re_ (Boston,
1791) quotes a letter from the Rev. James MacGregor (1677-1729) to
Governor Shute in which the writer says: "We are surprised to hear
ourselves termed Irish people, when we so frequently ventured our all
for the British Crown and liberties against the Irish papists, and
gave all tests, of our loyalty, which the government of Ireland
required, and are always ready to do the same when demanded."

Down to the present day the descendants of these Ulster Scots settlers
living in the United States who have maintained an interest in their
origin, always insist that they are of Scottish and not of Irish
origin. On this point it will be sufficient to quote the late Hon.
Leonard Allison Morrison, of New Hampshire. Writing twenty-five years
ago he said: "I am one of Scotch-Irish blood and my ancestor came with
Rev. McGregor of Londonderry, and neither _they_ nor any of their
descendants were willing to be called 'merely Irish.' I have twice
visited," he adds, "the parish of Aghadowney, Co. Londonderry, from
which they came, in Ireland, and all that locality is filled, not with
'Irish' but with Scotch-Irish, and this is pure Scotch blood to-day,
after more than _200_ years." The mountaineers of Tennessee and
Kentucky are largely the descendants of these same Ulster Scots, and
their origin is conclusively shown by the phrase used by mothers to
their unruly children: "If you don't behave, Clavers [i.e.,
Claverhouse] will get you."

If we must continue to use the hyphen when referring to these early
immigrants it is preferable to use the term "Ulster Scot" instead of
"Scotch-Irish," as was pointed out by the late Whitelaw Reid, because
it does not confuse the race with the accident of birth, and because
the people preferred it themselves. "If these Scottish and
Presbyterian colonists," he says, "must be called Irish because they
had been one or two generations in the north of Ireland, then the
Pilgrim Fathers, who had been one generation or more in Holland, must
by the same reasoning be called Dutch or at the very least English
Dutch."

To understand the reasons for the Scots colonization of Ulster and the
replantation in America it is necessary to look back three centuries
in British history. On the crushing of the Irish rebellion under Sir
Cahir O'Dogherty in 1607 about 500,000 acres of forfeited land in the
province of Ulster were at the disposal of the crown. At the
suggestion of King James the I. of England, Ulst