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298 Gaelic Society of Inuerness.
were in absolute possession. In many cases it is true they were
only life-renters ; and we find not uncommonly that dower-lands
were given to widows in place of jointure. Such lands sometimes
fell back to the original estate, and sometimes became the portion
of a younger child; but, in any case, they wei-e for the time under
separate maaagement, and thus tended to restrict monopoly in
the soil.
The earliest Valuation Koll of Ross-shire, of which there is
any record, is that of 1G44, a copy of which has been preserved
for us by Mr Fraser-Mackintosh in his volume oi Antiquarian
Notes. I happen to ])Ossess copies of the Rolls of 1 756, of 1 793, and
of 1853. Lately I had an opportunity of inspecting also the roll
of the Collector of Land-Tax for Ross-shire, in which the changes
in the ownership of land had been corrected down to 1883. These
rolls relat*^ to the County of Ross, exclusive of the parts of
Cromarty and Nairn locally situated within it. Let me say a few
words on their nature and origin.
The object with which they were made up was to form a
basis for the direct taxation of land. In early times such taxation
was rarely resorted to, being treated as an extraordinary
source of income to which recourse was to be had only in great
emergencies. Down to the middle of the seventeenth century
such taxes as were levied on land in Scotland were assessed on
what was known as " the old extent,"— a valuation believed to have
been made by Alexander III. about 1280, in view of a general aid
towards his daughter's dowry. The Church lands, however, were
not included in this valuation, and they contributed on another
basis. But in 1643 the Convention of Estates in voting a supply
of 1,200,000 raerks Scottish money for the support of the army in
Ireland, deemed it expedient to levy the money, " not as the
taxations have been, or by the division of temporalities and
spiritualities," but " conform to a particular roll made and set
down thereanent, and subscribed in presence of the said Estates
by the Lord Chancellor, to remain on record of the books of col-
lection and convention." Under this Act, which is dated the
15th August 1643, Conuuissioners are appointed for each county,
" with powei' to such Commissioners to use all legal ways to inform
themseb'es of the just and true worth of ev(iry person
or persons their present year's rent of this crop, 1643, to landward,
as well as of lands and teinds as of any other thing whereby
yearly profit or commodity ariseth, and that the worth of any
person or persons their lands, teinds, and other commodities where
gressums and iuterosses have been payed, be valued and set down