SCOTLAND, 1773. In the sparsely roaded northern ‘Highlands’ the countryside is wild and romantic but devoid of many of the luxuries of life. Extensive felling of the native Scots pine forests has left most of the hills covered with heather. The population is sparse. People mostly live in scattered small farms. They resent having been disarmed, and stopped by an act of an English Parliament from wearing tartan on pain of six months’ imprisonment or banishment to the colonies. The clan system has been banned but, with the rule of law far from established, clan chieftains continue to have authority. Whisky is being distilled in countless illicit secret stills. In central Scotland some 57,000 people, rich and poor, struggle to live in the tall, disease-ridden tenements, cobbled streets and stinking, narrow wynds of Edinburgh’s Old Town. Here, at its heart, lies Boyd’s Inn, terminus for
