port for the Lews, or--which is more probable--the advantages of Letterewe attracted his attention when at Poolewe planning the subjugation of the Lews. The date (27th January 1609) of the act forbidding the making of iron with wood (Appendix G) is not inconsistent with the commencement of the ironworks in 1607. Assuming that the prohibition was (as seems likely) aimed at the Letterewe ironworks, it is reasonable enough to suppose that they must have been begun in 1607, so as to have attained sufficient importance to excite the alarm of the legislature in January 1609. News from the Highlands took a long time to travel so far as Edinburgh in those days. We hear nothing more of Sir James Spens in connection with the ironworks. Sir George Hay's history is remarkable. He was the second son of Peter Hay of Melginche, and was born in 1572. He completed his education at the Scots College at Douay in France. He was introduced at court about 1596, and seems at once to have attracted the attention of James VI., who appointed him one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber, and in 1598 gave him the Carthusian priory or charter-house at Perth and the ecclesiastical lands of Errol, with a seat in Parliament as a peer. But he declined the peerage, was knighted instead, and subsequently adopted the profession of the law, in which he attained to great distinction. He seems to have been a favourite with the king, whom he defended when in 1600 the Earl of Gowrie was killed in his treasonable attempt on his majesty's life. Assisted by the favour of the crown, Sir George acquired large territories both in the Highlands and Lowlands. (See extract from "Douglas's Peerage," Appendix G.) But some think that at the time he settled at Letterewe he was under a cloud. Political troubles had arisen; one of his partners, Lord Balmerino, had been convicted of high treason and executed; so that the statement that Sir George had chosen the remote Letterewe "for the sake of quiet in those turbulent times" appears reasonable enough. The fact that he occupied the leisure of his enforced retirement in establishing and improving iron-smelting, is a standing testimony to the energy of this remarkable man. He is said to have resided some years at Letterewe, or at least to have made his headquarters there. No doubt Lord Mackenzie would provide the best habitation he could for the learned and enterprising lessee of his woods. Probably Sir George lived in an old house on the site of the present Letterewe House.