2 Faraday, Correspondence of Lieut.-Col. PJiilips. 



the manners of the inhabitants were extremel\- primitive. 

 A considerable proportion of the people used the 

 Manx language, a Celtic tongue strongly engrafted with 

 Norse ; and they were purely an agricultural and fishing 

 population, with hardly any amusements but sport, and 

 no literature. The better educated classes, who were few 

 in number, were centred in and about Douglas, at that 

 time a town with about 3,000 inhabitants, which possessed a 

 weekly newspaper — the Manx Weekly Mercury. 



The Isle of Man was originally a feudatory kingdom, 

 granted by Henry IV. to the Stanley famil}-, which 

 retained many proofs of regality until 1726. In that }'ear 

 an Act was passed prohibiting the import of goods into 

 Great Britain from the Island. In the meantime, the 

 Lordship of Man passed by descent to Lady Mary 

 Sophia, youngest daughter of the seventh Earl of Derby, 

 and wife of Johnj Marquis of Atholl. Her grandson, the 

 second Duke of Atholl, died in 1764. During his reign 

 as Lord of Man, the Island was made a base for the 

 smuggling trade, and the British Government, alarmed at 

 the progress of this illicit commerce, made attempts to 

 purchase the rights of Lordship, but were evaded. His 

 daughter. Lady Charlotte, married her cousin John, who 

 became third Duke of Atholl, and, in 1765, arrangements 

 were made by the British Government for the purchase 

 of the Lordship of the Island, by which "John, Duke of 

 Atholl, and Charlotte his wife, Baroness Strange," and 

 their Trustees agree to surrender for the sum of ;^70,ooo 

 all their rights in the " Island, Castle, Pele, and Lordship of 

 Man, and all the Islands and Lordships to the said Island 

 of Man appertaining," comprised and granted in the 

 letters patent of Henry IV. and James I. The same "to be 

 vested inalienably in His Majesty, his heirs and successors." 

 It may be said that the Act of Parliament (called the 



