other, has been a leader of the
people, particularly during the time of the corn-law reformation, and
_she_ has been known to take a wide and generous interest in all these
subjects. Every where that I have moved through Scotland and England I
have heard her kindness of heart, her affability of manner, and her
attention to the feelings of others spoken of as marked characteristics.

Imagine, then, what people must think when they find in respectable
American prints the absurd story of her turning her tenants out into the
snow, and ordering the cottages to be set on fire over their heads
because they would not go out.

But, if you ask how such an absurd story could ever have been made up,
whether there is the least foundation to make it on, I answer, that it
is the exaggerated report of a movement made by the present Duke of
Sutherland's father, in the year 1811, and which was part of a great
movement that passed through, the Highlands of Scotland, when the
advancing progress of civilization began to make it necessary to change
the estates from military to agricultural establishments.

Soon after the union of the crowns of England and Scotland, the border
chiefs found it profitable to adopt upon their estates that system, of
agriculture to which their hills were adapted, rather than to continue
the maintenance of military retainers. Instead of keeping garrisons,
with small armies, in a district, they decided to keep only so many as
could profitably cultivate the land. The effect of this, of course, was
like disbanding an army. It threw many people out of employ, and forced
them to seek for a home elsewhere. Like many other movements which, in
their final results, are beneficial to society, this was at first
vehemently resisted, and had to be carried into effect in some cases by
force. As I have said, it began first in the southern counties of
Scotland, soon after the union of the English and Scottish crowns, and
gradually crept northward--one county after another yielding to the
change. To a certain extent, as it progressed northward, the demand for
labor in the great towns absorbed the surplus population; but when it
came into the extreme Highlands, this refuge was wanting. Emigration to
America now became the resource; and the surplus population were induced
to this by means such as the Colonization Society now recommends and
approves for promoting emigration to Liberia.

The first farm that was so formed on the Sut