174 THE SUTHERLAND CLEARANCES. 



man was from home. Witness removed Mr. Sellar from his office of 

 procurator before his own Court, without any complaint being made 

 against him. Witness never said that Mr. Sellar ought to go to Botany 

 Bay, or be hanged, or that this would be the case ; he never said to Mr. 

 Young, Lady Stafford's commissioner, that that gentlemen should have 

 nothing to do with Mr. Sellar ; Mr. Young never offered to give bail. 

 Witness wrote a letter to Lord Stafford, in regard to the crimes of 

 which Mr. Sellar was accused, after the precognition ; and which letter 

 being shewn to the witness, was identified. Witness never said, at 

 least has no recollection of saying to Mr. Ross, that if he could, he 

 would ruin Mr. Sellar ; he has seen the Military Register, but has no 

 connection with the paragraphs in that paper, relative to Mr. Sellar ; 

 he has seen the Crown Agent's letter to the Minister of Farr ; the 

 publishers of the Register did not get a copy of it from the witness. 

 Cross-examined Witness wrote to Mr. Cranstoun, the Sheriff-Depute, 

 on the 8th of May, 1815, when he committed Mr. Sellar. The letter 

 was then read, as follows : 



TO LORD STAFFORD. 

 / 



KIRKTOWN P. GOLSPIE, y)tk May, 1815. 



MY LORD, I conceive it a duty I owe to your Lordship, to address 

 you upon the present occasion, and a more distressing task I have 

 seldom had to perform. 



Your Lordship knows, that in summer last, an humble petition, 

 subscribed by a number of tenants on Mr. Sellar's sheep farm in Farr 

 and Kildonan, was presented to Lady Stafford, complaining of various 

 acts of injury, cruelty, and oppression, alleged to have been committed 

 upon their persons and property, by Mr. Sellar, in the spring and 

 summer of that year. 



To this complaint, her Ladyship, upon the 22nd of July last, was 

 graciously pleased to return an answer in writing. In it, her Ladyship, 

 with her usual candour and justice, with much propriety observes, 

 " That if any person on the estate shall receive any illegal treatment, 

 she will never consider it as hostile to her, if they have recourse to legal 

 redress, as the most secure way to receive the justice which she always 

 desires they should have on every occasion ". Her Ladyship also 

 intimates, "That she had communicated the complaint to Mr. Sellar, 

 that he may make proper enquiry and answer to her ". 



It would appear, however, that Mr. Sellar still refused, or delayed 

 to afford that redress to the removed tenants, to which they conceived 



