute. Several of the newly-planted ministers in the western Gàidhealtachd owed their position to having been sent up in the first place as Royal Bounty missionaries. They found themselves serving in parishes where they were quite devoid of any financial support, and naturally turned to their erstwhile sponsors, the Royal Bounty Committee, for assistance. Ironically, they had been better off before, as mere salaried preachers. In this regard, we should remember that one of the reasons the bounty was requested in the first place was to help to pay for ministers’ stipends and for the creation of new parishes. To be fair, the Royal Bounty Committee did what it could, but was in no position to speed up the painfully slow processes against recalcitrant heritors. The committee’s refusal to bend its rules meant that they had constantly to turn down requests for money. At the same time, the exasperated ministers saw that those missionaries who had been despatched to help them simply did not turn up.
Finally, the Royal Bounty Committee were now receiving reports about how their missionaries were performing. For example, Alexander Leask had been a missionary in the Presbytery of Turriff from June to October 1726. But having received a letter and a certificate from him, the committee:
did take Notice that there was nothing in the forsaid Letter or Certificate of Mr Leask’s Visiting families or Catechising, Nor Dealling with Papists for their Conversion, But only of his Preaching, which Seems not fully to Answer the Design of His Majestie’s Grant, Nor Acts of the General Assembly made thereanent; And Finding that other Certificates Bear nothing of Visiting Families and Catechising. The Committee Appointed that Letters be wrote to the Presbyteries Concern’d, To which Missionaries are Sent, Acquainting them of this, And that it is not the Design of His Majestie’s Gift to Ease Ministers of their work, But that all Missionaries, Ministers and Probationers should travel from House to House, visiting and Catechising; And Presbyteries are to Enquire if they do so, And Certifie them as it shall be found they Deserve.
At the next meeting Aeneas Sage on behalf of the Presbytery of Gairloch complained "that the Probationers formerly there, were very Slight in their work, never having Catechised among the People, which should have been a great part of their Work, And it is Proposed that no Money be given to Probationers, But such as are attested to be Qualified According to Law".
The committee was not only cracking down on catechists, but also on any presbyteries who certified catechists without its permission in the first place. Immediately after reading Leask’s letter, the members:
Finding that Diverse Presbyterys having Employed Catechists without any Warrand from this Committee, And then Demanding Allowance from the time of their Entry, when the Committee have already Exhausted the Grant by their own Appointments, Do Therefore order that Letters be wrote to the Presbyerys Concern’d, Acquainting them, That the Committee will grant no Salaries Nor Allowances to any, But such as Serve upon the Committee’s orders, and only for that time, According to their own Regulations.
The rules were to be tightened up: presbytery certificates, it was decided, were now to "Bear a Clause that the Missionaries Do Catechise the People, going from House to House for that end, And that they are Qualifyed to the Government." It is important to note that the committee itself was trying to set its own house in order, especially through trying to put its chaotic accounts in order by making it a rule that all salaries should now commence on the 1 November.
More conscientious missionaries, however, were refining their own techniques, with favourable results. For instance, it is clear that Walter Morison, who we have met already being rabbled after preaching at St Ninian’s Chapel, was learning caution. In a letter of 7 December 1726 the Rev. James Lautie, moderator of the Presbytery of Fordyce praised him "As a Person with whose Abilities, Managment and Prudent Behaviour, They own themselves to be more and more Satisfied, Yea even the Generality of the Dissaffected in that Country, Are obliged to give him a good testimony, And he has been already Instrumental in Reclaiming Severals from the Popish Errors, And Engadgeing some Disaffected Persons to Attend Gospel Ordinances". Morison was thereupon given a rise in salary for his pains. In a later letter, written on 19 October 1727, he describes his methods. They are worth quoting in full for the details they give about how the cunning catechist went about his business:
Shewing that he had for sometime past been making as Narrow Observation in travelling among that People, as he could, and can say, with Confidence, Blessed be God, that matters begin to mend somewhat, tho’ it’s true there are not many reclaim’d from Popery, not above Nine, Since he came to that Place, Yet Apostacy is not now frequent, there not having been any Save One, and that ane Heretor agaisnt whom (after he would no ways hearken to, Yea not hear of Instruction, or Argument on that Point) Process is going on, That he the said Mr Morison in his last Travells ffound some more Success, ffor he had Access to Seven or Eight ffamilies of the Papists, who Joined in Prayer with Considerable Insinuations of Kindness, The Method he took, was not so much Directly to Attack their Errors by running them down as Errors, As by insisting on the Truths of the Christian Religion, where he had Sufficient Occasion in another form to do it, and by this way of doing, he found most of the Common People turning really Protestants in Many Points of our ffaith, and even those which are most ffundamental. Another way he used which he ffound very taking both with the Prelatical ffamilies and with Papists, was to take a Zealous Concern about their Children at Schools, and otherways by frequent Examining them there, and reporting to their Parents, By letting Pennys fall to the Young ones, and Complementing them with little Books, which for Ordinary he does, and hears them read, Examines them, and prescribes them Tasks of the Catechism, By which Means, there is Even an Emulation rising among Several of the Young People And our Catechism comes to be read, and Mandate by many Young ones, and old People hears it, and delights to hear their Children so perform, and ffinding this a very successful Mean, he inclines to improve it more and more, though it be with some Expences, He shews that there are many of the Common People Papists on the Confines where the throng of the Papists are, who plainly own it was the great distance from the Church, that made them take the Nearest, Thus the Priests have improven Mightily, For to the two Priests and their Catechists who have for a Long time lived in good dwellings on the Confines of the said Parishes, another Priest from Fochabers is come, and taken up another house, upon another part of the Extremitys of these parishes, And that it is Lamentable that there they should have their Abodes, and that he has none, But is Obliged to travel at such a distance When Severals do declare that had they a near Occasion of a Protestant Kirk they would attend it
Meanwhile, under rather trying circumstances, the newly ordained Rev. Archibald Bannatyne in Lochbroom had been doing his best:
to Reduce that People to order: And Besides the Catechist he had from the Committee, he had sent out other three to teach the People the Creed, the ten Commands, and some of the Questions of the Catechism; That he had got some stop to the Setting of Netts, Carrying of Loads, and travelling on the Lord’s Day, Had prevailed with some Selected Persons in the Remote Corners of the Parish to Read the Scriptures, and tell the People the History of the Bible by way of Tale to their Neighbours upon Winter nights and Sabbath Days, and had Convinced the People how much it is their Duty and Interest to Attend thereunto; And he writes that he is hopefull that the good effect thereof may be Seen in a Competent time, But wanting a Maintainance he would be obliged to Raise a process, which he is affraid will Spoill all, and Living is dear in that Country, So that he is a very great object of Pity as now Stated .
In its report to the General Assembly of May 1727, the committee stressed how it was necessary for it to keep a close eye on the missionaries it employed. Many of the itinerant ministers who had been sent out had been called to parishes, so it was increasingly having to rely upon untried probationers and catechists. Especially recommended for support were the "front-line" Presbyteries of Gairloch, Abertarff and Lorn. The resistance which the clergy was encountering from priests and Catholic heritors led the committee to take an even harder line than before, not only in urging legal action against papists, but in taking up the Presbytery of Lorn’s recommendation for military garrisons to protect projected new Protestant colonies. A special plea was made "That Persons well Acquainted with the Popish Controversies be named to go to these Countries where Popery does abound, both Ministers, Probationers and well Qualified Catechists, to Remain for some time among them, To Instruct them in the Principles of the true Religion" Meanwhile:
some of the Missionaries give it as their Opinion, That their Staying too short a time in One place, seems not so well to answer the design, But that Catechists especially should remain in one place till they had learn’d a competent number of the people therein, to repeat the Shorter Catechism, and to understand it in some measure, And that being done, One in a Family may help to learn another, which will make way for Ministers and Preachers doing the more good when they come to visite, Catechise and preach, And Ministers to baptise or perform other Duties of their Function; For it is not to be expected, that Ministers can stay so long in a family as to learn the people therein, the whole Catechism, But the Catechists may do it, And the longer they remain among a people, And the more intimate and familiar they are with them, They, if prudent have the better Access to do good, And thus in Winter Nights in houses, And in Summer in the Shealls, the people may be receiving Instruction with little diversion from their work, And so when the poor people can repeat part of the Catechism, and answer some Questions therein, it encourages both themselves and others to appear before the Minister, whereas when they can not do so, they are ashamed to attend, And if they do, and can say nothing, they are dash’d, and it discourages them & others present from attending the Means of Instruction.
During the latter half of 1727 the Royal Bounty Committee continued to have problems with recruiting qualified missionaries for the project. They were having to fall back upon catechists, yet at the same time they had greatly overstretched the funds. Certainly, they had boasted at that year’s General Assembly that they had been able to reduce many catechists’ salaries. The consequence was, however, that it was growing ever harder to recruit suitable young men, many with families, who were willing to undergo the trials and tribulations of working in rough country among a hostile population, and – most crucially of all – were sufficiently qualified to pass the high standards of the Royal Bounty Committee. In a letter of 19 August 1727 the Rev. Donald MacLeod moderator of the Presbytery of Long Island represented "that it was impracticable to find out in that Country persons every way Qualified according to the Committee’s regulations to Serve for so small Sallarys as what is allowed this Year". At the same meeting a letter of 4 October from Charles Stewart Clerk to the Presbytery of Kintyre was read, "Shewing that they have no Probationers in the Bounds of their Synod which makes them almost despair of getting one to send to Jura, And therefore proposing that Catechists may be sent upon the ffund designed for Probationers". On 26 October the Presbytery of Dornoch wrote that they were very disappointed that the catechist of Clyne and Kildonan was not receiving £10 any more, "and how much the poor man formerly Imploy’d is discouraged being deprived of Bread for himself and ffamily without timeous Advertisement, and that none can serve for ffour or ffive Pound Sterling there". There were certainly a dozen young students with Gaelic who were applying for bursaries at this time, but although the General Assembly made up a list of the bursaries which were then operative, very few were available.
The most pressing problem was continuing dissatisfaction among the ministers of the Synod of Glenelg. At the General Assembly of 1727, on the day following the nomination of a new Royal Bounty Committee, the Presbytery of Gairloch had handed in a complaint, saying that they had scarcely any help from the Royal Bounty missionaries, that those who had had barely been paid because of the great distance from Edinburgh, that it was difficult to get the relevant legal testificates for their choice of missionaries, and that they had become objects of derision among their own parishioners. Despite the great majority vote of the commission of the church to transport the Rev. Donald MacLeod from Contin to Lochalsh in the presbytery, even at the risk of offending Colin Mackenzie of Coul, one of the most staunch supporters of the presbyterian church in Wester Ross, the ministers of the Presbytery of Gairloch continued to complain that the Edinburgh authorities were doing little or nothing to expedite the legal processes for their stipends. The situation was worsened by the "Vigorous Attempt made to pervert the Protestants in Kintail by Mr Alexander McCraw a Popish Priest who Resides in Straglass, where he has perverted upwards of Six hundred People". Alexander MacRae was ideal for the Catholic cause in Kintail, being a member of the dominant MacRae kindred there, and, according to a letter from the Synod of Glenelg of 11 July 1727, it was not long before he had won:
An Auditory of some Scores of People in that Parish, and had baptised several Children according to the Rites of the Church of Rome, And that there are Several Families transported from Straglass a Popish Country to Kintail, And that if some stop be not put thereto, This Jesuit and his Abettors will in a short time diffuse the Poison of his Idolatrous Religion, through the bounds of the Presb of Gairloch, where the people are generally very ignorant
As well as MacRae, the Presbytery of Gairloch were also under threat from renewed episcopalian missionary work, led by the old rogue and character the Rev. Angus Morison, brother of the famous poet An Clàrsair Dall, the Blind Harper.
The constant barrage of letters from the Synod of Glenelg concerning the lack of support they felt from the Royal Bounty certainly had an effect on the committee. By April 1728 the members were recommending in their report to the General Assembly the following month that preachers and catechists should be withdrawn from small parishes with few Roman Catholics in their bounds, "and that a Special Regard be had To the Bounds of the New Synod of Glenelg, Where Parishes are very Large, and Severals of them Vacant, and Where Popery and Ignorance does most abound, and Ministers have Small Stipends and Want Parochial Schools, and are under many Grievances and great discouragments". This "Special consideration" was agreed in the Royal Bounty scheme for 1728 drawn up on 22 May: an entire day was spent on the demands of the Synod of Glenelg. So much money was given to them that "there will be a Necessity to Reduce part of what was granted formerly to some places, and withdraw wholly what was given to some others." However, within barely six months the committee and the Synod of Glenelg would be almost at daggers drawn.
