Ossian Collection > Report of the Committee of the Highland Society of Scotland, appointed to inquire into the nature and authenticity of the poems of Ossian

■J4^ OBSERVATIONS
'Jcarned in every part of his progress through the Highlands.
Tt is the moic. extraordinary it escaped him, that " the great
'Dr. Johnson himself," v/ho is mentioned in the beginning
of his pamphlet, had taken particular notice of it.
" There still (says the Doctor) remains in the islands,
'' though it is passing fast away, the custom of fosterage.
" A laird, a man of wealth and eminence, sends his child,
" either male or female, to a tacksman, or tenant, to be
" fostered. It is not always his own tenant, but some
" distant friend that obtains this honour: for an honour
^* such a trust is very reasonably thought.
" Children continue with the fosterer perhaps six years,
" and cannot, where this is the practice, be considered ai
" burdensome. The fosterer, if he gives four cows, re-
" ceives likewise four, and has, while the child continues
** with him, grass for eight witliout rent, with half the
" calves, and all the milk, for which he pays only four
" cows when he disriiisses his da/t, for that is the name for
" a foster child.
" Fosterage Is, 1 believe, sometimes performed upon
" niore liberal terriis. Our friend, the young Laird of Col,
*■'• was fostered by Macsweyn of Grissipol. Macsweyn
" then lived a tenant to Sir James Macdonald in the Isle of
*' Skye ; and therefore Col, whether he sent him cattle or
" not, could grant him no land. The dalt^ however, at his
*' return, brought back a considerable number of macalive
" cattle, and of the friendship so formed there have beeft
** good effects. When jNIacdonald raised his rents, Mac-
*' sweyu was, like other tenants, discontented, and resigned
** his farm, and removed from Skye to Col, and was esta-
" blished at Grissipol f."
Mr. Hill's mistaken notion of fosterage " being in a great
" measure peculiar to Ireland," led him, by a natural asso-
f A Joiimey t« the Western Islands of Scotland, p. 313,-316.