agents of the proprietor.

Their acquittal was followed by scenes of a similar character with
the scene described, and of even greater atrocity. But we must borrow
the description of one of these from the historian of the _clearing_
of Sutherland,--Donald M'Leod, a native of the county, and himself a
sufferer in the experimental process to which it was subjected:--

'The work of devastation was begun by setting fire to the houses of
the small tenants in extensive districts--Farr, Rogart, Golspie,
and the whole parish of Kildonan. I was an eye-witness of the
scene. The calamity came on the people quite unexpectedly. Strong
parties for each district, furnished with faggots and other
combustibles, rushed on the dwellings of the devoted people, and
immediately commenced setting fire to them, proceeding in their
work with the greatest rapidity, till about three hundred houses
were in flames. Little or no time was given for the removal of persons
or property--the consternation and confusion were extreme--the
people striving to remove the sick and helpless before the fire
should reach them--next struggling to save the most valuable of
their effects--the cries of the women and children--the roaring of
the affrighted cattle, hunted by the dogs of the shepherds amid the
smoke and the fire--altogether composed a scene that completely
baffles description. A dense cloud of smoke enveloped the whole
country by day, and even extended far on the sea. At night, an awfully
grand but terrific scene presented itself--all the houses in an
extensive district in flames at once. I myself ascended a height
about eleven o'clock in the evening, and counted two hundred and fifty
blazing houses, many of the owners of which were my relations, and
all of whom I personally knew, but whose present condition I could not
tell. The conflagration lasted six days, till the whole of the
dwellings were reduced to ashes or smoking ruins. During one of these
days, a boat lost her way in the dense smoke as she approached the
shore, but at night she was enabled to reach a landing-place by
the light of the flames.'

But, to employ the language of Southey,

'Things such as these, we know, must be
At every famous victory.'

And in this instance the victory of the lord of the soil over the
children of the soil was signal and complete. In little more than nine
years a population of fifteen thousand individuals were removed from
the interior of Sutherl