an entire
failure; and on the untoward spots, occupied by the Sutherland small
tenants, there was literally nothing fit for human subsistence. And to
add to the calamity, the weather had prevented them from securing the
peats, their only fuel; so that, to their previous state of
exhaustion, cold and hunger were to be superadded. The sufferings
endured by the poor Highlanders in the succeeding winter truly beggar
description. Even the herring fishing had failed, and consequently
their credit in Caithness, which depended on its success, was at an
end. Any little provision they might be able to procure was of the
most inferior and unwholesome description. It was no uncommon thing to
see people searching among the snow for the frosted potatoes to eat in
order to preserve life. As the harvest had been disastrous, so the
winter was uncommonly boisterous and severe, and consequently little
could be obtained from the sea to mitigate the calamity. The distress
rose to such a height as to cause a sensation all over the island; and
there arose a general cry for Government interference, to save the
people from death by famine.'

Public meetings were held, private subscriptions entered into, large
funds collected, the British people responded to the cry of their
suffering fellow-subjects, and relief was extended to every portion of
the Highlands except one. Alas for poor Sutherland! There, it was
said, the charity of the country was not required, as the noble and
wealthy proprietors had themselves resolved to interfere; and as this
statement was circulated extensively through the public prints, and
sedulously repeated at all public meetings, the mind of the community
was set quite at rest on the matter. And interfere the proprietors at
length did. Late in the spring of 1837, after sufferings the most
incredible had been endured, and disease and death had been among the
wretched people, they received a scanty supply of meal and seed-corn,
for which, though vaunted at the time as a piece of munificent
charity, the greater part of them had afterwards to pay.

In the next chapter we shall endeavour bringing these facts to bear on
the cause of the Free Church in Sutherland. We close for the present
by adding just one curious fact more. We have already shown how the
bleak moors of Sutherland have been mightily improved by the
revolution which ruined its people. They bear many green patches which
were brown before. Now it so happened th