The outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars created a potential new route to wealth, by limiting foreign supplies of valuable minerals: kelp could be harvested to produce minerals like soda ash. Kelp rapidly increased in price, so in 1817, the laird reduced the size of each tenancy (for example, Cleadale was re-arranged into 28 plots), to stop them being self-sufficient, thus forcing tenants to harvest kelp in order to break even. However, soon after the creation of these smaller tenancies (crofts), foreign mineral supplies were re-introduced, as the Napoleonic Wars had ended. The kelp price crashed, and crofters struggled to avoid destitution.