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Memoirs of James Robert Hope Scott, Volume 2

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2. Of Mr. Hope-Scott's pecuniary charities in England (in the Catholic part
of his life) I am not able to give a special account; but I may mention one
characteristic trait, that he felt it his duty to do more for Westminster
than other places, because it was there that he earned his money; following
the excellent principle of helping, in the first instance, the locality in
which Almighty God has placed one. Accordingly, at Westminster he gave
ground for Catholic _Poor Schools_, with property endowment of
50_l_. per annum; and gave great assistance to the _Filles de
Marie_, a community of religious ladies so employed in the Horseferry
Road, in the same district.

A large proportion of his private benefactions seem to have been of a
description especially in keeping with his tender and thoughtful mind, such
as giving a mother the means of going to visit a daughter whom she had
reluctantly allowed to enter a convent; enabling sick priests to go abroad
for their health; setting up a poor schoolmistress with the means of
purchasing a school; paying the expenses of a funeral; and so on.

Like all men either wealthy or reputed to be so, he was continually
importuned with petitions for pecuniary aid, sometimes asked for by way of
gift, sometimes as loans. To particularise such in any recognisable manner
would of course be impossible, for fear of wounding the feelings of persons
who were the objects of his kindness; but, avoiding this as well as I can,
I may say that there were instances in which Mr. Hope-Scott cleared people
out of overwhelming difficulties by gifts of lavish generosity--hundreds of
pounds, and in some cases as much as 1,000_l_. I could produce an
example of the former in which the prompt liberality shown was only
equalled by the delicacy and forbearance; for it may easily be supposed
that the difficulties thus relieved were not always free from blame on the
part of those involved in them. Seldom, perhaps, can it be otherwise; but
what would happen if all charity were measured by the deserts of the
recipient?

What may have been the actual amount of Mr. Hope-Scott's charities during
his life it would be very hard to conjecture; but this much I can state, on
the testimony of one who knew the fact from his own personal knowledge,
that in twelve or thirteen years (from 1859 or thereabouts) he gave away,
in charity of some form or other, not less than 40,000_l_. It is right
to observe that, quite towards the close, as he was retiring from his
profession, there was a great diminution in his charitable expenditure;
for, instead of the ample, though merely professional, income he had
enjoyed for a great part of his life, he had become, relatively speaking, a
person with very limited means. Believing it still to be his duty to
provide for his 'son and heir,' and for his other children, of course he
had no longer the power of doing all that he had done under circumstances
altogether different.

Missions on the Border; Galashiels, Kelso, &c.

Mr. Hope-Scott's zeal for the support of Catholicity was naturally felt
most by places near him in the Highlands or on the Border, where he built
churches and schools, and aided struggling missions. Of those on the
Border, the most important was the Church of Our Lady and St. Andrew at
_Galashiels_, which, as a manufacturing town, has a large Catholic
population. True to his organising genius, he intended it should be a
centre for smaller out-missions around it, as _Selkirk, Jedburgh, Kelso,
&c._ It was completed gradually, and the following extract from a letter
of his to Father Newman (dated Abbotsford, December 30, 1857) shows, in a
pleasing and simple manner, the heart which Mr. Hope-Scott threw into the
work he was offering to Almighty God:--

I hope that ten days or so will render [the church] fit for use in a rough
way; and I hope it will be so used, and that I shall not be hurried in the
decorative part, which I cannot afford to do handsomely at present, and
which I think will be done better when we have become used to the interior,
and have observed what is to be brought out and what concealed. The shell I
am well pleased with. It is massive and lofty, no side aisles, but chapels
between buttresses--and no altar-screen--more like a good college chapel
than a parish church. The whole plan, however, has not been carried out, so
the proportions cannot be fairly judged of. Some day perhaps I may finish
it, or some one else instead; and to keep us in mind that more is to do, we
have a rough temporary work at the west end (not really west), with square
sash windows of a repulsive aspect.[Footnote: There are readers who will be
glad of the preservation of the following dates connected with Galashiels
Church. The plans were completed July 1, 1856; first payment, November
1856; last account rendered, February 1858; the church was opened on
Candlemas Day, February 2, 1858, by Bishop Gillis; finished finally in
1872, and opened in August 1873.]

Mr. Hope-Scott lived to finish it, and the work, I have heard, can hardly
have cost him less than 10,000_l_. He also gave to the Jesuit Fathers
at Galashiels a library of books, chiefly on civil and canon law, in value
about 500_l_. The last cheque he signed with his failing hand was one
for 900_l_. in discharge of the last debt on Galashiels Church. The
mission at Galashiels was held at first by the Oblate Fathers, but from the
end of July 1863 by the Jesuits.[Footnote: There is a letter of Father Jos.
Johnson, Provincial S. J., to Mr, Hope-Scott, dated February 24, 1859, from
which it appears that the Society, in consequence of the many demands upon
them, were unable to accept the mission of Galashiels at that time.] The
following letter (worthy of preservation also because of the writer) will
show that Mr. Hope-Scott had wished, almost immediately on finding himself
a Catholic, to have a Jesuit Father at _Abbotsford_:--_The Père de
Ravignan, S.J. to J. R. Hope, Esq., Q.G._

Voici, Monsieur, ce que le T. R. P. Général, m'écrit de sa maison de Rome
le 10 Juin:

'Je désire bien que M. Hope sache combien j'ai été consolé à la bonne
nouvelle.--Jamais je ne l'avois oublié--il m'avoit inspiré tant d'intérét!'


Pour ne point oublier non plus, je vous demande la permission de vous dire
ici que le R. P. Provincial d'Angleterre a accueilli, avec le plus grand
désir de vous satisfaire, la prière que vous avez bien voulu me
communiquer, d'établir un de nos Pères chez vous en Écosse. Le P.
Etheridge, provincial actuel, doit arriver demain à Londres.

Ce matin nous étions tous heureux près de cet autel. Bénissons le Seigneur
de tant de grâces.

Veuillez agréer toutes mes tendres et profondes sympathies in Xto Jesu.

X. DE RAVIGNAN, S.J.

Londres: 16 Juin 1851.

The chapel at _Selkirk_, dedicated to Our Lady and St. Joseph, was a
purchase of Mr. Hope-Scott's.

The mission of _Kelso_, where he built the Church of the Immaculate
Conception, would furnish many instructive pages for a history of the re-
settlement of the Catholic Church in those very desolate regions. A letter
of the Rev. Patrick Taggart,[Footnote: Compare page 193 of this volume.] to
Mr. Hope-Scott, dated Hawick, September 3, 1853, contains some details
which, in connection with later events at Kelso, are full of interest. They
show how deeply felt is the spiritual isolation of such localities, and how
unexpectedly great is the number of Catholics often to be found in them,
left to themselves. Father Taggart first speaks of the great kindness which
he had received from Sir George and Lady Douglas, of Springwood Park, near
Kelso, and then goes on to say:--

Lady Douglas is a genuine Catholic, just as a daughter of old Catholic
Spain should be. Her sister is staying with her just now.... I think they
do not like the idea of attending Divine service in a public hall. I told
them that Father Cooke would be delighted to afford them any assistance in
his power under present circumstances. I also told them that I thought
that, if possible, a small church would be built at Kelso in the meantime;
and that the time was not far distant when perhaps the Bishop would be able
to give to Kelso a resident priest. This news so delighted them that they
could not find words to express their joy.... I do not know of any part of
this district that is at present more destitute of the ministrations of a
priest than Kelso and its environs. The mission extends twenty miles north-
east of Kelso--that is, forty miles from Galashiels and from Hawick; and
there is not a village in that, I might almost say, immense tract of
country that does not contain its ten and twenty poor Irish Catholics. I
attended Kelso, once in the month, for nearly five years, and I am the
first priest who offered up the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at Kelso since
the days of the so-called Reformation. I therefore know its geography and
its wants....

PATRICK TAGGART.

Accordingly, a church was built for Kelso at the expense of Mr. Hope-Scott.
It could hardly have been finished more than a year or two, when, on the
night of August 6-7, 1856, it was attacked by a Protestant mob, set fire
to, and burned to the ground, with the schoolhouse and dwelling-house
adjoining, including books, vestments, and furniture, the property of Mr.
Hope-Scott. Four of the ringleaders were put on their trial on November 10.
In charging the jury, otherwise fairly enough, 'the Lord Justice-Clerk
remarked that, as to whether it were necessary that Mr. Hope-Scott should
build the Roman Catholic chapel at Kelso or not, the jury might have very
considerable doubts, as it appeared that the priest did not live there, but
some miles distant at Jedburgh; but that was a matter which the prisoners
had nothing to do with, as every one was at liberty to build such a place
of worship if he chose; neither did it matter whether the attack upon the
chapel was made in consequence of any attempts to proselytise Protestants
to the Catholic faith. In going over the evidence, his lordship said he
could have wished that Mrs. Byrne, the schoolmistress, had given timely
notice to the police of what she had heard as to the resolution to fire the
chapel, as that would have been a better course than quitting the chapel.
However, they could not blame the poor woman; and _perhaps, being a
Catholic, she might not like to make an appeal to the police_.' (Quoted
from the report in the 'Scottish Press,' November 11, 1856. [Footnote: I
italicise the last sentence, which at first sight gives a curious idea of
the practical equality of legal protection existing for Catholics at the
time; though probably all that was intended to be conveyed is the strange
impression that Catholics might entertain a scruple about appealing to the
police.--R. O.])

The jury's verdict would surprise any unprejudiced reader who studies the
evidence. They found the charge of wilful fire-raising not proven against
the prisoners, but found three of them guilty of mobbing and rioting, but,
in respect of their previous good conduct, recommended them to mercy. The
three got off with eighteen months' imprisonment and hard labour. I quote
the following remarks on the affair generally, and on the Lord Justice-
Clerk's charge, from an article in the 'Scotsman,' republished by the
'Northern Times' of November 15, 1856: [Footnote: I have not met with any
_letter_ of Mr. Hope-Scott's to the _Scotsman_, but this article
is probably from his pen.--R. O.]--

In the town of Kelso there is, it seems, a more or less considerable colony
of Irish; and it needs scarcely be said that the mixture of that element
with the border material does not work together for the promotion of
harmony and good order. At St. James's Fair, held at Kelso on 5th August
last, a Scotch butcher-boy quarrelled and fought with an Irish mugger.
Scotch and Irish rallied round these champions of the two countries, and in
the mêlée which ensued, a young Scotchman was unhappily and barbarously
killed. The Kelso crowd, in very natural rage, burned the muggers' camp,
threw their carts into the Tweed, and drove them from the neighbourhood of
the town. But there remained the resident Irish of the town, and it seems
to have been deemed fitting to hold them guilty as art and part. It is not
clear that any of them were in the fight--at least, no person among them
was charged with the murder; but there is a short cut through all these
difficulties. Most Irishmen are Roman Catholics--Kelso has a Roman Catholic
chapel--let it be burned. Accordingly, after considerable talk and
preparation (which seems to have included getting drunk), a mob assembled
the next evening, and did burn the chapel with perfect ease and effect....

Some mystery may dwell in readers' minds as to how such an affair could be
arranged and completed without any one but the rioters themselves having
any voice thereanent. And the mystery is not quite cleared away by the
evidence. The woman that lived under the chapel heard, on the day of the
fair and the fight (i.e. the day before the incendiarism), that the chapel
was to be burned, and slept out of her house, so as not to be in the way;
coming back the next day she heard the same rumour, and left again at
night--when it happened as she had been foretold. But though other
witnesses, some of whom had witnessed the burning, testified that the
design had been talked about all day, the chief magistrate mentions in his
evidence that he 'had not had the slightest expectation of a disturbance;'
the superintendent of police was in the same state of information, and the
police constable 'had not taken any alarm.' All this, however, is of little
consequence, seeing that when the alarm was taken, there was no result but
that of disturbing two or three people who might as well have gone to bed.
The guardianship of the town is confided to one county policeman, who must
be a tumultuous sort of person himself, since he seems to require a
'superintendent' to keep him in order. The said superintendent, when he did
know what was going on, first tried a little moral suasion, with the result
usual in such cases: 'I cautioned them against proceedings of that kind,
and advised them to go to their homes--they disregarded me.' His disposable
force, condensed in the person of the 'police constable,' took the same
course. '_We_ warned them'--the answer was a volley of stones. 'We
retired, and went to all the magistrates.' 'By the time we got back the
chapel was completely destroyed.' It would be unreasonable to blame the
superintendent and his 'force' for not successfully fighting several
hundred men, although we do think they might have done more as to
identifying the ringleaders: the real blame lies with the authorities, who
appear to have failed to provide decently adequate means for preserving the
public peace. The use of a local police force must be measured, not by what
it detects and punishes, but by what it prevents, or may reasonably be
supposed to prevent....

So wide-spread is [the feeling that Roman Catholic chapels are somehow an
intrusion and an offence] that it would almost appear as if the very bench
were not placed above its influence. The Lord Justice-Clerk made some very
sound and strong remarks on the nature of the outrage; but he added:
'Whether it was necessary on the part of Mr. Hope-Scott to build this
chapel--which it scarcely seemed to be, seeing the priest did not live
there, but at Jedburgh--or whether it was a prudent proceeding to attempt,
by the erection of this chapel, to win converts to the Roman Catholic
faith--was of no importance here.' Since it was of no importance, the
expressed doubt and the implied censure had, we very humbly think, have
been better avoided.... Though there had not been a single Roman Catholic
in or near Jedburgh, Mr. Hope-Scott had a perfect moral as well as legal
right to spend his money in building a chapel, without either having it
burned down by a mob, or himself pointed at from the bench. As a matter of
fact, however, there does appear to have been a congregation as well as a
chapel. The Lord Justice-Clerk was pleased to add that the Roman Catholic
school attached to the chapel 'could not but have been of the utmost use;'
and we could thence infer that, Roman Catholic children having parents,
there must have been use also for the chapel. The fact relied on, of the
priest 'living at Jedburgh,' is evidence, we should think, not of a want of
hearers, but of a want of funds to pay two priests. But look where we
should be landed, on this hand or on that, if others than those that choose
to provide the money are to decide where church-building is 'necessary' or
is 'prudent.' The extreme chapel-attendance of Episcopalians in the county
of Roxburgh was shown by the census to be 454; and for the accommodation of
that number the county contains five chapels. Four of them might be
pronounced not 'necessary,' and all of them not 'prudent.' Or, to go from
the country of the rioters to that of the rioted upon. In our humble
opinion, seven-eighths of the churches belonging to the Establishment in
Ireland are utterly unnecessary, and every one of them very imprudent.
Such, too, is notoriously the opinion of all but a fraction of the
population among whom, and out of whose funds, these churches are built and
maintained. The late lamented Roman Catholic chapel at Kelso was
immeasurably less unnecessary and offensive than these; for not only had it
a congregation, but was paid for only by those that used it or approved of
it. Of course, the Lord Justice-Clerk did not mean that his opinion or that
of any other man as to the chapel being unnecessary was any justification
of the outrage--his lordship said the contrary very impressively; but his
remark, though not what is called a fortunate one, is useful as indicating,
in however faint and refined shape and degree, the feeling which on such
topics is apt to lead us all more or less astray.

MISSIONS IN THE WESTERN HIGHLANDS: MOIDART.

The purchase by Mr. Hope-Scott of the estate at Lochshiel, in the wilds of
Moidart, his 'Highland Paraguay,' as Cardinal Manning calls it, in an old
letter to him (January 28, 1856), was attended, as I have already hinted
(p. 150), by some noteworthy circumstances. In the first place, the
condition of the Catholic remnant in the Highlands is, perhaps, little
known even to Catholic readers. An interesting letter to Mr. Hope-Scott,
dated October 12, 1854, from the Rev. D. Macdonald, in charge of the
mission of Fortwilliam, furnishes a statistical table, from which it
appears that in 1851, in the Highlands and insular districts within the
range of his knowledge, there was but one single school, where, to do
justice, considering the scattered population, there ought to have been
twenty-six. The people were so miserably poor, that out of thirteen
missions, only one could afford their priest 50_l_. per annum; one,
35_l_.; three, 30_l_.; and the rest, ranging from 25_l_.
down to as low as 12_l_. per annum. Of course the priests could not
subsist on these incomes without some other aid, and this was obtained by
taking small farms, from which they endeavoured to eke out a living.

'In Moidart' (I here copy from another well-informed correspondent) 'a
severe crisis had just passed over the people. The cruel treatment which
has depopulated the greater portion of the Highlands, and converted large
tracts of country into sheep-farms and deer-forests, had overtaken them.
Dozens of unfortunate families occupying the more fertile portions of the
estate were ruthlessly torn from their homes, and shipped away to Australia
and America. Their good old priest, the Rev. Ranald Rankin, broken-hearted
at the desolation which had come over his flock, accompanied the larger
portion of these wanderers to the shores of Australia. His impression at
the time was, that the whole of the country, sooner or later, would share
the same unhappy fate; for in bidding farewell to his Bishop, the late Dr.
Murdoch, Vicar-Apostolic of the Western District, he assured his lordship,
who felt at a loss how to supply his place, that it was a matter of little
or no consequence, as the mission was practically ruined already. The
Bishop's reply was characteristic: "Moidart has always been a Catholic
district; and so long as there remains one Catholic family in it, for the
sake of its old steadfastness, I shall not leave it unprovided."'

In the meantime, Mr. Hope-Scott, having already become a landed proprietor
in Ireland, in the county Mayo, much wished to possess also a Highland
property. Lochshiel was offered to him; but, after consideration, he
decided against taking it. In 1855 the estate was again in the market, but
Mr. Hope-Scott had not heard of it. The owner, Macdonald of Lochshiel, was
a Catholic, and, it may be presumed, a devout one, since he had the Blessed
Sacrament and a priest in his house. He had been obliged to sell, and the
property had been bought by a brother-in-law of his, named Macdonell, who
added to the house. He, too, found himself obliged to sell, and this time
the estate was on the point of passing into the hands of people from London
who would have rooted out the Catholic population from the land. Hearing
that it had been actually sold to Protestants, two old ladies of the same
family, living at Portobello, went to the lawyer, and asked him, if
possible, to postpone the signature of the deeds for nine or ten days, to
give another purchaser a chance. He agreed to do so. They then commenced a
novena that a Catholic might buy it. (I ought perhaps to explain, for the
benefit of some of my readers, that Catholics have great faith in the
efficacy of prayer persevered in for nine days when there is some important
object to be gained.) The ninth day came, and Mr. Hope-Scott purchased the
property, for the sum of 24,000_l_., without even having seen it. His
attention had been drawn to it by the late Mrs. Colonel Hutchison, of
Edinburgh, a lady well known among Scotch Catholics for her shrewd good
sense and innumerable good works. He certainly was induced to purchase by
the fact that Lochshiel had never been out of Catholic hands, and that all
the population were Catholic, with the personal motive, however, of
providing his wife with a quiet and pleasant change of residence.

'On his arrival, the character of the people, and the wild and glorious
scenery of the place, made a favourable and lasting impression on his mind;
[Footnote: How deeply the Highland scenery impressed his imagination may be
seen from the beautiful verses, 'Low Tide at Sunset on the Highland Coast,
which will be found in Appendix IV.] but the state of the country might
have appeared to him as little more advanced than under the earlier
Clanranald chiefs three or four centuries ago. The peasants generally were
in a state of great poverty. Their cottages were miserable turf cabins,
black and smoky; agriculture was imperfectly understood among them, and the
small patches of moorland upon which they tried to raise crops of oats and
potatoes were inadequate to the maintenance of themselves and their
families. There was no demand or employment of labour. There was no school
upon the estate. The principal building assigned to religious worship, and
which served as the central chapel for Moidart, was a miserable thatched
edifice, destitute of everything befitting the service of religion. The
want of good roads was severely felt. It was difficult to get into "the
_Rough Bounds_" as this part of the Highlands was aptly styled by the
more favoured districts, and, once in, it was more difficult still to get
out.

'Mr. Hope-Scott lost no time in trying to improve matters. It was a
fundamental maxim with him that, in a neglected estate like this, no
improvement was more sensible, or paid better, than the construction of
good roads. These occupied his attention for several years, and gave most
beneficial employment to the tenants. The cost in some instances was very
great; for, in constructing the present beautiful carriage drive from Sheil
Brude to Dorlin House, hundreds of yards of solid rock had to be blasted;
part of the river Sheil had to be embanked; huge boulders between the
cliffs and the sea-shore had to be cleared away, while a considerable line
of breastwork had to be erected as a protection against the waves of the
Atlantic, which, in a southwest gale, beat with great fury against the
coast. The other roads were carried to those parts of the estate where the
tenants were principally clustered, and were a great boon.

[These road-making operations in the Highlands were evidently in Mr. Hope-
Scott's mind in one of his last letters to his dear friend Dr. Newman. The
great Oratorian, then busy with the 'Grammar of Assent,' writes to him on
January 2, 1870: 'My dear Hope-Scott,--A happy new year to you and all
yours--and to Bellasis and all his.... I am engaged, as Bellasis knows, in
cutting across the Isthmus of Suez; and though I have got so far as to let
the water into the canal, there is an awkward rock in mid-channel near the
mouth which takes a great deal of picking and blasting, and no man-of-war
will be able to pass through till I get rid of it. Thus I can't name a day
for the opening. Ever yours affectionately,--JOHN H. NEWMAN.'

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