ina,
between April and July 1770, conveying twelve hundred emigrants. Early
in 1771, according to the "Scots Magazine," there were five hundred
emigrants from Islay, and the adjacent Islands, preparing to sail in the
following summer for America "under the conduct of a gentleman of wealth
and merit whose predecessors resided in Islay for many centuries past."
The paper farther notes that "there is a large colony of the most
wealthy and substantial people in Skye making ready to follow the
example of the Argathelians in going to the fertile and cheap lands on
the other side of the Atlantic ocean. It is to be dreaded that these
migrations will prove hurtful to the mother country; and therefore its
friends ought to use every proper method to prevent them." These Skye
men to the number of three hundred and seventy, in due time left for
America. The September issue states that "several of them are people of
property who intend making purchases of land in America. The late great
rise of the rents in the Western Islands of Scotland is said to be the
reason of this emigration."

The "Scots Magazine" states that the ship Adventure sailed from Loch
Erribol, Sunday August 17, 1772, with upwards of two hundred emigrants
from Sutherlandshire for North Carolina. There were several emigrations
from Sutherlandshire that year. In June eight families arrived in
Greenock, and two other contingents--one of one hundred and the other of
ninety souls--were making their way to the same place en route to
America. The cause of this emigration they assign to be want of the
means of livelihood at home, through the opulent graziers engrossing the
farms, and turning them into pasture. Several contributions have been
made for these poor people in towns through which they passed.

During the year 1773, emigrants from all parts of the Highlands sailed
for America. The "Courant" of April 3, 1773, reports that "the unlucky
spirit of emigration" had not diminished, and that several of the
inhabitants of Skye, Lewis, and other places were preparing to emigrate
to America during the coming summer "and seek for the sustenance abroad
which they allege they cannot find at home." In its issue for July 3,
1773, the same paper states that eight hundred people from Skye were
then preparing to go to North Carolina and that they had engaged a
vessel at Greenock to carry them across the Atlantic. In the issue of
the same paper for September 15th, same year, appears