50 THE HIGHLAND CLEARANCES. 



burned, the principal copies of the said actions and small debt summon- 

 ses and warrants thereon, and did further upon the said township of 

 Gedentailor, and upon the said township of Upper Olach, and upon 

 the high road leading from these townships to Portree aforesaid [and on 

 that part of said road lying between Gedentailor aforesaid and the said 

 Schoolhouse], throw stones and clods of earth and peat at the said 

 Angus Martin, Ewen Robertson, and Norman Beaton, by which they, 

 or one or more of them were struck to the hurt and injury of their per- 

 sons ; and by all which or part thereof the said Angus Martin, and the 

 said Ewcn Robertson were deforced and by force, prevented from executing 

 and discharging their duty and from serving the said actions and small 

 debt summonses. 



Mr. James Anderson, Procurator-Fiscal for the county, 

 conducted the prosecution, and Mr. Kenneth Macdonald, 

 solicitor, and Town Clerk of Inverness, appeared for the 

 prisoners. 



The Procurator-Fiscal asked that certain amendments 

 should be made on the complaint with the object of more 

 specifically defining the places at which the acts charged 

 against the prisoners were alleged to have been committed. 

 The amendments were not objected to and were allowed. 

 The lines introduced are those within [ ] in the preceding 

 copy of the libel. 



Immediately after the amendments had been made, Mr. 

 Macdonald said that, before the complaint was gone into, 

 he had to state objections to the relevancy of the in- 

 dictment and also to the competency of the Court to try the 

 case. He objected to the competency of the Court on the 

 ground that the crime charged was of such a serious nature 

 that it ought to be tried by a jury ; and he objected to the 

 competency of the complaint on the ground that the punish- 

 ment attached by law to the crime charged in the indictment 

 is beyond that which could be imposed in that court. The 

 charge in this case was that of deforcing an officer of the 

 law in the execution of his duty, and that was said to have 



