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The Isle of Man. 173
preached in any, although the people in their homes throughout
all the country continue to speak the language of their ancestors.
Another custom which the Murrays religiously guarded is still
preserved — " The courts are still fenced in Manx, according to
ancient traditionary form ; and the island laws are still promulgated
in jNIanx on the Tynwald Mount."
The Imperial Government had been using steady pressure for
more than a century before 18l*9 to get rid of the Kings in ^lan
and the Manx taritl". As early as 1G70 an enterprising Liverpool
lirni organised smuggling in Man on a large scale, and made immense
profit for a time. The English customs and excise duties
were then comparatively low, but the import duties of Man were
still so much lower that a good margin of profit was left to the
smugglers. The situation of the island made it a natural emporium
for the illicit traders of many lands. The Manx people did
the distribution work, and in sjiite of ships of war and armed cut-
tei-s, they glided in their boats with cargoes of brandy, wine, tea,
and other commodities under cover of night and mists, to the Scotch,
Irish, English and Welsh coasts. Great pressure was brought upon
the last Stanley King in Man to sell the island to the Government.
That pressure, in a stronger degree and in various forms—one
which was to foment faction and discontent
was steadily continued during the Murray
in the
period.
island
When
nothing else would do, in 1765 the British Government in a
very high-handed manner constrained the Duke of Athole to sell
the Manx sovereignty—retaining his proprietary and manorial
rights, ecclesiastical patronage, &c.—for £70,000. The INIanx
people were filled with consternation, and many of them hastily
realised their possessions, and retired from the island. But after
some yeai-s they recovered confidence, and developed the contraband
trade to such an extent that a Parliamentary Committee,
appointed in 1792, estimated the annual loss to the customs of
Great Britain caused by Manx smuggling at £350,000. It was
felt that the purchase of the sovereignty was not enough, and that
till the property and patronage rights were vested in the Crown,
the neck of the contraband trade could not be broken. So the tithe
commotion was not officially checked but fostered; and the Duke
of Athol(;'s position was made so uncomfoi'table that he was at last
glad to sell out entirely for £416,11-1.
The ecclesiasical history of Man is to the effect that St
Patrick converted the heathens of that island, and placed " a holy
prudent canon of the Lateran, and a disciple of his own named
Germanus," over them as bishop, that for a long time thereafter tlje
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