unwritten tenure of his fathers, were no match for the defined rights and pretensions of the pettiest neighbour possessing by the _litera scripta_ of a feudal title, still less of the powerful Feudatory claiming by Royal charters, and aided by the ingenuity of the professional lawyer, trained and practised in the logic of the schools. As if to insult the dearest prejudices of the Odaller, every feudal aggression was held forth as a boon of reform, every change as an amendment of his barbarous code, every abrogation of a cherished right as the removal of an antiquated abuse—while the promised improvement was but a delusion, and the new abuses were more burdensome than the old. Left to itself therefore, Odalism must have decayed by the natural development of its germs of self-destruction; but the mere decline of the abstract principle, or even the impoverishment of the Odaller, were no object to the Scottish Government, except as tending to its own enrichment at his cost. To make present and growing profit of the defects of the Odal title—to drive the possessor into the refuge of a feudal tenure, and to obviate the Redemption by Scoticizing every law or custom derived from the mother country, were now the objects of Scottish policy, and an able agent was found in Bishop William Tulloch, who (27th August 1472) undertook to collect the Revenues of the Crown for a Commission of 20 per cent., and a tacit connivance in his unquestioned appropriation of all “unconsidered trifles,” and in his extra extortions, “ony maner of way,” beyond his Tack duty of £366, 13s. 4d. Deeply embued with feudal prejudices, Tulloch affected to see no legal principle in a code of customs so anti-feudal. Heritage, without Superior or Vassal, Payment or Service, Charter or Sasine, or any of the essentials of a valid feudal title, was to him a mere traditionary usurpation, subversive of lawful order and authority. The Odaller was a mere squatter, with, at best, a possessory title, liable to arbitrary exaction limited only by his capacity to pay, and with prescriptive custom as his only claim to differ from the annual Tenant or triennial Tacksman. To obliterate all such distinctions, the lands of the Odaller and Tenant were registered in one indiscriminate Rental, with a studied confusion of rights Odal paying Skatt—and rights extra-Odal paying land-male. The Thing-För-Kaup of the Odaller, and Gersomr of the Tenant, were claimed as the nominal equivalent of the feudal Forcop and Grassum—Skatt, Wattel, Leidangr, and every Odal tax without a feudal synonyme, were exacted as a rent—every feudal claim or casualty without an Odal name or equivalent custom, was imposed and extended to its full feudal limits—while every Odal customary right of pasture, fishing, or sea-beach, was limited, taxed or punished as a feudal purpresture. The whole district was indiscriminately subjected to the prædial and personal services formerly due by Tenants only, and new burdens of