INTRODUCTION. liii 



to this endless restlessness. No learning, no literary skill, 

 or power, no wealth, no ducal influence, can prevent that 

 name going down to posterity otherwise than as an example 

 to be avoided, a character to be shunned." After detailing 

 various incidents connected with the Sutherland Clearances, 

 my correspondent gives an account of a lively colloquy 

 which is reported to have taken place between Sellar and 

 Colonel Mackay of Pitfure, Strathfleet, who demanded an 

 interview with him on the subject of the burning of the 

 houses in Strath Brora, and tells how the Colonel was in- 

 strumental in putting a stop to them, with the result, as he 

 says, that "a good part of Strathfleet was saved from the 

 catastrophe that fell on the whole of the other Straths ; and 

 to-day," he writes, " Strathfleet is a happy and prosperous 

 contrast to the ruin and loss that reign elsewhere in the 

 county of Sutherland ". He then exclaims, " Such is a 

 specimen of the accounts of Mr. Sellar which are handed 

 down from father to son, wherever a Sutherland man is 

 to be found. And now the public character of this man is 

 to be thatched with legal technicalities so as to make him 

 appear a just and humane man ! This will be accomplished 

 when the world is made to believe that Ahab did justly 

 in getting possession of the vineyard of Naboth. Before 

 this promised book, justifying Mr. Sellar, comes out, I 

 would give the following review of it : nine-tenths of 

 Sutherland was reduced to a wilderness, the inhabitants 

 burnt out as vermin. Of this fact, there is no doubt, no 

 possible dispute. Who did it ? Earl Gower, the Countess 

 of Sutherland, Mr. Loch, and their most active lieutenant, 

 Mr. Sellar. It would be difficult, at this time of day, to 

 balance the blame fairly between them, but almost all will 

 conclude that Mr. Sellar's was not the least of the four. 

 Let them divide the guilt between them ; each of them will 



