SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS. 551 



emigration, but it would be foreign to our purpose to enter 

 into a discussion of the merits of the question. Like most 

 questions, there is a good deal to be said on both sides, 

 a view which is frequently overlooked, alike by the in- 

 temperate advocates, and the intemperate opponents, of 

 emigration. But one aspect of the question admits of no 

 discussion ; and that is, the immorality of expatriation, or 

 compulsory emigration. Colonel Gordon of Cluny, the new 

 proprietor of South Uist and Barra, earned an unenviable 

 notoriety in that respect. It may be assumed, from the 

 fact that he offered to sell the Island of Barra to the 

 Government as a convict station, that he was not a man 

 who could be charged with sentimental weakness. He 

 was confronted with the perplexing problem of dealing 

 with a surplus population ; and he attempted to solve it in 

 his own way. It appears to be only too well authenticated 

 that his ultimate method of meeting the difficulty was the 

 simple one of expatriation to Canada, where the immigrants 

 were to be left to shift for themselves.* For the deceitful 

 promises by which the people were induced to assemble at 

 Loch Boisdale ; for the scenes which occurred when the 

 disillusioned peasants fled to the mountains, and were 

 dragged on board the transports by main force; for such 

 acts as these, which were the counterpart of the worst 

 abuses of the slave trade, Colonel Gordon must share the 

 responsibility with his agents, the chief of whom was a 

 minister, who seems to have been a disgrace to his 

 cloth. At the present day, descendants of the peasants 

 from Barra and South Uist, who were left starving in 

 Upper Canada in 1851-2, must marvel that only half 

 a century ago, such things could happen in a civilised 

 country. 



The problem of disposing of a surplus population 

 awaited solution in the other parts of the Long Island, 

 equally with South Uist and Barra. Early and improvi- 

 dent marriages, and the prevalence of the squatting system, 



* Contemporary Quebec Times, quoted in Donald Macleod's Gloomy 

 Memories, pp. 139-141. 



