using, with great interest, the cleverly-compiled Culloden Papers, I was so lucky as to pop upon an epistle from the "Lady Margarett Macdonald to Lord Milton, Justice-Clerk, concerning emigration to America, dated Sky, Jany. 1. 1746." The letter is so very piquante, that I must indulge your Lordship with an extract or two; and although the good Lady's orthography is occasionally somewhat obsolete, yet she pleads the cause of her liege lord with as much zeal as the present Lady Macdonald could possibly evince, if she felt moved to pen a polite and perfumed billet to JusticeClerk Hope, in refutation of my uncourtly censures. Thus writeth the blandishing Dame of the olden time:-" Dear Justice, -Being informed by different hands from Edr. that there is a currant Report of a Ship's having gon from thiss Country with a greate many people designd for America, and that Sir Alexr. is thought to have concurred in forceing these people away; as I am positive of the falshood of this, and quite acquainted with the danger of a Report of this kind, I beg leave to informe your Lodp. of the reall matter of fact. In Hervest last, wee were pritty much alarm'd with accounts, from different corners of thiss and some neighbouring Islands, of persons being seized and carry'd aboard of a Ship which putt into differant places on thiss coast. Sir Alexr. was both angery and concern'd at that time to hear that some of his oune people were taken in thiss manner; but cou'd not learn who were the actors in thiss wicked scrape, till the Ship was gon. One Norman McLeod, with a number of fellows that he had pick'd up to execute his intentions, were the Real Actors of thiss affair. Sir Alexr. never made much noise about the thing, in hop's that this Normand McLleod might some time or other cast up; but he has never yet appaired in thiss part of the world, and probably never will as the thing has made so much noise. Tho' thiss is the real matter of fact, Sir Alexr. can't help being concerned that he should be any ways mentioned in the story, tho' quite innosent. This affair has made so much noise with you because of the way it has been represented from Irland, that possibly there may be an intention of prosecuting Sir Alexr. If that should go on, though it cannot be dangerous to him, yet it cannot faill of being both troublesome and expensive. And therefore let me begg of your Lop' to write to the people of poure above to prevent this impending Evell, because a little time may bring the real actors to a tryall, which I dare say your Lop' wou'd rather

see in a pannel than imagenery persons that had no hand in the matter." The worthy "Lady Margarett" does not afford us the means of judging why her "inosent" lord and master should be singled out for prosecution instead of the actual delinquents, but she shows us that the aristocracy then, as now, were anxious to get the ear of "the people of poure above" (the Sir George Greys of the last century), in order to effect what the law could not do for them. I am aware that this dark transaction in which (I presume) your Lordship's ancestor appears to have been at least calumniously involved, will be set down as a mere case of kidnapping, bearing no analogy with the sort of shipment which your Lordship designed to make of the poor people of Sollas; but, without wishing to lay too heavy a hand upon your Lordship's recent peccadillo, I must honestly say that the fresh form of forced emigration seems to me more objectionable than the old system of the Skye man-catcher. For in the latter instance of the buccaneering Macleod, the law was very properly called in to visit the suspected culprits with condign punishment-whereas at Sollas, the Sheriff and a posse comitatus were employed, contrary to law, in bullying or cajoling the poor people to consent to compulsory emigration. Let me express my belief that no Scottish Sheriffs will ever again (from defective judgment) lend themselves and their official weight to subserve the improper ulterior objects of any ejecting proprietor; let Sheriffs enforce lawful ejectments as strictly as they may, but let them wisely refrain from mixing up banishment with ejectment. After this little episode, let me now entreat your Lordship's attention to the main drift of my present letter. On former occasions I dwelt on the rank injustice—the barbaric despotism--the palpable defiance of all Christianity-which mark every movement of those Highland proprietors who openly avow their settled purpose of thinning their tenantry by means of forced emigration. But the hearts that can coldly plan, and wickedly work out, such iniquities, are proof against appeals in the cause of humanity. Their actuating axiom is to do evil that good may come-i. e. good unto themselves, for all consideration of benefit towards their wretched vassals is scouted from their selfish schemes. Now, my Lord, I am so scripturally persuaded of the utter blindness and fatal folly of all projects of injustice, that I am as certain as I am of future judgment, that temporal disappointment and destruction will infallibly await the promoters of all such wholesale evictions

B

and emigrations, as your Lordship's commissioner endeavoured to effect at Sollas. I am not adverting to any special visitation, of an openly judicial cast. I speak of the sure, inevitable consequences of a pernicious system your Lordship and many other misguided proprietors are now desperately bent upon-dissolving the relation which the only wise God has ordained to subsist between cultivable land and progressive population. You want to rid your estates of human beings, and to crowd them with sheep. From glens and straths, where manly industry and womanly thrift had for generations matured a social condition, which conduced to the prosperity of their superiors, the present population are now to be cruelly driven and for what? Why, to have their once happy homes levelled for the sheep-walk of some stranger who, provided his flocks are fed, cares no more for the improvement of property than a South American cattle-catcher, who lives by his lasso. The fact is, that your Lordship, and other sticklers for emigration, are doing your utmost to turn back the tide of civilization, and to restore the sheep solitudes (but not the kindly affections) of the patriarchal times. A vile fabrication is always the ready plea of the emigration-mongers. They invariably assert, of any peopled district, fore-doomed to desolation, that it is incapable of producing subsistence for man-quite unfit for even common cultivation! And yet hearty men and women have been nourished by the produce of their industry in these very tracts of land, and contributed rents which went to feed the depopulating despots who now desire to reign in deserts of their own making. That the heathery hills of Scotland are suitable for sheep, is a truth open to a traveller's observation; but the mighty man of sheep must have "every valley," as well as every hill, transferred to him before he agrees to give the lumping rent so dazzling to a short-sighted factor; croft after croft, where village smiled, must be from henceforth unploughed and unsown-and at the touch of these magicians of misery, yclept sheep-owners, a succession of happy hamlets is converted into a wilderness. Aye, but the rent-the rent-cries some commissioners of Lord Macdonald, or of the Duke of Sutherland, or of Mr Baillie of Glenelg. Now it is the universal belief that all these sheep-farmers are rented too low: and let them pay what they may, one thing is certain, they do not, and they cannot effect any improvement on property which has been devoted to barrenness for their sakes. Within a few miles of the place where

I write, this cruel system has long been in full operation; three or four opulent sheep-owners possess the sweet straths which were formerly subdivided among small agriculturists, but which are now like a region laid waste by some hostile spoiler. I passed yesterday through a district ruled by a shepherd king, a roitelet renter of the Duke of Sutherland's bye-gone village lands, and the sight was truly sorrowful. Vestiges of dykes, obscure remains of houses, traces of pristine cultivation-but for aught else, I seemed to be "out of humanity's reach," within half-a-dozen miles of the proud towers of the gorgeous Dunrobin! I had the culpable curiosity to approach the mansion of this sheep monarch, and I found the premises and grounds presenting the appearance of an Irish house and demesne on an estate withering under a chancery receivership. There was not so much as a paling before the hall door, giving me to conceive that surplus sheep might be folded in the parlour. And why not? for do not this great man's sheep, like the Irishman's pig, "pay the rint plaze your honour." But that rent is, I am confident, poor in comparison with the aggregate rents which would be cheerfully paid by industrious tillers of the soil, if the Duke of Sutherland had moral boldness to forego the false principle which prompted the havoc and horror that more than thirty years ago stained the modern annals of Sutherlandshire. But I must reserve this theme for another class of communications, making thus much use of it to assure your Lordship, that what Strathbrora is now, Sollas will infallibly become, if your emigration scheme be not signally frustrated. Two or three sheep-farmers will line their purses while leasing your Lordship's pasturages, and will then make their bow and invest their capital in some other country.

Benjamin Franklin has laid down some sarcastic "rules for reducing a great empire to a small one," and it strikes me that the venerable Mr Loch, with the aid of your Lordship's juvenile commissioner, Mr Cooper, might concur in concocting an essay "on the art of pauperising great proprietors." The mysteries of management might be discreetly disclosed, so as to form a hand-book for rising evictors and emigrationists, and as pictorial embellishments are now on a par with letter-press, some dashing artist might help out the doctrine of depopulation with spirited sketches of the old Sutherland clearings, relieved by head and tail pieces of

the unroofings at Sollas.—I have the honour to be, your Lordship's obedient servant, THOMAS MULOCK.

P.S.-I had intended to put some questions to your Lordship, bearing upon the treaty negotiated by Captain Elliott with the head of the house of Macdonald, the paramount condition of which was-the granting of leases to small tenants on your Lordship's estates; but I postpone this subject until I come specially to an inquiry into the achievements of the gallant captain, as InspectorGeneral for the Highland Destitution Committee.

Golspie, October 18. 1849.

GOOD TIDINGS OF LORD MACDONALD.

To the Editor of the Inverness Advertiser.

SIR,-As I have not scrupled, when I conceived the interests of truth and justice made it necessary, to censure the conduct of Lord Macdonald as a proprietor; I feel a still greater eagerness in giving publicity to the following facts, just made known to me by a friend on whose veracity I can confidently rely, and who, indeed, was a witness to the gratifying proceedings I now refer to.

Instead of pertinaciously pursuing an erroneous and oppressive system, which I, with others, ventured to expose and condemn; Lord Macdonald, influenced by the high and generous sentiments which befit his position, has, it appears, authorised his Commissioner, Mr Cooper, to announce to all his Lordship's tenants in Skye and North Uist the following liberal intentions :—

All parties who have paid rent regularly during the last five years of tenancy, are to be granted leases—it is stated of 21 years.

All tenants now in arrear shall, on the payment of the last Martinmas rent, receive an acquittance of all such arrears; and the expectation is held out, that if they continue to pay their rents punctually during the next ensuing three years, leases will be granted to them also.

I am further informed that other excellent arrangements are contemplated, which will have the effect of throwing a large additional quantity of land into cultivation, so as materially to improve the condition of the poorer peasantry.