Oh! home of my fathers, I bid thee adieu, For soon will thy hill-tops retreat from my view, With sad drooping heart I depart from thy shore, To behold thy fair valleys and mountains no more. 'Twas there that I woo'd thee, young Flora, my wife, When my bosom was warm in the morning of life. I courted thy love 'mong the heather so brown, And heaven did I bless when it made thee my own. The friends of my early years, where are they now? Each kind honest heart, and each brave manly brow; Some sleep in the churchyard from tyranny free, And others are crossing the ocean with me. Lo! now on the boundless Atlantic I stray, To a strange foreign realm I am wafted away, Before me as far as my vision can glance, I see but the wave rolling wat'ry expanse. So farewell my country and all that is dear, The hour is arrived and the bark is asteer, I go and forever, oh! Scotland adieu! The land of my fathers no more I shall view." --_Peter Crerar._ America was the one great inviting field that opened wide her doors to the oppressed of all nations. The Highlanders hastened thither; first in small companies, or singly, and afterwards in sufficient numbers to form distinctive settlements. These belonged to the better class, bringing with them a certain amount of property, intelligent, persevering, religious, and in many instances closely related to the chief. Who was the first Highlander, and in what year he settled in America, has not been determined. It is impossible to judge by the name, because it would not specially signify, for as has been noted, Highlanders had gone to the north of Ireland, and in the very first migrations of the Scotch-Irish, their descendants landed at Boston and Philadelphia. It is, however, positively known that individual members of the clans, born in the Highlands, and brought up under the jurisdiction of the chiefs, settled permanently in America before 1724.[11] The number of these must have been very small, for a greater migration would have attracted attention. In 1729, there arrived at the port of Philadelphia, five thousand six hundred and fifty-five Irish emigrants, and only two hundred and sixty-seven English, forty-three Scotch, and three hundred and forty-three Germans. Of the forty-three Scotch it would be impossible to ascertain how many of them were from the Highlands, because all people from Scotland were designated under the one word. But if the whole number were of the Gaelic race, and the ratio kept up it would be almost insignificant, if scattered from one end of the Colonies to the other. After the wave of emigration had finally set in then the numbers of small companies would rapidly increase and the ratio would be largely augmented.[12]