SOME ACCOUNT OF THE RISING OF THE LEVELLERS IN GALLOWAY IN THE YEAR 1723.

(Compiled from Nicholson's History and Harper's Rambles in Galloway)

Published in the Gallovidian Annual, 1923.

When the storm of rebellion (The 'Fifteen") had completely subsided into a calm, various agricultural and other kinds of improvements began to appear. The proprietors of Galloway soon perceived, from the rapid rise of rents in nearly every other quarter, that their own system of management must be faulty, the rents of the richest land being here very small when compared with those of other parts of Scotland. There seemed to them no way of remedying the evil, or of introducing an improved mode of husbandry, so long as their estates lay undivided.

From time immemorial the farmers had possessed a right of pasturage in common on the whole property of their landlord, each having in general only one portion of land which was kept constantly in a state of tillage around his cottage. The price of cattle had now advanced, and it was found profitable to rear them. To erect march and sub-division dykes, by which the labour of tending cattle might be lessened, and the size of the farms increased, now called forth strenuous exertions on the part of many proprietors. But this procedure did not coincide with the wishes or the interests of the smaller tenants or cottars, who intuitively foresaw in this policy the weakness of the tenure by which they held their little crofts.

Their worst forebodings were realised wholesale evictions (for no other term can he used ) becoming the order of the day. The distress which followed was extreme, and, looking back upon it, there is no doubt that - granted the agricultural improvement - the cottars were very harshly dealt with. Ejectment followed ejectment, and numerous were the instances in which five, seven, and even sixteen families on an estate were driven from their homes, and the homes of their forefathers.

Whitsunday, 1723, saw much of the land of the "Parking Lairds", as they were called, (Gordon of Earlston is named as the first proprietor in the Stewartry to enclose) enclosed but as the dykes appeared, the murmuring of an angry, sullen people grew louder. The air was full of apprehension and disquietude, and a detachment of Stair's Dragoons was stationed at Kirkcudbright in readiness for any emergency.

Kelton Hill Fair was the great gathering-place for the people of Galloway, and here it was, in that summer of 1723, that the rising was determined upon by the bolder spirits, who took upon themselves the name of "Levellers". The whole roughly-conceived organisation was a series of districts (generally parishes), both in the Stewartry and Shire, controlled by local committees, who secretly met and arranged their plans and expeditions. With the Levellers were the "Houghers" whose particular part of the scheme was the unpardonable maiming of the innocently offending black cattle in the enclosures.

The scheme was hatched and now the "levelling" of the dykes by these insurgents, all with weapons of some sort, became the order of the day, or rather of the night. The work went merrily on. The lairds, despite the determined attitude of the Levellers, continued to subdivide and enclose their parks; but as soon as the dykes were built, under cloud of night they were demolished. Even the portions built during the day were wont to totter and fall that same night.

The Stewartry had its own method of procedure. Over each band the most prominent individual was selected, and styled " Captain." Each man was furnished with a strong kent (staff) of from six to eight feet in length, which he fixed into the dyke at an approved distance from the ground and from his neighbour. After having ascertained that all was ready, the "Captain" shouted out, "Owre wi't, boys!" and over it accordingly tumbled, amid shouts that might have been heard at a distance of miles. Among the leaders were several old soldiers, who put the levies through a course of drill, and who in the disposition of their forces when meeting with opposition showed considerable military skill. The redoubtable Billy Marshall, the tinkler, who had seen service in the army abroad, sided with the cause of the Levellers, and was one of their leading organisers.

This riotous spirit and attitude of opposition first of all asserted itself in Wigtownshire, of which we shall first speak.