"One of the Mackenzies of Letterewe had a daughter who was married to a man in Badfearn in Skye. A daughter of theirs became the wife of William Mackenzie of Rona, who was one of the Mackenzies of Shieldaig of Gairloch. He had a son named Kenneth; and Kenneth had two sons, called Kenneth and John. They were out fishing in a smack of their own, when they were attacked and taken by the press-gang. They were carried off, and placed in a hulk lying in the Thames below London. One night they were together in the same watch, and they then made a plan to escape. A yacht belonging to a gentleman in London was in the river; she was out and in every day, and always anchored alongside the hulk. The gentry from the yacht were going ashore every night, and leaving only a boy in her. The night the two brothers Kenneth and John were on the watch, the boy was alone in the yacht. What did they do but decide to carry out their plan of escape there and then! So they went through the gun-ports, one on each side of the hulk, and swam to the yacht. Then they got the yacht under weigh, the boy sleeping all the time. They got safe away with the yacht, and worked her as far as to Loch Craignish, on this side of Crinan. There they went ashore in the night, and left the yacht with the boy. They left the yacht's gig ashore in Loch Craignish, and set off on their way home. When the laird of Craignish saw the gig, and the yacht lying in the loch, he went out in the gig to see what kind of yacht she was. The brothers had left the papers of the yacht on the cabin table, that it might be found out who she belonged to. So the laird of Craignish wrote to the owners in London, and advised them to send orders to him to sell the yacht and send the boy home with the money. The owners did so, and the yacht was sold. She became the mail-packet between Coll and Tobermory. I saw her long ago on that service. "The two brothers, Kenneth and John Mackenzie, got safe back to Rona, and soon got another smack. They were going south with a cargo of fish, through the Crinan Canal; the smack was lying in the basin after you pass the first lock. There was a plank put to the shore from the gangway of the vessel; by this they went ashore to the inn at Crinan. A girl in the house went to the vessel and took the plank out; the two Mackenzies, on going back to the smack in the dark, for want of the plank fell into the basin, and were both drowned. They were relations of my mother. I saw them when I was a boy at Mellon Charles. They were fine men." JOHN MACGREGOR OF LONDUBH.