WCP6741

[[1] [p. xc]¹

THE SUTHERLAND EVICTIONS OF 1814.

— and I have formed it. I accuse no individual; but I quote a narrative which it appears to me was not invalidated by the conflicting evidence of the trial, and I refuse to conceal what I believe to be important facts of history.

I am sure that no impartial person, looking at the trouble I have taken to take out every possible clue to your father's name (and considering the extreme difficulty of getting a copy of McLeod's² pamphlet, the reference to it as an authority is only nominal), will consider that I have published anything calumnious.'

I remain

Yours very truly,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

Thomas Sellar, Esq.

55 Cromwell Houses, London, S.W.: January 12, 1883.

Sir,— I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 3rd instant, and I should have wished to conclude the correspondence with a bare acknowledgment of it. But it contains statements so strange and unexpected, that I am compelled to take notice of them.

You say that the judge and jury acquitted my father on a balance of the evidence, and that the judge expressly stated.

What the judge said was in reference to one only of the allegations charged in the indictment, namely, the allegation respecting Chisholm's³ mother-in-law. He told the jury that, as regards her case, it was their duty to 'balance betwixt' (that is, weigh the evidence of) two conflicting sets of witnesses. There was no conflict of evidence except as regards this allegation.

Do you consider that this indicates a mere balance of evidence in my father's favour on the whole case, for that is what your language implies ? As a matter of fact, was the evidence nearly balanced on that one case of Chisholm's mother-in-law? We know on the contrary that the evidence respecting it, the only case left for the consideration of the jury, was overwhelmingly on the side of the defence; and we likewise know that on the other cases of alleged 'injury' there was absolutely no evidence whatever to sustain the allegations against my father.

But you say you have evidence of the facts alleged, not laid before the jury, in McLeod's narrative. The only evidence in McLeod's narrative consists of McLeod's own unsupported assertions. [[2] [p. xci]

APPENDIX.

Am I to understand that you consider that these assertions supersede the evidence given in court, and that you give credence to them, and do not give credence to the evidence given at the trial? You cannot believe both, for the one is directly counter to the other. One or other must be false.

Are you seriously of opinion that the bare and unsupported assertions of a man of whom you can know nothing, and for whose veracity you have no voucher whatever, assertions made long subsequently, not under oath or subject to cross examination, are to weigh for one moment against the mass of evidence delivered under oath in a judicial enquiry?

Then you tell me that the acquittal of my father does not disprove the facts alleged, but only proves that he was not responsible for them. That might be true if we knew only the fact of the acquittal. You forget that we have the evidence given in court, and it, plus the acquittal, does disprove every one of them.

But you are of opinion that the fact of injury being done to the people is substantially proved. Here you raise another question, which I do not propose to discuss with you. The only question between you and me — a question which you have never hitherto faced — is whether specific allegations of inhumanity made by you, are true or not. There is no question between us as to whether or not there was an arbitrary exercise of the landlord's powers, inconsistent with the wider sense of the people's rights now prevailing; or whether, in the enforcement of the landlord's policy and of the law, the tenants necessarily suffered hardships.

I have acknowledged, in opening this correspondence with you, the spirit of good feeling you then showed, and I have also acknowledged your having eliminated all mention of, or direct reference to, my father's name; but do you suppose that your readers, with the aid of other publications that you know of, do not read between the lines of your book, and know perfectly who was the author of the inhuman acts you narrate, if those acts were perpetrated? Besides, the mere elimination of my father's name is not and never has been my primary object. If he was guilty of the offences alleged, brand him by all means, and by name, as a guilty man. As he was not guilty, and the acts you allege were not committed, I shall not rest till I have satisfied every reasonable mind that the allegations you make on McLeod's authority are untrue.

You say you refuse to conceal what you believe to be 'important facts of history.' If the allegations you make in your book [[3] [p. xcii]

THE SUTHERLAND EVICTIONS OF 1814.

are facts,' I have no desire that you should do so. The whole question is whether they are facts.'

In the last paragraph of your letter, you complain of my calling your statements 'calumnious. I do not know what you consider to be calumnious statements; but I think that if I had stated untruly of your father, that he had set fire to a house knowing that there was a decrepit old woman then lying in it, who was only removed when the blankets round her were in flames; that he had unroofed a house over a dying man, and left him to die exposed to wind and rain; that he had gone about with gangs of men burning and destroying all before him, amidst scenes of horror

'which beggared all description,' you would have felt such statements very keenly and painfully, whether you called them calumnious or not. I, for my part, call them calumnious in the highest degree.

I must again express my regret that I have found myself compelled, by the nature of the statements in your letter, to make these observations in reply.

I am, Sir,

(Signed) THO[MA]S. SELLAR.

A. R. Wallace, Esq.

P.S. — You have never informed me that you have perused the examination of McLeod's allegations which I sent you. I beg, therefore, to send you another copy, and I ask you, if not as a right, at least as a personal favour, that you should peruse it. You have seen the report of the trial, and can thus judge whether the examination has been fairly carried out. If you should desire the report of the trial to be returned to you, it shall be sent.

Frith Hill, Godalming: January 13, 1883.

Dear Sir, — I have read all the documents and papers you have sent me, and see no reason to change the view I have already expressed. Our correspondence on the subject must therefore cease.

Yours faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

Thomas Sellar, Esq.