ters in Virginia. It was a trade which in the early part of the
eighteenth century, was carried on to a considerable extent through the
Highlands; and a case which took place about 1742 attracted much notice
a few years later, when one of the victims having escaped from
servitude, returned to Aberdeen, and published a narrative of his
sufferings, seriously implicating some of the magistracy of the town. He
was prosecuted and condemned for libel by the local authorities, but the
case was afterwards carried to Edinburgh. The iniquitous system of
kidnapping was fully exposed, and the judges of the supreme court
unanimously reversed the verdict of the Aberdeen authorities and imposed
a heavy fine upon the provost, the four bailies, and the dean of guild.
*** An atrocious case of this kind, which shows clearly the state of the
Highlands, occurred in 1739. Nearly one hundred men, women and children
were seized in the dead of night on the islands of Skye and Harris,
pinioned, horribly beaten, and stowed away in a ship bound for America,
in order to be sold to the planters. Fortunately the ship touched at
Donaghadee in Ireland, and the prisoners, after undergoing the most
frightful sufferings, succeeded in escaping."[4]

Under existing circumstances it was but natural that the more
enterprising, and especially that intelligent portion who had lost their
heritable jurisdiction, should turn with longing eyes to another
country. America offered the most inviting asylum. Although there was
some emigration to America during the first half of the eighteenth
century, yet it did not fairly set in until about 1760. Between the
years 1763 and 1775 over twenty thousand Highlanders left their homes to
seek a better retreat in the forests of America.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: "Description of the Western Islands," pp. 199, 200.]

[Footnote 2: "Letters from the North," Vol. II., p. 167.]

[Footnote 3: Lord Mahon's "History of England," Vol. III, pp. 308-311.]

[Footnote 4: Lecky's "History of England," Vol. II, p. 274.]

CHAPTER II.

THE SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA.

The name Scotland was never applied to that country, now so designated,
before the tenth century, but was called Alban, Albania, Albion. At an
early period Ireland was called Scotia, which name was exclusively so
applied before the tenth century. Scotia was then a territorial or
geographical term, while Scotus was a race name or generic term,
implying people as well