of this blessing is the absence or the poor-law. The English poor-law is
detestable to him for a reason which contrasts significantly with the
later opinion. The laws were made 'in the very spirit of depopulation';
they are 'monuments of barbarity and mischief'; for they give to every
parish an interest in keeping down the population. This tendency was in
the eyes of the later economist a redeeming feature in the old system;
though it had been then so modified as to stimulate what they took to be
the curse, as Young held it to be the blessing, of a rapid increase of
population.

With such views Young was a keen advocate of the process of enclosure
which was going on with increasing rapidity. He found a colleague, who
may be briefly noticed as a remarkable representative of the same
movement. Sir John Sinclair (1754-1835)[63] was heir to an estate of
sixty thousand acres in Caithness which produced only L2300 a year,
subject to many encumbrances. The region was still in a primitive
state. There were no roads: agriculture was of the crudest kind; part of
the rent was still paid in feudal services; the natives were too
ignorant or lazy to fish, and there were no harbours. Trees were scarce
enough to justify Johnson, and a list of all the trees in the country
included currant-bushes.[64] Sinclair was a pupil of the poet Logan:
studied under Blair at Edinburgh and Millar at Glasgow; became known to
Adam Smith, and, after a short time at Oxford, was called to the English
bar. Sinclair was a man of enormous energy, though not of vivacious
intellect. He belonged to the prosaic breed, which created the 'dismal
science,' and seems to have been regarded as a stupendous bore. Bores,
however, represent a social force not to be despised, and Sinclair was
no exception.

His father died when he was sixteen. When twenty years old he collected
his tenants, and in one night made a road across a hill which had been
pronounced impracticable. He was an enthusiastic admirer of Gaelic
traditions; defended the authenticity of Ossian; supported Highland
games, and brought Italian travellers to listen to the music of the
bagpipes. When he presented himself to his tenants in the Highland
costume, on the withdrawal of its prohibition, they expected him to lead
them in a foray upon the lowlands in the name of Charles Edward. He
afterwards raised a regiment of 'fencibles' which served in Ireland in
1798, and, when disbanded, sent a large contingen