largest single group ever brought to the Island by a proprietor and they 
     
     would, through the years, become a symbol of this province’s Scottish 
     
     immigrants. They were an ambitious lot, discontented with the prospects 
     
     of pioneer farming but optimistic that they, together, could build a 
     
     community. Malcolm MacQueen remarks with the pride and loyalty 
     
     inherent in his race: 
     
    
   
   
    
     They were inured to hardship and unspoiled by luxury. Living 
     
     in a land distant and inaccessible, they there maintained in 
     
     their isolation, to an unusual degree, racial purity and 
     
     distinctive racial characteristics. These qualities were carried 
     
     across the seas to America, and there they were further 
     
     developed. In an environment peculiar to their island, 
     
     Skyemen developed into a military aristocracy undaunted by 
     
     hardship or danger. Having been tried in the fires of adversity 
     
     for generations they were a band well chosen to tame the 
     
     arrogance of nature in the forests of Belfast....26 
     
    
   
   
    
     To the proprietor of the land on which they settled —— Lots 57 and 
     
     58, in the Orwell Bay/Point Prim area — must go most of the credit for 
     
     the success of the enormous venture. Thomas Douglas, fifth Earl of 
     
     Selkirk, embodied all the best characteristics of a proprietor — an ability 
     
     for organization and leadership, 21 dogged determination to realize the 
     
     completion of his task, and a sincere concern for the alleviation of the, 
     
     social problems plaguing his country and the plight of the more indigent 
     
     of his countrymen. 
     
    

    
     Thomas Douglas was born in 1771, the youngest of the fourth Earl 
     
     of Selkirk’s seven sons. By 1799, his father and six brothers were dead 
     
     and Thomas had succeeded to the Selkirk title. With his elevated 
     
     economic position and political sway, he set out to propose a scheme of 
     
     emigration for the poor. Selkirk coordinated three settlements in British 
     
     North America: one in Prince Edward Island in 1803; one in Baldoon 
     
     near Lake St. Clair, Upper Canada in 1804; and one in the Red River 
     
     Valley in 1812. He was virtually forced into an acceptance of the Island 
     
     as the location of his first endeavour due to the British government’s 
     
     refusal to honour earlier-promised land grants in Upper Canada.27 It 
     
     turned out to be his most successful. 
     
    

    
     In August of 1803, three ships chartered by Selkirk — the Polly, the 
     
     Dykes (carrying Selkirk), and the Oughton — anchored off the south- 
     
     eastern shore of Prince Edward Island. Selkirk’s ship was the first to 
     
     leave Skye so that he would have time to prepare a reception for the 
     
    
   
   
    
     7