1 88 THE SUTHERLAND CLEARANCES. 



month of March ensuing, burnt several parts of the muir pasturage 

 belonging to the farm. Declares, that the declarant was not personally 

 on the farm from the said month of December until the term of Whit- 

 sunday ; that he perambulated a considerable part of the farm 

 after the Whitsunday, along with Dryden, who pointed out spots 

 that he had burnt, and it was then full of herbage, and the 

 inhabitants' cattle and horses were pasturing upon it ; some hundreds of 

 cattle and horses being kept by the tenants on the declarant's ground 

 from the said term of Whitsunday up to the time when possession was 

 got by the strength of the Sheriff's warrant. Interrogated, Whether 

 the declarant gave orders, either to the said John Dryden or to John 

 M'Kay, another of his shepherds, to burn the spots of heather before 

 declared to? Declares, in answer, that John M'Kay was a young lad 

 under the direction of Dryden ; and the declarant rather thinks that he 

 had no conversation with him on the subject ; that if Dryden asked the 

 declarant any questions on the subject, he certainly must have told him 

 to burn what was proper, as the inhabitants had already consented to 

 the measure ; and he knows it was no injury, but a benefit to them ; 

 and it was besides a small portion of the flows that was necessary to be 

 burnt for the purpose of the shepherds. That although the declarant 

 has every wish to answer explicitly to each interrogatory, he really can- 

 not say that he recollects of any conversation he had with Dryden on 

 the subject ; but this he does frankly allow, that in so far as Dryden 

 was the declarant's servant, the declarant is answerable for any damage 

 he might thereby have done the people, if they are entitled to any 

 damages. Declares, that he knows that regular processes of removing 

 were brought at the instance of the proprietors against all the principal 

 tenants ; and the conclusions of the libels were, that the defenders should 

 " compear before the Sheriff-depute, &c., on the i8th March and 4th 

 April, to hear and see themselves decerned and ordained, by decreet and 

 sentence of the Sheriff-depute or his substitute, to flit and remove them- 

 selves, wives, bairns, families, servants, sub-tenants, cottars, dependents, 

 and whole goods and gear, forth and from the possession of the said 

 lands and others, at the term of removal after mentioned, viz., from 

 the houses, gardens, grass, and mills, at the term of Whitsunday next, 

 1814, and from the arable lands under crop at the separation of crop 

 1814 from the ground:" That the declarant, as agent for the pursuers, 

 called the actions regularly in court, and obtained decreet of removing 

 in terms of the libels. That in the beginning of the month of May the 

 declarant extracted the decreets, and caused charge the defenders in 

 terms of the decreets ; that he thereafter obtained precepts of ejection, 



