Next in importance and dignity to the chief or laird were the cadets of his family, the gentlemen of the clan, who in reference to the mode in which they held the land allotted to them, were denominated tacksmen. To these tacksmen were let farms, of a larger or smaller size according to their importance, and often at a rent merely nominal; indeed, they in general seem to have considered that they had as much right to the land as the chief himself, and when, after 1746, many of them were deprived of their farms, they, and the Highlanders generally, regarded it as a piece of gross and unfeeling injustice. As sons were born to the chief, they also had to be provided for, which seems to have been done either by cutting down the possessions of those tacksmen further removed from the family of the laird, appropriating those which became vacant by the death of the tenant or otherwise, and by the chief himself cutting off a portion of the land immediately in his possession. In this way the descendants of tacksmen might ultimately become part of the commonalty of the clan. Next to the tacksmen were tenants, who held their farms either directly from the laird, or as was more generally the case, from the tacksmen. The tenants again frequently let out part of their holdings to sub-tenants or cottars, who paid their rent by devoting most of their time to the cultivation of the tenant’s farm, and the tending of his cattle. The following extract from the Gartmore paper written in 1747, and published in the appendix to Burt’s _Letters_, gives a good idea of the manner generally followed in distributing the land among the various branches of the clan:--