THE FIFE ADVENTURERS. 229 



accepted the submission of Neil and his friends, only too 

 glad to be rid of their troublesome attentions. They 

 actually gave Neil a post of superintendence, which 

 enabled that cunning schemer to mature his plans for 

 their ruin. When these were completed, the storm burst 

 upon the deluded colonists. In the dead of the night) 

 Neil, with 300 men armed with swords, dirks, bows, 

 darlochs, arquebuses, muskets, and pistols, entered the 

 camp of the sleeping Lowlanders and commenced the 

 work of destruction. The houses of the lairds of Nether- 

 liff, Airdrie, and Wormiston, recently erected on the South 

 Beach of Stornoway, were burnt to the ground; The 

 servants of these lairds, aroused from their slumbers by 

 the heat and smoke, rushed for their lives from the burning 

 houses, only to be met by the Lewismen and mercilessly 

 put to the sword Several newly-built houses were 

 similarly reduced to ashes, and the total destruction of 

 property in the colony amounted to ten thousand pounds.* 

 The disaster to the Lewis colony infuriated the King, 

 and was probably responsible for the sudden change which 

 took place in his policy of bringing the North Isles to a 

 state of obedience. To no other reason can be attributed 

 the savage orders with which the Marquis of Huntly was 

 now charged. We have seen the stage at which the 

 negotiations with Huntly had arrived in the month of 

 March. On 3oth April, the Privy Council made definite 

 proposals for the acceptance of the Marquis. The service 

 in the Isles was to be completed in a year, and rent was 

 to be paid on the expiration of that period. The whole of 

 the North Isles, with the exception of Skye and Lewis, 

 were to be held by Huntly in feu, as being the King's 

 property, either by forfeiture of the possessors " or uthir- 

 wayes." A " reasonable " rent to be fixed by the Comp- 

 troller, on the basis of the revenue derivable for similar 

 lands in the South Hebrides, was to be paid. The whole 

 of the expense connected with the enterprise was to be 



* Pitcairn's Crim. Trials, Vol. III., pp. 244-7. 



