to 1746 it was the interest of the laird and chief tacksmen to keep the body of the people as contented as possible, and do all in their power to attach them to their interest. Money was of but little use in the Highlands then; there was scarcely anything in which it could be spent; and so long as his tenants furnished him with the means of maintaining a substantial and extensive hospitality, the laird was not likely in general to complain. “The poverty of the tenants rendered it customary for the chief, or laird, to free some of them every year, from all arrears of rent; this was supposed, upon an average, to be about one year in five of the whole estate.”[10] In the same letter from which the last sentence is quoted, Captain Burt gives an extract from a Highland rent-roll, of date probably about 1730; we shall reproduce it here, as it will give the reader a better notion as to how those matters were managed in these old times, than any description can. “You will, it is likely,” the letter begins, “think it strange that many of the Highland tenants are to maintain a family upon a farm of twelve merks Scots per annum, which is thirteen shillings and fourpence sterling, with perhaps a cow or two, or a very few sheep or goats; but often the rent is less, and the cattle are wanting. “In some rentals you may see seven or eight columns of various species of rent, or more, viz., money, barley, oatmeal, sheep, lambs, butter, cheese, capons, &c.; but every tenant does not pay all these kinds, though many of them the greatest part. What follows is a specimen taken out of a Highland rent-roll, and I do assure you it is genuine, and not the least by many:-- Scots Money. English. Butter. Oatmeal. Muttons. Stones. Bolls. Lb.Oz. B.P.Lip. Donald mac Oil vic ille Challum £3 10 4 £0 5 10⅛ 0 3 2 0 2 1 3 ⅛ and 1/16 Murdoch mac ille Christ 5 17 6 0 9 9⅛ 0 6 4 0 3 3 3 ¼ and 1/16 Duncan mac ille Phadrick 7 0 6 0 12 3½ 0 7 8 1 0 3 0½ ¼ and ⅛ I shall here give you a computation of the first article, besides which there are seven more of the same farm and rent, as you may perceive by the fraction of a sheep in the last column:-- The money £0 5 10⅛ Sterling. The butter, three pounds two ounces, at 4d. per lb 0 1 1½ Oatmeal, 2 bushels, 1 peck, 3 lippys and ¼, at 6d. per peck 0 4 9¼ and ½ Sheep, one-eighth and one-sixteenth, at 2s 0 0 4½ ------------- The yearly rent of the farm is £0 12 1½ and 1/12.”