Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

nisroRv OF LEWIS. 291
attempt to colonize it and civilize the inhabitants; "if
that," as the record says, " were possible." To effect
this purpose, they obtained from the King, James the
sixth, a grant of the Lewis, in 1589 ; just as, in our own
days, we have obtained grants over the properties of the
Potowmacks, the Micmacs, and the Chickasaws. By the
assistance of troops and artificers, they thus took posses-
sion ; hoisting his Majesty's flag*, and building a " pretty
little town : " but not without some resistance, in which
one of the Fife lairds was taken prisoner, but afterwards
ransomed. Finding, however, that their new possesions
were not very easily held, they adopted the good old
policy of setting again by the ears the brothers who had
united against them ; bribing Neill with part of the spoil,
and cutting off Murthow's head.
Kintail, now ousted of his claims by this southland
colony, set Tormot at liberty, in hopes of stirring up an
insurrection; designing, probably, to step in once more
over the neck of his former prisoner. But the colonists
were here on their guard, and he was apprehended and
committed to Edinburgh Castle; from which, however,
he was afterwards released, to wait for better times.
These were not long in arriving. Neill and his friends,
the colonists, soon came to blows ; and the former being
shortly afterwards backed by Tormot, the latter were ex-
pelled. Nothing daunted, however, they returned with a
fresh commission from his Majesty, and forced Tormot
to capitulate; but at length, weaned out with the re-
sistance of Neill, and with their own losses and vexations,
the colony was withdrawn. Kintail, who appears to have
been a politician worthy of better days, on this, ob-
tained a surreptitious gift of the property, under the
great seal ; to the no small indignation of his Majesty,
whose great seal appears to have been very little under his
own controul, but who, nevertheless, in the plenitude of
u 2