of the Lochalsh estate. Men's minds were harassed-their lives embittered—their expectations totally crushed, by the persevering impolicy of their formerly kind landlord; and when a letter arrived from some refugee in America, recommending expatriation, the prospect then held out was seized on, as a raft is betaken to by shipwrecked mariners. I do not say-I never said—that Mr Lillingston planned, enforced, and carried out any special scheme of emigration, such as Colonel Gordon, Mr Baillie of Genelg, and others, have cruelly executed; but I fearlessly affirm, that the bulk of the parties emigrating would have been overjoyed to remain at home, if the relaxation of Mr Lillingston's system had left them a ray of rational hope that things would have taken a better turn. Of the awful loss of life which has unhappily attended these exports of human beings, I would only observe, that I cannot consider these casualties as necessarily connected with emigration, for pestilence can slay at home as well as abroad. But one view of the subject will press heavily on every humane mindWhy drive men into premature foreign graves, who might have filled up the measure of their days in the land of their ancestors ? I part amicably with Mr Lillingston, although we differ so widely. I am confident he has perplexities to encounter; but I entreat him to consider whether a portion of his difficulties may not have originated in his own faulty system, which it would delight me to see graciously amended.

Taking a boat from Balmacarra, the lover of the picturesque will luxuriate on the landscapes which crowd on the eye, as the loch of Glenelg is pleasantly traversed. I have enjoyed my share of fine scenery on the Continent, and in our British isles, but I am not clear that I have noticed any natural beauties surpassing those of Glenelg. All that the fortunate locality requires is a liberal resident proprietor, and a thriving happy tenantry, which do not exist in this lovely spot. The owner of Glenelg is Mr Baillie of Culduthel, and I am informed that this gentleman has not visited his estate during the last ten years. There is, of course, no law on the statute-book binding a proprietor to "illuminate with his presence" (as Chinese hyperbole has it) the property and people which he has inherited or purchased. But when a stranger reaches the territory of an absentee proprietor, and finds misery, squalidness, and destitution at every step, the thought will repeatedly recur, can it be possible that the proprietor of this region of wretchedness

and pauperism is at all cognisant of this calamitous state of things? Now, in fairness, I deal thus with Mr Baillie, who is, I take for granted, a man of intellect and information-either he knows or he does not know that Glenelg, notwithstanding the drain of compulsory emigration, swarms with pitiable peasants in the most frightful state of destitution. If he is aware of their state, and yet takes no steps to amend their condition, all I can say is, that much as I pity the poor people of Glenelg, I pity the rich proprietor much more! But if Mr Baillie should plead ignorance of the actual state of a numerous population, where can the blame be cast but upon his own culpable inertness? Well, to remedy his su pineness, I propose to offer Mr Baillie a slight sketch derived from personal observation, of what he may readily verify whenever it shall please him to direct his movements towards Glenelg. I have no positive interests blended with the subject-he emphatically has-so I trust he will acknowledge himself benefited by my unselfish communications. Whenever you meet in the Highlands knots of dwellings, from which issue forth numbers of unemployed persons, half-clothed and half-fed, gaunt, and moping, and mournful-the explanation of this frightful face of rustic society, if furnished by a factor, primed with the current slang of the day, is invariably-over-population! The worthy proprietor (especially if he be a rich bachelor) is, of course, quite blameless in all that appertains to this aggregate of want and wretchedness. How can he be expected to support the multiplying paupers that fearfully infest his estate? Is it not shocking that a landlord, instead of pocketing "nett income," should be required to find subsistence for idle, thriftless tenants? These are the hard questions with which Mr Baillie's man-of-business would infallibly attempt to pose me, if we should come in contact at Glenelg to-morrow. But I have prosecuted my enquiries too deeply in the Highlands to be made the victim of such stupid sophistry as factors, or their masters or the adulatory scribes patronised by their masters-would fain impose upon me. Instead of parleying with some surly "ground-officer" (as the Courier would counsel me), I apply myself to the discovery of the true condition of the people before me, and what do I find? Why, that not an able-bodied head of a family has a fifth part of the land that he could cultivate productively; and, moreover, would gladly pay a proper, equitable rent for. Employment, other than in this way, is totally out of the

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question; for the proprietor employs no labourers, and sheepfarmers require only a few shepherds. As in despite of the most rigorous regulations, lawful marriage cannot be effectually checked, and families still follow the law of increase, the result is, that human beings are doubled down, if I may so express myself, into a state of constrained slothfulness, and consequent starvation, while they gaze with ghastly desperation on vast breadths of cultivable land, which they are forbidden to render fruitful! Oh, but they have no capital," Mr Baillie, eyeing his banker's book, would, no doubt, complacently inform us. But I tell Mr Baillie, that where stalwart arms can be profitably exercised in increasing the productive power of the soil, a more useful capital is in course of organization than ever slept in the coffers of the sons of usury! If Mr Baillie could be prevailed on to let sufficient land at a moderate rate (not two pounds per acre, as at present)-Glenelg would not importune him for capital, but, on the contrary, would, in the shape of augmenting, aggregate rent, soon minister very gratifyingly to his accumulations.

My letter has grown into such length, that I cannot claim additional space for commenting on the emigrations which have rid Glenelg of portions of her population, without, in the smallest degree, relieving the wretchedness of the sufferers who remain. And this will be found constantly the case wherever the consequences of compulsory emigration are truthfully tracked. The real drift of those proprietors who would force on emigration, is not to abridge the number of the peasantry, but to sweep all population from off their estates. They are enamoured of sheep-walks, and they dread the possible retribution of the poor-law-avenging upon proprietors the discouragement of industry, which is one of the chief causes of pauperisation. Therefore it is that ship-loads of exiled natives would not render the condition of the Glenelg remnant a whit more endurable. Not a single croft would be enlarged, although hundreds of expelled crofters should be carried across the Atlantic, and die of famine or fever in the wilds of Canada. But this subject is so fruitful in important themes, that I shall take care to revive it ere long.—I am, Sir, your obedient servant, THOMAS MULOCK.

Inverness, December 13. 1849.

THE EMIGRATIONS FROM LOCHALSH, GLENELG, AND SOUTH UIST.

To the Editor of the Inverness Advertiser.

SIR,—It was not my intention to return so speedily to this subject, but a sense of justice impels me to clear up many topics which I plainly perceive are clouded and confounded by the erring zeal of divers ill-informed writers in the Edinburgh journals. In these palmy days of the pen, there appears to me to be no small danger that the cause of truth may be overlaid and sacrificed by a surplusage of scribbling. We have large classes of practised penmen who seize upon topics which agitate the public mind—praise or pay being the legitimate stimulants, and yet whose lucubrations, however clever or influential, lack the essence of real usefulness, namely, that comprehensive impartiality which studies to embrace all sides of the subject. This may, at first sight, be deemed a high and hard requirement; but on juster consideration it will be found to consist in simply adhering to truth.

In the angry discussions to which the subject of Highland clearances and emigrations has given rise, a new element of contention has been introduced, in the shape of a grave charge against the Highland Destitution Committee; and it is boldly and confidently alleged by some persons of polemical and popular note, that the committee have abused their trust by concertedly co-operating with certain proprietors to promote compulsory emigration. Now I do not feel myself at all disposed to come forward as the champion of the Highland Destitution Committee, whose errors and shortcomings I have frequently exposed, and shall never shrink from publicly pointing out; but I must frankly avow my persuasion, founded on a personal knowledge of the subject of Highland emigrations, that the charge preferred by Dr Begg and others is not sustainable. It is one thing to write at an Edinburgh desk, or to declaim from an Edinburgh platform, upon the stirring theme of Highland oppression; but it is quite another thing to lay before the public well-considered details derived from honest, searching inquiries, made on the spot-gathered from all quarters-compared, and sifted, and modified, so as to justify clear, general conclusions. Whether my own communications come up to the mark on these points, it is not for me to presume; but I can conscientiously declare, that I have spared no pains to qualify myself for investigat

ing the true state of things in the Highlands; and my very strangership has been of service to me; for, if I have had more to learn, I have not had to divest myself of either the antipathies or the predilections which cleave closely, though, I admit, naturally, to the mind and affections of the Scottish people.

So far as my enquiries extended-and I travelled in the tracks of emigration operations-the nature of the aid afforded by the Highland Destitution Committee was as follows. In the districts which became the scene of emigration movements, great poverty palpably prevailed; and on reference to documents, it would be evidently seen that the bulk of the population were inscribed on the relief lists of the Highland Destitution Committee. When any special scheme of emigration was arranged between proprietors and the parties consenting to emigrate, then the question arose, how far the funds of the committee could be made available in contributing to the sustentation of the voyaging exiles? Now, admitting that the emigrants had been on the relief lists, and must inevitably have continued so if no departures took place from districts where destitution so fearfully existed; where, I would ask, was the guiltiness in advancing, as a viaticum for a voyage, such an amount as would have been infallibly expended on families if they remained in this country? I, for one, do not believe, because I am furnished with no proof, that a single plan of emigration originated in a compact made between a proprietor and the Highland Destitution Committee. No case ever came under my examination, which did not fully prove that emigration would have unavoidably taken place if the Highland Board had declined to supply any succour. It is true that certain stipulations accompanied the grants of the committee, which, in practice, turned out wholly inoperative, as I shall presently explain; but this only serves to show the scandalous bad faith of the delinquent proprietors, not surely the ill intentions of the committee, although the credulity of the latter may be open to censure.

The emigrations from the Highlands would, I am convinced, have taken place, if the Highland Destitution Committee had never commanded a single sixpence. It is to the gross mal-administration of property in the Highlands that we must look for the solution of that want, and wretchedness, and oppression which, when hideously matured, make way for the expatriation of despairing, mourning multitudes. Some adventurous individuals,