nd to substitute
in their place labourers and farmers from the south of Scotland. The
helpless population of the glens and hill-sides were thus sent to
wander, poor and ignorant of anything but their own homes, and speaking
no language but their mother tongue, and wholly unskilled in any
practical wisdom. Some emigrated, but many were pressed into service on
board the emigrant ships, although the commanders of those vessels could
not, in some instances, prevail upon themselves to tear the Highlanders
away from their wives and families.

To remedy this melancholy state of affairs, and to employ the banished
mountaineers, it was proposed about the year 1794, to embody some of the
sufferers, the Macdonnells of Glengarry in particular, into a Catholic
corps, under their young chieftain, Alexander Macdonnell, and employ
them in the service of the English Government. This scheme, after many
difficulties, was accomplished. At first, it worked well for the relief
of the destitute clan; but, in 1802, in spite of their acknowledged good
conduct, the Glengarry regiment was disbanded.

The friend of the unfortunate, who had originally proposed the
consolidation of the corps, was Dr. Macdonald, who had been afterwards
appointed chaplain to the regiment. He now projected another scheme for
the maintenance of the clan Glengarry; and, after some opposition, his
plan was effected. It was to convey the whole of the Macdonnells, with
their wives and families, to a district in Upper Canada, where the clan,
at this moment, is permanently established. The place in which they live
bears the name of their native glen, and the farms they possess are
called by the loved appellations of their former tenements: and, when
the American war tried the fidelity of the emigrants, the clan gave a
proof of their loyalty by enrolling themselves into a corps, under the
old name of the Glengarry Fencibles.[251]

In the battle of Killicrankie, Glengarry had led his forces to fight for
James the Second; and after that engagement, in which Glengarry had had
a brother killed, he had become very obnoxious to the Government, and
had found it necessary to retire for some time, whilst his more favoured
friend Lochiel tranquilly occupied his own house of Achnacarrie, a place
wholly undefended. The retreat in which Glengarry hid himself was a
small wooded island in Lochacaig; and in this seclusion a manoeuvre
was planned, highly characteristic of the subtlety, and y