the whole of the voyage converting empty bread-bags, old canvases and blankets into coverings for them"). They arrived in Quebec unable to support themselves and without any means of paying for passage to Upper Canada (where they might be able to find work); the Canadian authorities had to lay out £670 to get them there. Because they had not sailed until August, they arrived too late to be properly settled before the onset of a Canadian winter, for which they remained unprepared. The vice-president of a Scottish benevolent society in Hamilton, Upper Canada, wrote: "the emigrants from Barra and South Uist, amounting to between two and three thousand were the most destitute I ever saw coming to this country. They were actually in a state of nudity on their arrival here and were utterly helpless". The lot of the emigrants from Gordon of Cluny's estates was woeful, and drew a letter of complaint from the Canadian authorities to Gordon's factor but both that letter and contemporary newspaper reports made a comparison with the better treatment of emigrants from other Highland estates by their former landlords. "The Lewis men were provided ... not only with clothing for the voyage, and a free passage to Quebec, but with a week's rations after arrival ... and a free passage to their ultimate destination". Emigrants from the Duke of Sutherland's estates arrived well-clad and fed, and with money to buy and stock farms; where their own savings were inadequate, the Duke had gifted them money. Aftermath McNeill's report did not endorse the argument of papers such as the Scotsman that the destitution was due to the inherent laziness of the Gael (which contrasted unfavourably with the estimable traits of the 'Teutonic' Lowland Scots who read the Scotsman), but his comments on the cultural barriers which had hindered timely migration from the congested areas mirrored and reinforced a prevalent assumption that Gaelic culture and language was an unnecessary brake on progress and the long-term happiness and prosperity of the Gaelic-speaking areas could best be secured by making them English-speaking. Two decades after the famine the Edinburgh Courant noted emigration from Hebridean islands, which was the best cure for their ills, was accelerated by education: "It is startling enough to be asked to establish and maintain a school system for the purpose of depopulating a district, but we have little doubt this would be the first