SETTLEMENT - 1770 "Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North, The birth-place of valour, the country of worth." Robert Burns (1759-1796) The feelings so aptly expressed in these line by the "Immortal Bard of Scotland " may well have been the feelings of Lawrence Brown , who, by family tradition, was either a cousin or an uncle of Robert Burns , as the ship Falmouth dispatched her passengers at Stanhope on June 8th, 1770. As part of this group of settlers, he would pass on the proud traditions of Scotland to his many descendants. Believed to have left their native land due to quarrels with the Duke of Argylle over the subject of land rents, the new settlers looked forward with great expectations to the future on the land grant of Sir James Montgomery . As numerous ships were leaving for various destinations throughout the world with colonists, passenger lists were rarely kept. The most valuable reference material concerning the settlement in 1770 is the diary kept by William Drummond of his voyage from Cowden to St. John's Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in . The following excerpts from the diary, which is now the property of the Archives in Ottawa, give us an idea of the voyage and the problems of pioneer settlers. April 5th. 1770 . . . Set out from Cowden about five o'clock morning, came to Glasgow at nine evening, having got a chaise of Mr. Graham 's in Sterling. 12