452 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
tatiously performed, have been thoroughly appreciated by those 
who had the means of knowing and the power of judging. 
Of the debt which we owed to Lord Colonsay after he took his 
seat in the House of Lords, it is unnecessary to speak. 
I may here advert to a part of Lord Colonsay’s life which pos- 
sesses much interest, and is calculated to throw a strong light upon 
his character. Some time after the death of his father he became 
by a family arrangement the proprietor of Colonsay and Oronsay, 
which he retained till a comparatively recent period. In con- 
sequence of the advanced age of his father, these estates had not 
latterly been administered with as much energy and enterprise as 
the times demanded. They were all in the hands of the proprietor, 
except some small possessions held by a number of crofters and 
cotters. When Lord Colonsay acquired the property, he applied 
himself vigorously to putting it into perfect order. Besides visit- 
ing it during the vacations of the Court, he personally directed 
the whole improvements which were made upon it, and for that 
purpose transmitted, in the midst of the labours of his profession, 
minute directions weekly to his managers on the spot, and received 
their detailed reports of everything that was doing. In a few 
years he had the islands put into a most satisfactory state for 
being let out in separate farms of suitable size. The stock on the 
farms was every way improved. He encouraged and liberally aided 
emigration, and did so with singular delicacy, so as to spare the 
feelings and not impair the means of the emigrants. Excellent 
farm houses and offices were built, roads formed, and harbours 
improved at a very great expense, and at last he succeeded in 
lightening his own labours and establishing in the islands respect- 
able tenants whose occupations gradually increased in value. He 
also succeeded in getting Colonsay detached from Jura and made 
a separate parish; and having improved the church that had been 
there in use, and built a comfortable manse and good school, he 
settled a liberal endowment on the minister, and thus gave the 
people on the island the advantages of a. regular and efficient 
ministry, and two good parish schools. It may gladden our friend 
Professor Blackie’s heart to hear that he retained his Gaelic in 
perfection to the last, and was thus enabled to exercise an influence 
that might otherwise have been lost. 
