attacked him in Stornoway, and after killing him, released Roderick Macleod, his father, who possessed the island in peace during the remainder of his life. Torquill Connaldagh, by the assistance of the clan Kenzie, got Donald Macleod into his possession, and executed him at Dingwall. [Illustration: Stornoway Castle.--From a photograph taken specially for this work.] Upon the death of Roderick Macleod, his son Torquill Dubh succeeded him in Lewis. Taking a grudge at Rorie-Og, his brother, he apprehended him, and sent him to Maclean to be detained in prison; but he escaped out of Maclean’s hands, and afterwards perished in a snow-storm. As Torquill Dubh excluded Torquill Connaldagh from the succession of Lewis, as a bastard, the clan Kenzie formed a design to purchase and conquer Lewis, which they calculated on accomplishing on account of the simplicity of Torquill Connaldagh, who had now no friend to advise with, and from the dissensions which unfortunately existed among the race of the Siol-Torquill. This scheme, moreover, received the aid of a matrimonial alliance between Torquill Connaldagh and the clan, by a marriage between his eldest daughter and Roderick Mackenzie, the lord of Kintail’s brother. The clan did not avow their design openly, but they advanced their enterprise under the pretence of assisting Torquill Connaldagh, who was a descendant of the Kintail family, and they ultimately succeeded in destroying the family of Macleod of Lewis, together with his tribe, the Siol-Torquill, and by the ruin of that family and some neighbouring clans, this ambitious clan made themselves complete masters of Lewis and other places. As Torquill Dubh was the chief obstacle in their way, they formed a conspiracy against his life, which, by the assistance of the Breve, they were enabled to carry out successfully. The Breve, by stratagem, managed to obtain possession of Torquill Dubh and some of his friends, and deliver them to the lord of Kintail, who ordered them to be beheaded, which they accordingly were in July, 1597. Some gentlemen belonging to Fife, hearing of these disturbances in Lewis, obtained from the king, in 1598, a gift of the island, their professed object being to civilize the inhabitants, their real design, however, being, by means of a colony, to supplant the inhabitants, and drive them from the island. A body of soldiers and artificers of all sorts were sent, with every thing necessary for a plantation, into Lewis, where, on their arrival, they began to erect houses in a convenient situation, and soon completed a small but neat town, in which they took up their quarters. The new settlers were, however, much annoyed in their operations by Neill and Murthow Macleod, the only sons of Roderick Macleod who remained in the island. The speculation proved ruinous to many of the adventurers, who, in consequence of the disasters they met with, lost their estates, and were in the end obliged to quit the island.