474 HISTORY OF THE OUTER HEBRIDES. 



forfeited, send them about their business, and parcel out 

 the Highlands on easy terms among Englishmen and 

 Lowland Scots.* This drastic proposal was not adopted, 

 and the chiefs chiefs no longer now in the old sense 

 were left to work out their own salvation. Most of them 

 faced the problem in the way which was the easiest and 

 the simplest. Divested of their authority as dictators of 

 their clans, they sought solace for their diminished power 

 as chiefs, in increased emoluments as landlords. Rents 

 were raised, and the old ties commenced to snap one after 

 the other. The tacksmen were the first to feel the pressure 

 of the new conditions, and they felt it so keenly that some 

 of them left the country in disgust and emigrated to 

 America, carrying with them a number of the peasantry. 

 The sub-tenants took their place, only to undergo the 

 same experience. Then came the Lowland sheep farmers, 

 the glitter of whose gold was beyond the power of the 

 lairds to resist. But the hardships suffered by the common 

 people were the severest of all. They had escaped from 

 one system of tyranny, only to find themselves in the grip 

 of another. Their fetters lying at their feet seemed to 

 mock their newly-acquired liberty ; they were free, but 

 their freedom was a delusion, and their independence a 

 snare. Bewildered at first by the new regime, which was 

 a complete reversal of the old, they soon realised that, by 

 the commercialism which now dominated the Highlands, 

 the value of money had gone up, and the value of men 

 had gone down. And then the great wave of emigration 

 which desolated many a Highland glen swept over the 

 country. 



Lord Fortrose died in London in 1761 and was buried 

 in Westminster Abbey. He was married to Mary, eldest 

 daughter of Alexander Stewart, sixth Earl of Galloway, 

 and was succeeded by his only son, Kenneth, who is 

 known as the " little lord." In 1763, the latter obtained a 

 Crown charter, dated loth December, of the Seaforth pro- 



* MS. in Public Record Office (proposals for civilising the Highlands of 

 Scotland, &c.). 



