In 1724 there were some popular discontents. Enclosures, as we saw,
had scarcely been known in Scotland; when they were made, men, women,
and children took pleasure in destroying them under cloud of night.
Enclosures might keep a man's cattle on his own ground, keep other
men's off it, and secure for the farmer his own manure. That good
Jacobite, Mackintosh of Borlum, who in 1715 led the Highlanders to
Preston, in 1729 wrote a book recommending enclosures and plantations.
But when, in 1724, the lairds of Galloway and Dumfriesshire anticipated
and acted on his plan, which in this case involved evictions of very
indolent and ruinous farmers, the tenants rose. Multitudes of
“Levellers” destroyed the loose stone dykes and slaughtered cattle.
They had already been passive resisters of rent; the military were
called in; women were in the forefront of the brawls, which were not
quieted till the middle of 1725, when Lord Stair made an effort to
introduce manufactures.