, ( 67 ) 



Mackintosh made suggestions in. respect to my late 

 factor, Mr. Campbell of Ardfinaig, which admit of no 

 other interpretation than this — that he may have 

 produced to me false vouchers for an expenditure on 

 improvements which was never really laid out/"* I 

 will not stop to refute such an accusation by explain- 

 ing my own habits of business, or my own personal 

 inspection during many years of the improvements 

 which were made. I understand that the Commission 

 landed from a steamer at the village of Bunessan, and 

 re-embarked without having time to see anything 

 whatever of the estate. And, indeed, even if the pre- 

 sent condition of the country had been examined no 

 judgment could have been arrived at on the subject of 

 improvements without a recollection of its previous con- 

 dition thirty-five years ago, and a comparison between 

 the two. It is impossible, therefore, that any member 

 of the Commission could be possessed of any of the 

 data on which alone an expression of incredulity 

 could be justified as to the facts of my outlay, stated 

 by Sir John M'Neill in his Eeport of 1 851, or as to 

 the integrity of the gentleman under whom that out- 

 lay, and still greater subsequent outlays, were ex- 

 pended. I need not farther indicate what every just 

 mind must think and feel of the moral character at- 

 taching to such insinuations — when it is not even 

 pretended that they are based on a particle of evi- 

 dence. It is true that there is no law of libel open 



* The question I refer to is thus reported : " May not this large 

 sum of money that has been mentioned have gone out of the Duke'« 

 pocket, and yet never been expended on the estate 1 Is it quite 

 possible that documents, stamped papers, things of that sort, may 

 have been presented to the Duke, showing that the money had been 

 all spent on the property 1 " 



