On a subsequent occasion, June 7, 1694, Forsyth and his wife came before the Privy Council with a charge against the persons by whom he had been so severely treated, as also for defaming him as a reseller of stolen goods. It appeared that the whole affair arose from a suspicion entertained against him respecting a missing silver standish belonging to the Duke of Queensberry, and some other articles belonging to Cornet Drummond of Lord Newbottle’s dragoons. We see no trace of any legal attempt to substantiate this charge; nevertheless, Forsyth having failed to [Sidenote: 1694.] appear in order to make good his complaint, the Lords ordered him to be denounced rebel, searched for, and if found, committed to prison, ‘for contemption and disobedience,’ his movable goods to be forfeited, and his wife, in the meantime, to be ‘incarcerat.’[117] [Sidenote: MAR. 6.] A petition from the Commissioners of Supply for the county of Inverness to the Privy Council, sets forth the hardships they were subjected to by the failure of many to pay their shares of cess and other public burdens. The complaint referred more particularly to certain ‘inaccessible’ parts of the shire, as the Isle of Skye, Uist, Barra, and Raasay. All methods hitherto taken to enforce payment had proved ineffectual, for ‘when parties were sent out to intimate quartering, they must instantly return, seeing they can have no conveniency either for themselves or their horses; and when parties have been again sent to poind for cess or deficiency, the heritors always get intelligence, and drive away the cattle, and what further remains in their houses or on their land is of no value.’ Assistance was craved from the government troops to seize and imprison the heritors deficient, of whom M‘Kinnon of M‘Kinnon is mentioned as owing ‘for seven by-run [monthly] terms,’ Kenneth Milquo in Uist for nine, and Donald M‘Donald, brother to M‘Donald of Slait, for twenty terms. The petition was complied with.[118]