( 69 ) 



I hope no one will think that I look upon your 

 Lordship as needing any words of mine to impress 

 upon you the true character of such questions as that 

 to which I have referred, and as others to which you 

 have, only too often, been compelled to listen. The 

 dignified courtesy with which your Lordship has 

 treated all who came before you makes any such inter- 

 pretation impossible. But reckless charges — and 

 sometimes the dissemination of disproved accusations 

 against both the dead and the livins; — have been so 

 much a regular part of the recent agitation, that I 

 hold it a public duty to auimadverfc upon any con- 

 spicuous exhibition of the same tendency/" In the 

 case of the questions to which I have referred, even 

 your Lordship's great patience was broken down ; and 

 I rejoiced to observe the severe censure which was 

 implied in your interruption of your colleague, and in 

 your public announcement to him that you '* cannot 

 allow questions of that character." 



Looking back at the principle on which I have con- Soundness of priu- 

 ducted the manao-ement of my estates in the Islands JJPj^ f^ whicli 



^^ *^ ^ , Duke s estates nave 



during the last thirty-five years, I am satisfied of its been managed. 



soundness. I am glad to see that one of the wit- 



nesseSjt himself a crofter, testified to the greater 



comfort of those who hold consolidated possessions. 



I am not less glad to see that another witness J 



testified to the favourable accounts received of those 



* An excellent pamphlet lately published by Mr. Sellar refuting 

 certain calumnies against his father in respect to the Sutherland 

 removals exposes, as they deserve to be exposed, the authors of 

 some recent books which have revived against the dead accusations 

 refuted at the time before a judge and jury. 



t Lachlan M'Phail, Kilraoluaig (rent payable jointly with 

 another ^£49). 



t Dr. Buchanan. 



