There is another record relating to Sir George Hay's iron manufacture; it is the curious license anent selling of his iron, granted to him by a Scots Act, dated 4th August 1621, and printed in Appendix G. It purports to be a license to Sir George to carry his iron to any port or harbour of the free burghs royal, and to dispose of the same to any person notwithstanding the privileges and liberties of the burghs. This license, granted fourteen years after the commencement of the Letterewe ironworks, testifies to the vigour with which the enterprise had been pushed. It would seem that the quantity of iron produced now only required a free market. The monopoly granted to Sir George, the proclamation restraining the export of iron ore, and the special license he now obtained for selling his iron in royal burghs, were exceptional provisions, which would now-a-days be considered antagonistic to cherished political principles. To what extent Sir George profited from the advantages granted to him we cannot tell. That he became a rich man there seems no doubt, and the ironworks on Loch Maree may have added to his wealth. [Illustration: THE MINISTER'S STONE, ARDLAIR.] John Roy Mackenzie was the prudent, business-like, and hospitable laird of Gairloch during the residence at Letterewe of Sir George Hay, who appears to have had a furnace at Talladale on John Roy's Gairloch estate. Doubtless some intercourse took place between them, but as John Roy had been previously engaged in warfare, and could not, so far as we can judge from the story of his youth, have been a man of much culture, it is unlikely that he and Sir George became very intimate. But Sir George, the learned lawyer and man of science, had a thoroughly congenial friend in the great Latin scholar the Rev. Farquhar MacRae, vicar of Gairloch, whose house at Ardlair was but a three miles' walk or row from Letterewe House. The account given in Appendix A proves that the friendship of this accomplished and genial clergyman was much appreciated by Sir George, who endeavoured to induce Mr MacRae to accompany him when he himself returned to the south. A remarkable rock or stone at Ardlair, called "The minister's stone" (_see illustration_), is still pointed out as the place where Mr MacRae used to preach in English and Gaelic. No doubt he also preached at Letterewe; and we are told that he "did not only please the country people, but also the strangers, especially George Hay." The interesting memoir of Mr MacRae, in Appendix A, is well worth perusal; he married in 1611, and brought his bride to the parsonage at Ardlair, where several of his children were born. Unquestionably the refined life of the vicar and his family at their beautiful and retired home, would be more enjoyable to Sir George than the rougher habits of the natives of the country, nay, even than the society of the fighting laird of Gairloch himself.