John Macdonald was but a child at the date of the battle of Culloden. When of sufficient age he was sent to Ratisbon, Germany, to be educated, where he went through a complete course in the branches of learning as taught in the seminary. Returning to his country he was considered to be one of the most finished and accomplished gentlemen of his generation. But events led him to change his prospects in life. In 1770 a violent persecution against the Roman Catholics broke out in the island of South Uist. Alexander Macdonald, First of Boisdale, also of the house of Clanranald, abandoned the religion of his forbears, and like all new converts was over zealous for his new found faith, and at once attempted to compel all his tenants to follow his example. After many acts of oppression, he summoned all his tenants to hear a paper read to them in their native tongue, containing a renunciation of their religion, and a promise, under oath, never more to hold communication with a catholic priest. The alternative was to sign the paper or lose their lands and homes. At once the people unanimously decided to starve rather than submit. The next step of Boisdale was to take his gold headed cane and drive his tenants before him, like a flock of sheep, to the protestant church. Boisdale failed to realize that conditions had changed in the Highlands; but, even if his methods had smacked of originality, he would have been placed in a far better light. To attempt to imitate the example of another may win applause, but if defeated contempt is the lot. The history of _Creideamh a bhata bhuidhe_, or the religion of the yellow stick, is such an interesting episode in West Highland story as not to be out of place in this connection. Hector MacLean, Fifth of Coll, who held the estates from 1559 to 1593, became convinced of the truths of the principles of the Reformation, and decided that his tenants should think likewise. He passed over to the island of Rum, and as his tenants came out of the Catholic church he held his cane straight out and said in Gaelic,--"Those who pass the stick to the Kirk are very good tenants, and those who go on the other side may go out of my island." This stick remained in the family until 1868, when it mysteriously disappeared. Mrs. Hamilton Dundas, daughter of Hugh, Fifteenth of Coll, in a letter dated March 26, 1898, describing the stick says, "There was the crest on the top and initials either H. McL. or L. McL. in very flourishing writing engraved on a band or oval below the top. It was a polished, yellow brown malacca stick, much taller than an ordinary walking stick. I seem to recollect that it had two gold rimmed eyelet holes for a cord and tassle."