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A Famous Minister of Dauiot, 1672-1726. 255
" great numbers of the parishioners." The Presbytery explained
to the pe()})le that tliey had come "to confer witli them anent the
ex|)eiUtious and comfortable settlement of a gospel minister in
these united parishes, which they must look upon as legally
vacant ;" and referred to the act of the Committee of Assembly in
1 (594, and Mr Michael's demission in 171 7. Dunmaglass, on behalf
of the parishioners, answered that Mr Michael had l)een their
minister " without having aught to say against him since
his incumbency," and craved that he should be left with them ;
and the minister himself gave in a paper arguing that the
parish had never been pro])erly declared \acant, and that
he was no intruder. The Presbytery, looking to the treatment
which Messrs Leslie and Beaton had received, and probably
dreading violence themselves, adjourned to meet next day at Inver-
ness ;
and at this second meeting JNIr Michael presented a petition,
in which, after a discussion of the questions at issue, he " in treats
the reverend brethern to take his age and great family and mean
circumstances in the world, and the law troubles lie met with from
Provost Clarke and as yet by his rejjresentatives, so to heart as to
give him some time in his foresaid ciiarge, which, by the coui"se of
nature, c:uinot be long."
The meeting, after long deliberation, appointed the ministers
of Inverness to lay the whole circumstances before Mr Duncan
Forbes, advocate, (afterwards the well-known Lord President),
who was then at Culloden, and to obtain his opinion and advice,
and for that purpose to lay before him an extract of the Com-
mittee's Act of 1694, which found Daviot vacant. But the fates
were evidently on the side of the poor old minister. The
Moderator wrote to Edinburgh for an extract of the Act of 1694,
but the reply received was that no such extract could be given, as
the minutes of the Committee were destroyed by fire in 1701.
At meeting after meeting, the case was brought up without any progress
being made ; while on 6th February 1722 a letter was read
from The INIackintosh and sundry other gentlemen of the parish,
" earnestly intreating the Presbyteries forbearance with JNlaister
^lichael Fraser, and obliging themselves to an active concurrence
with the Presbytery in the event of his death, which, now in the
course of nature, cannot be long." The Presbytery resolved to
report the matter to the next Synod " and in the meantime they
appoint Mr Macbean and Mr Shaw in name of the Presbytery to
write to the Laird of Mackintosh a return to the said lettei-,
and remonstrate to him the usuage and rude treatment " given
the minister in the previous harvest.
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