History Of The Mackenzies [223]
should be carried out? In opposition to the majority, the Court decided in favour of Sir Hector that they should not be sold until he arrived at an age to judge for himself.
Having secured this decision, Sir Hector, thinking that Mr Gorry had been acting too much in the interest of his own grandchildren--Sir Alexander's children by the second marriage--now appointed a factor of his own, Kenneth Mackenzie, his half uncle, the first "Millbank."
In 1789 he obtained authority from the Court to sell the lands which his father had previously arranged to dispose of to enable him to pay the debts of the entailed estates. He sold the lands of Davochcairn and Davochpollo to Henry Davidson of Tulloch, and Ardnagrask to Captain Rose, Beauly, who afterwards sold it to Mackenzie of Ord, In 1815 he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of his native county. He lived generally at home among a devoted tenantry; and only visited London once during his life.
He regularly dispensed justice among his Gairloch retainers without any expense to the county, and to their entire satisfaction. He was adored by the people, to whom he acted as a father and friend, and his memory is still green among the older inhabitants, who never speak of him but in the warmest terms for his generosity, urbanity, and frankness, and for the kind and free manner in which he always mixed with and addressed his tenants. He was considered by all who knew him the most sagacious and intelligent man in the county. He employed no factor after he came of age, but dealt directly and entirely with his people, ultimately knowing every man on his estates, so that he knew from personal knowledge how to treat each case of hardship and inability to pay that came before him, and to distinguish feigned from real poverty. When he grew frail from old age he employed a clerk to assist him in the management, but he wisely continued landlord and factor himself to his dying day. When Sir Francis, his eldest son, reached a suitable age, instead of adopting the usual folly of sending elder sons to the army that they might afterwards succeed to the property entirely ignorant of everything connected with it, he gave him, instead of a yearly allowance, several of the farms, with a rental of about ?00 a year, over which he acted as landlord or tenant, until his father's death, telling him "if you can make more of them, all the better for you." Sir Francis thus grew up interested in and thoroughly acquainted with all property and county business, and with his future tenants, very much to his own ultimate advantage and those who afterwards depended upon him.
Sir Hector also patronised the Gaelic poets, and appointed one of them, Alexander Campbell, better known as "Alastair Buidhe Mac Iomhair," to be his ground-officer and family bard, and allowed him to hold his land in Strath all his life rent free. [The late Dr John Mackenzie of Eileanach, Sir Hector's youngest son, makes the following reference, under date of August 30, 1878, to the old bard:--"I see honest Alastair Buidhe, with his broad bonnet and blue great coat (summer and winter) clearly before me now, sitting in the dining room at Flowerdale quite `raised'-like while reciting Ossian's poems, such as `The Brown Boar of Diarmad,' and others (though he had never heard of Macpherson's collection) to very interested visitors, though as unacquainted with Gaelic as Alastair was with English. This must have been as early as 1812 or so, when I used to come into the room after dinner about nine years old."
Alastair Buidhe, the bard, was the author's great-grandfather on the maternal side, and he was himself, on his mother's side, descended from the Mackenzies of Shieldaig.] He gave a great impetus to the Gairloch cod fishing, which he continued to encourage as long as he lived.
Sir Hector married, in August, 1778, Cochrane, daughter of James Chalmers of Fingland, without issue; and the marriage was dissolved by arrangement between the parties on the 22nd
Having secured this decision, Sir Hector, thinking that Mr Gorry had been acting too much in the interest of his own grandchildren--Sir Alexander's children by the second marriage--now appointed a factor of his own, Kenneth Mackenzie, his half uncle, the first "Millbank."
In 1789 he obtained authority from the Court to sell the lands which his father had previously arranged to dispose of to enable him to pay the debts of the entailed estates. He sold the lands of Davochcairn and Davochpollo to Henry Davidson of Tulloch, and Ardnagrask to Captain Rose, Beauly, who afterwards sold it to Mackenzie of Ord, In 1815 he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of his native county. He lived generally at home among a devoted tenantry; and only visited London once during his life.
He regularly dispensed justice among his Gairloch retainers without any expense to the county, and to their entire satisfaction. He was adored by the people, to whom he acted as a father and friend, and his memory is still green among the older inhabitants, who never speak of him but in the warmest terms for his generosity, urbanity, and frankness, and for the kind and free manner in which he always mixed with and addressed his tenants. He was considered by all who knew him the most sagacious and intelligent man in the county. He employed no factor after he came of age, but dealt directly and entirely with his people, ultimately knowing every man on his estates, so that he knew from personal knowledge how to treat each case of hardship and inability to pay that came before him, and to distinguish feigned from real poverty. When he grew frail from old age he employed a clerk to assist him in the management, but he wisely continued landlord and factor himself to his dying day. When Sir Francis, his eldest son, reached a suitable age, instead of adopting the usual folly of sending elder sons to the army that they might afterwards succeed to the property entirely ignorant of everything connected with it, he gave him, instead of a yearly allowance, several of the farms, with a rental of about ?00 a year, over which he acted as landlord or tenant, until his father's death, telling him "if you can make more of them, all the better for you." Sir Francis thus grew up interested in and thoroughly acquainted with all property and county business, and with his future tenants, very much to his own ultimate advantage and those who afterwards depended upon him.
Sir Hector also patronised the Gaelic poets, and appointed one of them, Alexander Campbell, better known as "Alastair Buidhe Mac Iomhair," to be his ground-officer and family bard, and allowed him to hold his land in Strath all his life rent free. [The late Dr John Mackenzie of Eileanach, Sir Hector's youngest son, makes the following reference, under date of August 30, 1878, to the old bard:--"I see honest Alastair Buidhe, with his broad bonnet and blue great coat (summer and winter) clearly before me now, sitting in the dining room at Flowerdale quite `raised'-like while reciting Ossian's poems, such as `The Brown Boar of Diarmad,' and others (though he had never heard of Macpherson's collection) to very interested visitors, though as unacquainted with Gaelic as Alastair was with English. This must have been as early as 1812 or so, when I used to come into the room after dinner about nine years old."
Alastair Buidhe, the bard, was the author's great-grandfather on the maternal side, and he was himself, on his mother's side, descended from the Mackenzies of Shieldaig.] He gave a great impetus to the Gairloch cod fishing, which he continued to encourage as long as he lived.
Sir Hector married, in August, 1778, Cochrane, daughter of James Chalmers of Fingland, without issue; and the marriage was dissolved by arrangement between the parties on the 22nd