PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND.

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her, laughing at her look of discomfiture at the loss. This episode brings forth and forci— bly home to our minds that dark and bloody time during which the scattered and unre- sisting clansmen were pursued with relent— less and unnecessary cruelty by the Govern- ment troops under “Cumberland,” who thereby earned the undying hatred and con- tempt, for his name and character, of a race that today are found in the front rank of progress and civilization the world over; whose chivalrous valor stands unquestioned and to whom the appeal for mercy by a van- quished foe was never made in vain.

Before joining the rebel army Donald McLaren transferred his property to a re- lation of his wife named Stewart, who re- . mained loyal to the house of Hanover. After the Act of Amnesty to the rebels had been passed by the British Parliament and young McLaren had attained the age of manhood he demanded the restoration of his property from those who held it in trust, which demand was refused. A lingering law suit was the result which McLaren ulti- mately gained, but finding the estate deeply in debt he sold it, paid off the creditors and with the residue in his pocket set his face to the west as so many of his countrymen have done before and since; accompanied by his family and their connections he sailed from Glasgow in the spring of 1803, in the good ship, “Commerce,” commanded by Cap- tain Galt, and landed at Pictou, Nova Scotia, in the same season, finally arriving in Brude- nell in the autumn of that year. We are told that McLaren chose Prince Edward Island as his future home on account of his ac- quaintance with Lord Selkirk, who owned land here and who settled with a number of Scottish emigrants land held by him in the district of Belfast during the same year,

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whose descendants still constitute the great— er number of inhabitants of that beautiful and thriving section of our Island home. This same Lord Selkirk subsequently brought out a large party of Scottish settlers by way of Hudson Bay who landed at Fort Churchill, and after enduring severe hard- ships and suffering in traveling across country in the dad of winter finally settled at Old Fort Garry on the Red river, where the city of Winnipeg now stands. These de‘ scendants, principally half breeds, are still found scattered over the great Northwest as hunters, trappers, farmers and guides.

James McLaren bought two hundred and sixty-six acres of Selkirk’s land on the north side, and fronting on Brudenell river, consisting in part of the farms now in posses- sion of William, Walter and John Gordon, and Edgerton Norton. To wrest a livelihood from the stubborn wilderness was now the task before this little band of settlers, the first movement in which direction, that of chopping down the trees of the forest, was labour of which they had no experience, but they set themselves to their unwonted task with strong hearts and all the stub- born determination characteristic of their race, the result was success in the end. Before the first generation had passed away they found themselves in comfortable if not afflu- ent circumstances and the appearance of the country in this vicinity today tells the tale of subsequent years.

Of the family of James McLaren, Wil- liam died at Brudenell and his remains rest in the cemetery on the south bank of the river. John with his family removed to the United States about the middle of the last century and his bones rest under the sod of a western prairie. Donald, while absent from the Island on business, died and was buried