to Australia, through the Highland and Island Emigration Society. To this should be added an unknown, but significant number, who paid their own fares to emigrate, and a further unknown number assisted by the Colonial Land and Emigration Commission. Landlord debt Many Highland landlords were in debt, despite rising commodity prices and the associated farm incomes which allowed higher rents to be charged. The origin of some of this debt went back to the Statutes of Iona, when some lairds were forced to live part of the year in Edinburgh much more expensive than living on their own lands. Profligate spending was a significant cause. The costs of involvement in political activity was a factor for some. The landed classes of the Highlands socialised with southern landowners, who had more diverse sources of income, such as mineral royalties and windfall income from urban expansion. The low productivity of Highland lands made this a financial trap for their owners. In other cases, spending on famine relief depleted the financial resources of landowners—so even the prudent and responsible could ultimately be forced to increase the income from their estates. Lastly, investments in an estate, whether on roads, drainage, enclosure or other improvements might not realise the anticipated returns. The major financial pressure, though, was the end of the Napoleonic Wars, which had supported high prices for the small range of commodities produced in the Highlands. The extent of indebtedness among Highland landowners was enormous. The evidence of this is the very high number of hereditary lands that were sold, especially in the first half of the 19th century. Over two-thirds of Highland estates had changed hands in this way by the end of the 1850s. Eric Richards describes this as a "financial suicide" by an entire class of people. Debt was not a new problem for Highland landowners in the 19th century—it had been equally prevalent in the 17th and 18th. The change was in the lender. The further development of the banking system at the beginning of the 19th century meant that landowners did not need to look to family members or neighbours as a source of finance. The downside to this was a greater readiness of the lender to foreclose—and an increased willingness to lend in the first place, perhaps unwisely. Debt had three possible consequences, all of which were likely to involve the eviction of tenants. The landlord could