against its many difficulties, fiscal and physical. Twice has its right to the income of its own State Property been officially recognized; once by a Lease from George III., in trust for its public improvements (27th July 1775), and again by a Treasury Warrant for the same purpose, from George IV. (3rd March 1825)—but the first was diverted to the sole use of the Lessee; and the second was evaded by a shuffle of Government Offices, and repudiated on the lawyerly quibble that the British Commissioners of Woods and Forests are not bound by the obligations of the Scottish Exchequer. Instead of due protection in return for the taxation and duty of subjects, a County which contributed 5000 seamen to the British Navy, was denied one Gunboat to guard its own shores and harbours from the repeated insolence of privateers. Conscious that Orkney was but a pawn which might some day be redeemed by the rightful owner, Scotland, like a temporary tenant, scourged the precarious holding with unfair cropping and stinted outlay; and Britain, her assignee, discovering its capacity to produce and to endure, has followed the same profitable precedent of chronic hard usage. Unthrifty greed has loaded the Land with unjust burdens and undue taxation, has impoverished the Owners with unexpected claims and vexatious lawsuits, has often forced back the cultivated acres into wilderness and driven the cultivator to strive in freer lands for leave to live. But no misrule has yet exhausted the fertility of the soil, or crushed the energy, or worn out the patience of a people still struggling against an evil destiny, but still amenable as ever even to the semblance of lawful authority. Even though Scotland may have reduced Orkney to “the skeleton of a departed country,” Britain has still found profit in gnawing the bones. ARTICLES AND INFORMATIONS BY THE INHABITANTS OF ORKNEY AND ZETLAND OF THE OPPRESSIONS COMMITTED BY LORD ROBERT STUART. DECEMBER M.D.LXXV. THE COMPLAINTS OF THE INHABITANTS OF ORKNEY AND ZETLAND, IN THE YEAR 1575. FOLLOWS certain Articles and Informations of the wrangus usurpation of the King’s Majesty’s authority, and oppression committed by Lord Robert Stuart, fewar of Orkney and Zetland, as after follows—the whilk we take in hand to prove, whilk haill points and articles concernis the King’s Majestie in speciale.