When on 23 May 1786, the Highland society in London 'learned from the Earl of Breadalbane that five hundred Highlanders had subscribed money to emigrate from the estates of Macdonald of Glengary to Canada' (Kingsley, 108), it was decided that the noblemen and gentlemen would 'frustrate their design' in order to avoid the further loss of British subjects (it is estimated that around 12,000 Highlanders emigrated between 1782 and 1803).
Thomas Telford reported that the single 'most powerful' cause of emigrations was the mass conversion of land into sheep farms, of which the estates of MacDonald and Glengarry are singled out particularly in the Address of Beelzebub.
The loss of such enormous numbers posed a threat to British security and an economic loss to the landlords, and so, in June 1803 parliament swiftly passed the Passenger Vessels Act which raised the cost of a passage to Canada and America under the guise of regulating the passenger vessels which crossed the Atlantic.
The truth of the Bill, drawn up by Scotland's lord advocate, Charles Hope, was revealed in a letter he wrote in 1804: [the Bill] 'certainly was intended, both by myself and the other gentlemen of the committee [of the Highland Society] appointed to enquire into the situation in the highlands, indirectly to prevent the effects of that pernicious spirit of discontent against their own country, and rage for emigrating to America, which had been raised among the people'.
The Passenger Vessels Act led to an extension of the overcrowded townships and miserable living conditions of the Highlands. Of course, once the population no longer served as an economic commodity, the Clearances began and many more thousands were forced to emigrate.
The tone of this poem is clear. Beelzebub writes to congratulate the lords responsible for their actions against the audacity of the 'rebel generation'. What right have they 'To meat, or sleep, or light o'day/ far less to riches, pow'r, or freedom/ But what your lordships PLEASE TO GIE THEM?'
Burns can be seen to highlight the attitude towards the Highlands in lines 37/38 'Yet, while they're only poin'd, and herriet/ They'll keep their stubborn Highlan spirit', and the social injustice of the piece is encapsulated in lines 51/52 'An' gar the tatter'd gipseys pack/Wi' a' their bastarts on their back!'.
It is interesting that Burns uses Beelzebub as a narrator, thereby damning the lords in the strongest possible terms 'at my right hand, assigned your seat...A seat, I'm sure ye're weel deservin't', when there are examples of this type of damnation upon the landlords and factors in the Gaelic poetry of the Clearances.
