148 HUGH MILLERS LAMENT. CHAP, xi 



there were thousands preparing to set out for Canada 

 and America.* 



The trouble was renewed in another way when the 

 Free Churchmen dissented from the Established Church. 

 They could not find sites for their ch'apels, and sometimes 

 they gathered together on the verge of a loch, where the 

 minister could preach to them from a boat. They also 

 assembled in the open air, along a hill-side, or in a valley 

 surrounded by rocks, where the minister dispensed to 

 them the Word of God and the Holy Sacrament. 



Hugh Miller was editor of the Witness, an outspoken 

 paper, the organ of the Free Church. Hugh was a great 

 power in those days. He was one of the boldest writers 

 of his time. His paper spread far and wide the cruelty 

 and injustice of the Highland proprietors. Here is one 

 of his descriptions, which he wrote while on his way to 

 meet Eobert Dick at Thurso : 



" I have just returned from Helmsdale," he said, 

 " where I have been hearing a sermon in the open air 

 with the poor Highlanders. ... I thought their Gaelic 

 singing, so plaintive at all times, even more melancholy 



* On the 28th August, 1846, an Act was passed enabling a loan of 

 two millions to be advanced to the landed proprietors for the drainage 

 and improvement of their estates. The loan was soon exhausted. 

 The Highland lairds got the lion's share. One of them, Macleod of 

 Macleod, asked for an incredible sum, so that it became necessary to 

 limit the maximum amount of the loan to individuals, to 5000. By the 

 Act 13 and 14 Viet., cap. 91, a further sum of two millions was granted 

 for draining purposes ; but it was found that a quarter of a million of 

 the money had been spent, not in draining the soil of North Britain, 

 but in clearing out the Highland population from theii miserable huts, 

 and transporting them to the British Colonies ! 



