14 FAMOUS SCOTS 



from England. Such, then, was the condition of 

 Cromarty at the beginning of the present century. 



Far different was that of the surrounding Highlands. 

 Protestantism had been at an early period introduced 

 into Ross and Sutherland by its Earls and by Lord 

 Reay. The Earl of Sutherland had been the first to 

 subscribe the National Covenant in Greyfriars; and, 

 after the suppression of the first Jacobite rising, Sir 

 Robert Munro of Fowlis, as commissioner of the con- 

 fiscated estates, had set himself to the creation of 

 parishes and presbyteries in remote districts, where the 

 Church of Scotland before had been unknown. In the 

 better class of houses the old Highland fireplace, like a 

 millstone, still occupied its place in the centre, with no 

 corresponding aperture in the roof for the smoke. In 

 the Western districts the greatest distress prevailed, for 

 the country was at the parting of the ways in a time of 

 transition. About the beginning of the present century 

 the results of the French Revolution began to make 

 themselves felt. Through the long war the price of 

 provisions rose to famine price, and the impecunious 

 Highland laird, like his more degenerate successor that 

 battens on the sporting proclivities of the Cockney 

 or American millionaire, set himself to the problem of 

 increasing his rent-roll, and the system of evictions and 

 sheep-farming on a large scale commenced. The Suther- 

 land clearances forced the ejected Highlanders to 

 Canada and the United States, while the poorer classes 

 drifted down from the interior to the already overpopu- 



