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yeomanry of Fifeshire, and he soon came to be recognized as the special
champion of the smaller tenantry at agricultural meetings. At one of
these meetings he conceived himself to have been discourteously treated
by his neighbour, the Earl of Kellie. The discourtesy does not seem to
have been of a serious nature, but Mr. Gourlay became irritated to a
degree altogether disproportionate to the offence. He wrote and
published a pamphlet, in which Lord Kellie was handled with much
severity. It was circulated by the author throughout Fifeshire, and
widely read; and from this time forward he was much given to taking the
public into his confidence respecting his personal grievances. His
attack on Lord Kellie, however, weakened his popularity, and in 1809,
partly owing to this cause, and partly to his being in temporary
ill-health, he accepted a proposal from the Duke of Somerset to become
the tenant of a farm belonging to his Grace, and situated in the parish
of Wily, in Wiltshire. For a time all went well with him in his new
abode. His farm was a model for the emulation of all the landholders in
the parish, and his products gained prize after prize at successive
agricultural exhibitions. But Mr. Gourlay was nothing if not critical,
and certain of his surroundings afforded legitimate grounds for
fault-finding. There were many and serious defects in the system of
administering the poor-laws of Great Britain in those days, and the
administration in the parish of Wily was attended by some specially
objectionable features. These erelong became painfully apparent to the
keen eyes of Mr. Gourlay, who began to agitate for a reform. He went
into the matter with characteristic earnestness, and, by dint of
constant speechifying and weekly letters addressed to the local
newspapers, he soon began to produce an impression. His appetite for
agitation grew by what it fed upon, insomuch that he became a confirmed
grievance-monger and hunter-up of abuses. The magnates of the county
began to look coldly upon him, and even, in some instances, to array
themselves in open opposition to him. This only tended still further to
arouse the native pugnacity of his disposition, and his attacks upon
local abuses and those who upheld them became more and more violent.
Now, in all this there can be no doubt that Mr. Gourlay was from first
to last chiefly actuated by genuine philanthropy. He certainly had no
selfish or pecuniary purpose to serve; and indee