THE FIFE ADVENTURERS. 203 



3rd. That Spens, with his son-in-law Thomas Monypenny 

 of Kinkell, should remain in Lewis as pledges, 

 until the first two conditions were satisfactorily 

 fulfilled and confirmed.* 



The colonists had no option but to accept these conditions, 

 which they accordingly did, very much against the grain, 

 as may be imagined. Under the leadership of Sir James 

 Anstruther, the prisoners made a humiliating departure 

 from Lewis, the attenuated remnant of the company who 

 had so blithely undertaken the conquest and colonisation 

 of the island three years previously. The detention of the 

 pledges was a prudent move on the part of Tormod, for 

 the King was forced to grant the desired remission, and 

 give the required security for the transference of the 

 colonists' rights to Macleod, in order to obtain the release 

 of Spens and his son-in-law. Subsequent events show 

 that the conditions would never have been fulfilled but 

 for the prisoners in pledge. The King and the Adven- 

 turers acted with " Punic " faith towards the Lewismen : 

 according to their code of honour, promises to wild 

 Hebrideans were made only to be broken at a favourable 

 opportunity. The rough islanders came out of this trans- 

 action far more creditably than the civilised Lowlanders. 

 Eight months elapsed before James Leirmont, son of the 

 Laird of Darcie, was sent to Lewis to obtain the release 

 of the pledges, by ratifying the treaty entered into by 

 Tormod and the colonists. The islanders honourably 

 performed their part of the agreement, and the last of the 

 Fife men sailed from Lewis, glad enough, no doubt, to 

 cross the Minch on their homeward journey. And thus 

 ended, in miserable failure, the first attempt to make the 

 subjection of the island a dividend-paying concern. 



Tormod Macleod was now in undisputed possession of 

 the island, with the faithful Neil as his lieutenant. One 

 of his most active partisans was John MacDonald Mac- 



* Spotswood, p. 468. 



