',
A' ready to speed to a far distant shore;
She may come hame again wi' the yellow gowd laden,
But the sons of Glendarra shall come back no more.

The gowan may spring by the clear-rinnin' burnie,
The cushat may coo in the green woods again.
The deer o' the mountain may drink at the fountain,
Unfettered and free as the wave on the main;
But the pibroch they played o'er the sweet blooming heather
Is hushed in the sound of the ocean's wild roar;
The song and the dance they hae vanish'd thegither,
For the maids o' Glendarra shall come back no more."

PREFACE.

An attempt is here made to present a field that has not been
preoccupied. The student of American history has noticed allusions to
certain Scotch Highland settlements prior to the Revolution, without any
attempt at either an account or origin of the same. In a measure the
publication of certain state papers and colonial records, as well as an
occasional memoir by an historical society have revived what had been
overlooked. These settlements form a very important and interesting
place in the early history of our country. While they may not have
occupied a very prominent or pronounced position, yet their exertions in
subduing the wilderness, their activity in the Revolution, and the wide
influence exercised by the descendants of these hardy pioneers, should,
long since, have brought their history and achievements into notice.

The settlement in North Carolina, embracing a wide extent of territory,
and the people numbered by the thousands, should, ere this, have found a
competent exponent. But it exists more as a tradition than an actual
colony. The Highlanders in Georgia more than acted their part against
Spanish encroachments, yet survived all the vicissitudes of their
exposed position. The stay of the Highlanders on the Mohawk was very
brief, yet their flight into Canada and final settlement at Glengarry
forms a very strange episode in the history of New York. The heartless
treatment of the colony of Lachlan Campbell by the governor of the
province of New York, and their long delayed recompense stands without a
parallel, and is so strange and fanciful, that long since it should have
excited the poet or novelist. The settlements in Nova Scotia and Prince
Edwards Island, although scarcely commenced at the breaking out of the
Revolution, are more important in later events than those chronicled in
this