Sir William Johnson thoroughly gained the good graces of the Iroquois Indians, and by the part he took against the French at Crown Point and Lake George, in 1755, added to his reputation at home and abroad. For his services to the Crown he was made a baronet and voted L5000 by the British parliament, besides being paid L600 per annum as Indian agent, which he retained until his death in 1774. He also received a grant of one hundred thousand acres of land north of the Mohawk. In 1743 he built Fort Johnson, a stone dwelling, on the same side of the river, in what is now Montgomery county. A few miles farther north, in 1764, he built Johnson Hall, a wooden structure, and there entertained his Indian bands and white tenants, with rude magnificence, surrounded by his mistresses, both white and red. He had dreams of feudal power, and set about to realize it. The land granted to him by the king, he had previously secured from the Mohawks, over whom he had gained an influence greater than that ever possessed heretofore or since by a white man over an Indian tribe. The tract of land thus gained was long known as "Kingsland," or the "Royal Grant." The king had bound Sir William to him by a feudal tenure of a yearly rental of two shillings and six pence for each and every one hundred acres. In the same manner Sir William bound to himself his tenants to whom he granted leases. In order to secure the greatest obedience he deemed it necessary to secure such tenants as differed from the people near him in manners, language, and religion, and that class trained to whom the strictest personal dependence was perfectly familiar. In all this he was highly favored. He turned his eyes to the Highlands of Scotland, and without trouble, owing to the dissatisfied condition of the people and their desire to emigrate, he secured as many colonists as he desired, all of whom were of the Roman Catholic faith. The agents having secured the requisite number, embarked, during the month of August, 1773, for America. A journal of the period states that "three gentlemen of the name of Macdonell, with their families, and 400 Highlanders from the counties (!) of Glengarry, Glenmorison, Urquhart, and Strathglass lately embarked for America, having obtained a grant of land in Albany,"[101]