Series 4 > Papers on Sutherland Estate Management 1802-1816 > Volume 9

106 SUTHERLAND ESTATE MANAGEMENT: CORRESPONDENCE
(the road to be made with the commutation money of the country).
When these are executed, introduce Coals among the people.
Intermix strangers among them to prove to them the Superiority
of the new method. Push the Cottage system after the manner
proposed at Achavandra and Skelbo water. Introduce a woollen
manufacture there, and another in some other position; possibly
somewhere up the Fleet or Brora, wherever people abound. Your
Ladyship will See progress made; a town rise adjoining the harbour,
and every part of the Country supported by the exuberance of its
industry. Merchants will buy up this superabundance with meal,
Goods and whatever may be wanted. The harbour, and independ¬
ence of the Town, will bring competition; Competion will reduce
the price to a fair profit; and the people no longer taken the
advantage of, will find fresh vigour in their application to
industry.
These things are said in a breath; but they require unabating zeal,
patient vigilance, conciliating conduct, and continued alacrity in
your Ladyship’s man or men of business to accomplish them. Yet,
they apply only to a small portion of your extensive domains.
The Confidence with which your Ladyship has honoured us
emboldens us to speak out the verity. And we, Candidly, assure
you, that we no more See how these things are to be carried thro’
under the present management, than, how ‘a Camel is to go thro’
the Eye of a needle’. We, of course, write your Ladyship in con¬
fidence. We should be sorry to have any person think us inimical;
for we are far from being so, tho’ in saying so much, the execution
of which may be attempted, it becomes a duty to dissemble nothing
from your Ladyship.
Your Ladyship will See, by a Glance at the map, with what
beauty the Golspie Ground might be cut up for a Town - What a
fine Crescent along the Shore - How the Ground is watered, and
what advantage might be made of the Mill Seat. We have not had
time to digest a plan for such a thing, nor are we perhaps so capable
of doing so as many others. If the harbour be built, and a town Set
agoing the lower part of Rhives will be necessary to the Settlers.
The factors house might, in that case be on any of the fine Situations
East of Dunrobin; and the presbytery might, with your Ladyship’s
approbation, give Mr Keith his Manse and Glebe at the house of