APPENDIX. Sketches concerning SCOTLAND. SKETCH I. SCOTCH ENTAILS Confidered in Moral and Political views. M AN is by nature a hoarding animal; and to fecure to men what they acquire by honeft induftry, the fenfe of property is made a branch of human nature (a). During the infancy of nations, when artificial wants are unknown, the hoarding appetite makes no figure. The ufe of money produced a great change in the human heart. Money having at command the goods of fortune, introduced inequality of rank, luxury, and artificial wants without end. No bounds are fet to hoarding, where an appetite for artificial wants is indulged: love of money becomes the ruling paflion: it is coveted by many in order to be hoarded; and means are abfurdly converted into an end. The fenfe of property, weak among favages, ripens gradually till it arrives at maturity in polifhed nations. In every stage of the progrefs, fome new power is added to property; and now for centuries, men have enjoyed every power over their own goods, that a rational mind can defire (b): they have the free difpofal during life; and even after death by naming an heir. These powers are fufficient for accomplishing every rational purpose they are fufficient for commerce, and they are fufficient for benevolence. But the artificial wants of men are boundless: not content with the full enjoyment of their property during life, nor with the profpect of its being enjoyed by a favourite heir, they are anxiously bent to preferve it to themfelves for ever. A man who has amaffed a great effate in land, is miferable at the profpect of being obliged to quit his hold: to footh his diseased fancy, he makes a deed fecuring it for (a) Book 1. sketch 3. (b) Hiftorical law tracts, tract 3. for ever to certain heirs; who muft without end bear his name, and preferve his eftate entire. Death, it is true, muft at last feparate him from his idol: it is fome confolation, however, that his will governs and gives law to every fubfequent proprietor. How repugnant to the frail state of inan, are fuch fwollen conceptions! Upon thefe however are founded entails, which have prevailed in many parts of the world, and unhappily at this day infeft Scotland. Did entails produce no other harm but the gratification of a diftempered appetite for property, they might be endured, though far from deferving approbation: but, like other tranfgreffions of nature and reafon, they are productive of much mifchief, not only to commerce, but to the very heirs for whose benefit it is pretended that they are made. Confidering that the law of nature has bestowed on man, every power of property that is neceffary either for commerce or for benevolence, how blind was it in the English legiflature to add a most irrational power, that of making an entail! But men will always be mending; and when a law-giver ventures to tamper with the laws of nature, he hazards much mischief. We have a pregnant inftance above, of an attempt to mend the laws of God, in many abfurd regulations for the poor; and that the law authorifing entails, is another inftance of the fame kind, will be evident from what follows. re The mischievous effects of English entails were foon discovered: they occafioned fuch injuftice and oppreffion, that even the judges ventured to relieve the nations from them, by an artificial form, termed, fine and covery. And yet, though no moderate nian would defire inore power over his eftate than he has by common law, the legislature of Scotland enabled every land-proprietor to fetter his eftate for ever; to tyrannize over his heirs; and to reduce their property to a fhadow, by prohibiting alienation; and by prohibiting the contracting debt, were it even to redeem the proprietor from death or flavery. Thus many a man, fonder of his eftate than of his wife and children, grudges the use of it to his natural heirs, reducing them to the state of mere life-renters. Behold the confequences. A number number of noblemen and gentlemen among us, lie in wait for every parcel of land that comes to market. Intent upon aggrandizing their family or rather their eftate, which is the favourite object, they fecure every purchase by an entail; and the fame courfe will be followed, till no land be left to be purchased. Thus every entailed eftate in Scotland becomes in effect a mortmain, admitting additions without end, but abfolutely barring any alienation; and if the legiflature interpofe not, the period is not diftant, when all the land in Scotland will be locked up by entails, and withdrawn from commerce. The purpose of the prefent effay, is to fet before our legiflature, coolly and impartially, the destructive effects of a Scotch entail. I am not fo fanguine as to hope, that men, who convert means into an end, and avariciously covet land for its own fake, will be prevailed upon to regard, either the intereft of their country or of their pofterity: but I would gladly hope, that the legiflature may be roused to give attention to a national object of no flight importance. I begin with effects of a private or domeftic nature. To the poffeffor, an entail is a conftant fource of difcontent, by fubverting that liberty and independence, which all men covet, with respect to their goods as well as their perfons. What can be more vexatious to a proprietor of a great land-eftate, than to be barred from the moft laudable acts, fuitable provifions for example to a wife or children? not to mention numberlefs acts of benevolence, that endear individuals to each other, and make fociety comfortable. Were he ever fo induftrious, his fields muft lie wafte; for what man will lay out his own money upon an estate that is not his own? A great proportion of the land in Scotland is in such a state, that by laying out a thousand pounds or fo, an intelligent proprietor may add a hundred pounds yearly to his rent-roll. But an entail effectually bars that improvement: it affords the proprietor no credit; and fuppofing him to have the command of money independent of the eftate, he will be ill-fated if he have not means to employ it more profitably for his own intereft. An entail, at the fame time, is no bet ter ter than a trap for an improvident poffeffor: to avoid altogether the contracting debt, is impracticable; and if a young man be guided more by pleasure than by prudence, which commonly is the cafe of young men; a vigilant and rapacious fubftitute, taking advantage of a forfeiting claufe, turns him out of poffeffion, and delivers him over to want and mifery. But an entail is productive of confequences ftill more difmal, even with refpect to heirs. A young man up-on whom the family eftate is entailed, without any power referved to the father, is not commonly obfequious to advice, nor patiently fubmiffive to the fatigues of education: he abandons himself to pleasure, and indulges his paffions without control. In one word, there is no fituation more fubverfive of morals, than that of a young man, bred up from infancy in the certainty of inheriting an opulent fortune. The condition of the other children, daughters efpecially, is commonly deplorable. The proprietor of a large entailed eftate, leaves at his death children who have acquired a tafte for fumptuous living. The fons drop off one by one, and a number of daughters remain, with a fcanty provifion, or perhaps with none at all. A collateral male heir fucceeds, who after a painful fearch is difcovered in fome remote corner, qualified to procure bread by the fpade or the plough, but entirely unqualified for behaving as mafter of an opulent fortune. By fuch a metamorphofis, the poor man makes a ludicrous figure; while the daughters, reduced to indigence, are in a fituation much more lamentable than are the brats of beggars. Our entails produce another domeftic evil, for which no proper remedy is provided. The fums permitted in moft entails to younger children, however adequate when the entail is made, become in time too fcanty, by a fall in the value of money, and by increase of luxury; which is peculiarly hard upon daughters of great families: the provifions deftined for them will not afford them bread; and they cannot hope to be fuitably matched, without a decent fortune. If we adhere to entails, nunneries ought to be provided. But But the domestic evils of an entail make no figure compared with thofe that refpect the public. Thefe in their full extent would fill a volume: they are well known; and it may be fufficient to keep them in view by fome general hints. As obferved above, few tenants in tail can command money for improvements, however profitable. Such difcouragement to agriculture, hurtful to proprietors of entailed eftates, is ftill more fo to the public. It is now an established maxim, That a ftate is powerful in proportion to the product of its land: a nation that feeds its neighbours can flarve them. The quantity of land that is locked up in Scotland by entails, has damped the growing fpirit of agriculture. There is not produced fufficiency of corn at home for our own confumption : and our condition will become worfe and worfe by new entails, till agriculture and industry be annihilated, Were the great entailed eftates in Scotland, split into fmall properties of fifty or a hundred pounds yearly rent, we thould foon be enabled, not only to fupply our own markets, but to fpare for our neighbours. In the next place, our entails are no lefs fubverfive of commerce than of agriculture. There are numberlefs land-eftates in Scotland of one, two or three hundred pounds yearly rent. Such an estate cannot afford bare neceffaries to the proprietor, if he pretend to live like a a gentleman. But he has an excellent refource: let him apply to any branch of trade, his eftate will afford him credit for what money he wants. The profit be makes, pays the interest of the money borrowed, with a furplus; and this furplus added to the rent of his eftate, enables him to live comfortably. A number of land-proprietors in fuch circumstances, would advance commerce to a great height. But alas! there are not many who have that refource: fuch is the itch in Scotland for entailing, as even to defcend lower than one hundred pounds yearly. Can one behold with patience, the countenance that is given to felfish wrong-headed people, acting in direct oppofition to the profperity of their country? Commerce is no lefs hurt in another refpect when our land is withdrawn from commerce by entails, every profperous trader will defert a country where |