THE FIFE ADVENTURERS. 175 



expenses and expected improvements, are to be free from 

 any payment of feu duty. Afterwards they are to pay for 

 Lewis, Rona and " Ilanshand " (the Shiant Isles), with 

 their pertinents, an annual rent of 140 chalders of beir 

 (barley), to be delivered annually at any part or most con- 

 venient port in Lewis between Christmas and Easter. For 

 the eighty merks Crown lands of Trotternish (which in 1596 

 had been leased to Donald Gorm of Sleat at an annual 

 duty of 380 merks), they are to pay a feu duty of 400 

 merks, in half-yearly instalments, at Whitsuntide and 

 Martinmas. And certain stipulations are also specified 

 regarding payments by the heirs of the Adventurers, on 

 their entry to the lands. 



The contract goes on to lay down regulations for the 

 government of the burghs of barony which the Syndicate 

 are empowered to erect, and of any ports and havens 

 which they may create. Provision is made for the building 

 of four parish churches within the lands of Lewis and 

 Rona, and two churches in Trotternish, the patronage of 

 which is to be vested in the Syndicate, being dissolved 

 from the Bishopric of the Isles. Provision is also made for 

 the erection of a Stewartry or Justiciary to be independent 

 of the Sheriffdom of Inverness, and to be endowed with 

 ample powers for the administration of justice, the nomi- 

 nations to this office to be in the hands of the Adventurers. 

 Exemption from service other than in foreign wars, or in 

 expeditions to conquer the other islands, is granted to the 

 members of the Syndicate, and even the exceptions are to 

 be binding only on occasions when they are charged to 

 accompany the King and his successors in "proper person." 

 Nor are these exceptions to apply, unless the commissions 

 ordering them to accompany the King or his lieutenants 

 have reference to districts north of the Ness. 



The Adventurers are also exempted from all taxation, 

 except special imposts, Lewis to be reckoned as forty 

 pound lands and Trotternish as eighty merks. But even 

 this tax is not to be recovered from them by law nor are 

 any of them to be dispossessed by " violent force." 



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