406 HISTORY OF THE OUTER HEBRIDES. 



the crop of 1716; and "for any goods or cargoes sent to 

 Leith from said island for the said year." The Colonel, on 

 his part, obliged himself to pay the Countess an annuity 

 for life of 1,000, to come out of the rents of Strathconon, 

 Brahan, and Chanonry, " any deficiency to be made out of 

 the Lewis revenue."* Towards the end of 1717, trouble 

 arose with the Church in connexion with the Lewis estate. 

 Queen Anne had made a gift of the teinds of the island to 

 the Synod of Argyll, but for ten years ( 1 706- 1 7 1 6) nothing 

 had been paid, and the Sheriff of Argyll threatened to take 

 proceedings for the recovery of the arrears, which amounted 

 to 400. The claim was ultimately compromised for 

 .200. t All this time, Seaforth was residing abroad, but 

 in 1719, he re-appeared in Lewis in a somewhat dramatic 

 fashion. 



One April evening in that year, a Council of War was 

 held in a room in Stornoway, where a distinguished com- 

 pany was assembled, to confer upon subjects fraught with 

 momentous issues. The men who took part in the 

 conference were men of note. They had already made a 

 stir in British history, and some of them subsequently 

 acquired European renown. The Earl of Seaforth ; the 

 Marquis of Tullibardine ; George Keith, the hereditary 

 Earl Marshal of Scotland ; his younger brother, James, 

 who afterwards became the famous Marshal Keith ; a 

 brother of Kenneth Sutherland, Lord Duffus ; Campbell of . 

 Glendaruel ; Brigadier Campbell of Ormidale, who had 

 escaped from his captors, and was now once more on Lewis 

 soil ; these were the persons who were met together in 

 Stornoway to deliberate upon matters of high politics. 

 How they came there ; what their purpose was ; and in 

 what manner they proposed to effect that purpose, it will 

 now be our business to state. 



In the summer of 1718, the Jacobite cause was in a 

 parlous condition. The funds of the party were almost 

 exhausted, and some of the exiles in France, who bore the 



* Seaforth MSS. in Brit. Mus. 



f Idem. " The Lewis yielded not a fifth part of its rent in 1716." 



