The demand for beef was high at this time to feed the large armies still fighting foreign wars. The absentee clan chieftains made a little income from their still faithful clansmen rearing the great shaggy highland cattle in the remote hills and glens of the Highlands and Islands. The market for meat dropped sharply once the wars ceased and these new noblemen faced imminent bankruptcy. The small rents they received from their tenant farmers was not sufficient to meet their new lavish lifestyle. Things were starting to look bleak.

In 1782 the repressive Act of Proscription was finally repealed. But the damage had been done. Because the written Gaelic language had not been taught for a generation most of the young men and women of the clan were illiterate. Many of the new clan chiefs had been born in the fine houses of London and the south of England and had never seen the land nor the people they now lorded over. Most could not speak the language of their people and clan having been brought up speaking English and being told that Gaelic was for the inferior classes - a notion which still exists in Lowland Scotland to this day.

About the same time that the demand for beef and cattle dropped the demand for sheep and wool rose dramatically. The price of Highland wool in 1801 had been 15 shillings per stone but by 1818 it had more than doubled to 40 shillings per stone. The landlords saw their chance to renew their fortunes and immediately started to replace the herds of Highlands cattle with flocks of hill sheep.

These highly profitable sheep were being offered by the British Wool Society for ridiculously cheap prices in an attempt to corner the world market for meat and wool. They did not take as much looking after as cattle and they could be left to roam the bleak hills and glens with only a small handful of people to tend them. On average, one shepherd took up as much land as has been worked by 12-16 families (roughly 80 people). Soon the Highlands and Islands were echoing to the high-pitched sound of the bleating seep whereas once they had been lulled by the soft lowing of the great shaggy Highland cows.

It soon became clear that the small holdings of the remaining clansmen were getting in the way of the highly profitable sheep so the landlords stated to move the people out of their homes, out of their jurisdiction and out of their conscience. In 1800 there had been 355,700 indigenous Highland sheep farmed in all of Argyllsire, Inverness, Caithness and Sutherland. By 1880 the number had risen to over two million, nearly all of them imported hybrid cheviots.

As early as 1792 the crofters realized that the in-coming sheep were going to be the source of much trouble and in that year Ross-shire's 400 crofters rounded up all the sheep on the hillsides and drove them off their lands. The local magistrates were worried about this civil unrest and called in the troops. When they eventually found the crofters' camp the men had gone and the sheep were sleeping safely.

David Stewart of Garth, a lieutenant in the 42nd Black Watch regiment commented,

"No act of violence or outrage occurred, nor did the sheep suffer in the smallest degree. Though pressed with hunger, these conscientious peasants did not take a single animal for their own use."

Written and published by the Highland Clearances Memorial Fund

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