ow falsehood, that have since been repeated in newspapers and
reviews; and though unacquainted with the facts at the time, he saw
sufficient reason to question their general correctness, from the
circumstance that he found in them the character of the people, with
which no man could be better acquainted, vilified and traduced. The
General saw one leviathan falsehood running through the whole, and,
on the strength of the old adage, naturally suspected the company in
which he found it. And so, making minute and faithful inquiry, he
published the results at which he arrived. He refers to the mode of
ejectment by the torch. He next goes on to show how some of the ejected
tenants were allowed small allotments of moor on the coast side, of from
half an acre to two acres in extent, which it was their task to break
into corn land; and how that, because many patches of green appear
in this way, where all was russet before, the change has been much
eulogized as improvement. We find him remarking further, with
considerable point and shrewdness, that 'many persons are, however,
inclined to doubt the advantages of improvements which call for such
frequent apologies,' and that, 'if the advantage to the people were so
evident, or if more lenient measures had been pursued, vindication
could not have been necessary.' The General knew how to pass from
the green spots themselves to the condition of those who tilled them.
The following passage must strike all acquainted with the Highlanders
of Sutherland as a true representation of the circumstances to which
they have been reduced:

'Ancient respectable tenants who have passed the greater part of life
in the enjoyment of abundance, and in the exercise of hospitality and
charity, possessing stock of ten, twenty, and thirty breeding cows,
with the usual proportion of other stock, are now pining on one or two
acres of bad land, with one or two starved cows; and for this
accommodation a calculation is made, that they must support their
families, and pay the rent of their lots, not from the produce, but
from the sea, thus drawing a rent which the land cannot afford. When
the herring fishing succeeds, they generally satisfy the landlord,
whatever privations they may suffer; but when the fishing fails, they
fall into arrears. The herring fishing, always precarious, has for a
succession of years been very defective, and this class of people are
reduced to extreme misery. At first, some of them pos