cumbersome application process, this channelled money to landlords that allowed them to employ their tenantry to improve the land that they rented. Following on from the Free Church's voluntary efforts, relief committees were set up in Edinburgh in December 1846 and Glasgow in January 1847. By February 1847, the Free Church and the Edinburgh and Glasgow groups combined to form the Central Board of Management for Highland Relief. By the end of 1847 the Relief Committees had raised about £210,000 (roughly equivalent in purchasing power to £17m in 2018) to support relief work. Other groups to organise relief work included the British Relief Association; its efforts were coordinated by Lord Kinnaird and the Earl of Dalhousie. News of the famine led the Scottish diaspora, including Scottish-Americans, to organise relief efforts. The prompt response of the Lowlands (and the much smaller size of the problem) meant that famine relief programmes were better organised and more effective in Scotland than in Ireland. As in Ireland, the export of foodstuffs from Scotland was not prohibited, and in Inverness, Wick, Cromarty, and Invergordon, troops were used to quell protests about the export of grain or potatoes from local harbours. Destitution relief (1847–1850) In 1847 the crop failure was less extensive, and death rates had returned to normal; thereafter the government left famine relief to the Central Board. Crop failures continued, but at a reduced level, and the charitable relief programme only ceased upon the near-exhaustion of its funds. One modern historian summarises its evolution: "... gradually it took on the worst features of mid-Victorian philanthropy. At once autocratic and bureaucratic, the Board became a gradgrind employer, paying rock bottom wages in kind for hard labour on public works... ". Relief was not available to those with any disposable capital (which was interpreted to include livestock). The daily ration (of oatmeal or Indian meal) was initially set by the Central Board at per man, per woman and per child. Recipients were expected to work for their rations, leading to the building of "destitution roads" and other public works of little (if any) real value. This requirement was not rigorously enforced at first, but potato crops failed to recover to pre-blight levels, and the Central Board became concerned that long-term recipients of the rations would become "pauperised". Eleemosynary aid… would be a curse instead of a benefit; and hence it was absolutely necessary to teach the