‘The lands of Cullachie was only set till lately from year to year, the tenants were frequently removed, I know of no written rentall, it is not customary ... Discharges were not formerly required, nor were they necssary.’
Glengarry explains all this to his Agent on January 6, 1759:—
‘When I got disposition to my Father’s estate I was then under age, at this time Lady Glengarry, how [who] then had so much to Say with her husband, the Disposition Grant was concealed from her, and as the Bill granted by Lochgarry was in her Custody, had they demanded it would have Discovered the Scheme in my favours, I granted my Obligatory to Lochgery that these Bills should never make against him.’
The sense can be puzzled out of the anacoloutha.
On February 3, 1759, he repeats his story:—
‘I will only observe that the reason of the bills not being cancelled or retired by Lockgerry, was that they were then in Lady Glengarry’s custody, and that the disposition of my Father’s estate in my favour was keept secret from her, which would have been discovered had Lochgerry demanded his bills, and this occasioned my giving him my obligation they should never make against him.’
The whole affair is a specimen of the informal manner in which Highland business was done. The frequency of ‘removals’ of tenants also throws doubt on the theory that Evictions were a novelty introduced by the Commissioners of Forfeited Estates. The anarchy after Culloden is shown by the squatting of tenants on whatever farms they chose to select. The Judges could not be induced to accept Glengarry’s account of the redemption of Cullachy, as he had no documentary evidence, and Cullachy appears, after the Chiefs death, among his mortgaged lands.[117]
The latest of the drafts in Glengarry’s Letter Book are of December 1758, January 1759. He appears much aggrieved by Colonel Trapaud, Governor of Fort Augustus, for the following cause: his ground-steward had been claimed, unjustly it seems, as a deserter from the army. A party of soldiers then acted in the manner described in the following draft, which has no date or address:—
‘The party in the dead of night was posted round my hutt, of which I was ignorant untill my servants were stopped from going from door to door. Alarmed at this, I suspected some straglers were come to break open some valts in the old Castle, which was formerly Done.’