‘To shew the present disposition of that Clan,’ described as ‘lazy, silent, sly, and enterprizing people,’ ‘I will relate an instance of their barbarity which happened since the year 1725. The possessor of a farm belonging to the Duke of Gordon, of the tribe of the Macmartins, about three miles to the North of Fort William, demanded an abatement of the usual rent, which the Duke refusing, he left the farm, boasting that no man would dare to succeed in it. For some years it was untenanted, till at last the Duke prevailed on Mr. Skeldoich, who was then minister of the parish, who could not find a place to reside in, to take this farm. The former possessor lay still till the minister had plentifully stocked the farm with cattle and built a house on it, then, with some other rogues, finding that the cattle were carefully watched, went to the place where the calves were kept, and with their durks cut off their heads, and cut the skins so that they would not be of any use.’ They also destroyed the Duke’s salmon nets on the Lochy. Later, watching till the minister chanced to be away from home, ‘they pulled down part of his house, and fired several shots towards the place where his wife lay.’ The worthy clergyman then thought it time to move into Fort William. Our author adds that cadets of Highland houses have possessed farms ‘for ages’ without leases, and when they are not able to pay their rents, _and are turned out_, they look upon the person who takes the farm after them as usurping their right. These people have often refused to take a written lease, thinking that, by so doing, they gave up the right of possession. All this, written about 1749, is hardly congruous with Mr. Fraser Mackintosh’s bold statement that the Commissioners of Forfeited Estates were the first evictors in the Highlands. We learn that, ‘by reason of the great poverty and slavery of the commons,’ on the Mackenzie estates, out of the clan levy of 3,000 men, ‘a third are but dross.’ Let us add that the Campbells evicted the Macdonalds from Kintyre, by cutting their throats; that every defeated clan was likely to be, more or less, evicted; and that all the Macgregors were evicted. These were operations of clan warfare, though not much more enjoyable for that. But when a sub-tenant held from a tacksman, on a ‘precarious tenure,’ does Mr. Fraser Mackintosh maintain that he was never evicted? Why did Robin Oig shoot Macfarlane at the plough tail? He did so simply for the old agrarian reason. In Prestongrange’s speech for the Crown, at the disgraceful trial which ended in the judicial murder of James Stewart of the Glens, he says that ‘a delusion in a peculiar manner prevailing in the Highlands,’ is that ‘a cause of mortal enmity arises if a man should be removed by another from his farm or possession which he hath no manner of title to hold or retain.’[184] ‘The delusion,’ he says, ‘prevails elsewhere,’ but is ‘in a particular manner prevalent in the Highlands.’