Changes, though drastic, were not immediate. For years, the older- Chieftains continued to run their properties with the same beneficence as had been evidenced before the ’45. “The attachment of their people was of so ﬂattering a nature, that it was often preferred to pecuniary advances; and little alteration seems to have been made, till the generation of old proprietors was extinct.”a Then, as a new generation of landlords took over the land, a generation concerned with more lucrative undertakings and anxious to curry English favour, the old proprietor/ tenant affection virtually died away. Selkirk viewed the new conditions in this way:

...men educated under different circumstances came forward,

and feeling more remotely the inﬂuence of antient con- nexions with their dependants, were not inclined to sacrifice for a shadow the substantial advantage of a productive property. The more necessitous, or the less generous set the example; and one gradually followed another, till at length all scruple seems to be removed, and the proprietors in the Highlands have no more hesitation than in any other part of the kingdom, in turning their estates to the best advantage.9

The English were largely at fault. Determined to prevent future uprisings like that in 1745, they confiscated large tracts of land in Scotland and gave them outright to particular Chieftains. These lords became indebted to the English; the rest were left to their own resources. The consequences were predictable. By the 17905, the old, vaguely- defined economic stratum was being replaced with a new, clearly- marked hierarchy as the favoured chiefs were elevated to a greater economic and social position. '° Within ten to twenty years, these leaders would pay for their affluent lifestyle by clearing their lands of tenants and filling them with sheep—the infamous Highland Clearances.

But the old order had been crumbling rapidly since 1770. The people living in the Catholic areas of the Highlands suffered religious alienation at the hands of the English and their Protestant Scottish followers. The upper-class tenants, or tacksmen as they were called, suffered economic oppression by the greed of the nouveau-riche land- lords. It was during this early period of despair that North America was subject to the Highlands’ first “fever of emigration.”"

For all the tenants, this was a time of disillusion and fear. The tacksmen could not afford to pay the increasing rents and would not ask their people — the sub-tenants and cotters — for more money. Unable to

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