that it was not his interest to pauperize or depopulate the Islands, and he retraced his steps. Perhaps the change was but the completion of his scheme for driving the Odallers into feudalism, and giving the sanction of a new bargain to his multiplied and aggravated exactions. The Perambulations being no longer useful, were abolished as illegal, and he made a merit of renouncing the lands and pertinents of every Odaller who should accept, in confirmation of his right, a feudal grant, paying therefor all the accumulated burdens of Skatt, teind, &c., according to the Rentale. So effectually had Earl Robert _stressed_ them, that most of them accepted such feudal investitures, and the few who adhered to their Odal tenure, had henceforth neither rights to defend, strength to resist, nor wealth to tempt cupidity. But the very profits of such rapacity at once prompted and justified the resumption of a Grant so valuable and so abused. The Crown’s revenue from the Orkneys had risen progressively within a century, from Lord Sinclair’s Tack duty of £366, to Oliver Sinclair’s of £2000, which also continued to be Lord Robert’s Feu-duty; but the Crown was too poor to give away such an appanage without a larger share of the profits, and James VI. on his majority, resolved to add to his revenue by resuming the Islands, and to his popularity by affecting to commiserate their misrule. By three Acts of Revocation, Annexation, and Dissolution (29th July 1587), he annexed the Bishopric to the Crown, resumed the Earldom, and re-granted it at a Duty of £4000 to his Chancellor Maitland and Justice-Clerk Bellenden, whom (16th December) he commissioned to inquire into the oppressions of “Lord Robert Stewart, lait Erle of Orknay.” The result of their inquiry is not recorded, and it was probably dropped when it had served its purpose of cloaking the transfer of a lucrative grant from one courtier to another. There was probably as little sincerity of motive in the renunciation of it by the new Donataries, whose character forbids us to believe that they were sufferers from an honest system of fair dealing with the natives. Probably their two years’ experiment proved, that such a complex machinery of extortion could only be kept in working order by the master hand of Lord Robert, and to him, at a diminished duty of £2075, it was again committed by a new charter (1st April 1589), renewed to him and his heir (11th March, 1591–2), and ratified by Parliament, to Patrick, Master of Orkney (5th June) when Earl Robert had passed to his account—a master in the art of extortion under colour of law.