has always been their determination to submit peaceably. 2, "They are quite determined not to emigrate, but are not prevented doing so from the reason given by M'Innes. They pointedly deny having said that in consequence of their intention of remaining upon their farms, the proprietor would be obliged to give them back their crofts for want of another tenant or tenants. They did not expect to be left upon their present farms, after being deprived of the land, but wished sites for houses to be pointed out for them, in any part of the property most suitable for the proprietor. This they did not even say to M'Innes." 3d, "None of them said that they had any desire to emigrate next year, if left in their holdings. Whatever they may do next year, as yet they are, without an exception, as much opposed to emigration as it is possible for them to be." 4th and last clause, was the pretext that Captain Smith had for coming from Portree to call a meeting of the people of Strathaird, to assure them that no relief must be expected next season from the Destitution Board;-he also read a letter from the Sheriff-Substitute, which was nothing more or less than a portion of the poor-law act, which they were not ignorant of, through the information of their own Parochial Board. They were equally aware that no relief need be expected next year from the Destitution Board; that notice was printed both in Gaelic and English, and posted upon every church and smithy in the parish. But they had been also taught in the way of privation, for with very few exceptions no relief has been given by the Board's officers since February.

We have been thus specific in order to pursue the pernicious progress of a lie! M'Innes concocts a wicked fable for Captain Smith, and the latter (though fully apprised of its falsity, as we are informed,) transmits it to the Highland Destitution Board. The Sheriff on his side is not supine. He sends it to the LordAdvocate, who straightway orders the Sheriff of Inverness, his Procurator-Fiscal, and a body of police (to be paid for extra by the county) to be ready for immediate action in Skye! Sheriff Colquhoun diligently prepares some extempore harangues on the patriotic duty of emigrating to prevent the pulling down of houses; and the Procurator-Fiscal is quite on the qui vive to dictate precognitions of what witnesses never uttered, but for which fiscals must be honestly paid! To crown the whole, the Home Office must get an alarm-rebellion in Skye-armed peasantry-police

deforced by two old women and a lame boy-Sheriff Colquhoun deprived of his dinner at the Factor's-two companies of the 13th, Prince Albert's Own, absolutely required at Strathaird, if Skye is expected to form a part of the British empire!!

This may seem somewhat too comic, but it is only what the North Uist affair warrants us in anticipating elsewhere. We cannot answer for the Scottish authorities, who must of course travel in their own tracks, which are of a money-getting order. We perceive the "Law Charges" voted this year for pious, peaceful Scotland are £40,000, whilst those for lawless, turbulent Ireland are only £30,000. We hope some fine day to be able to explain this anomaly, for we happen to know a little of the solemn astuteness with which some Procurators-Fiscal make mountains of molehills, in order to swell the costs of criminal proceedings.

As Sir George Grey is a very able and clear-sighted Secretary for the Home Department, we have put him in possession of the truth of the Strathaird case, and we think it will not be easy to convince him that constables' batons or soldiers' bayonets can be constitutionally employed in enforcing COMPULSORY EMIGRAT. M.

TION.

July 1. 1850.

APPENDIX.

THE MACKINTOSH BEQUEST.

It is a fact worthy not only of remark, but of deep contemplative consideration, that in all countries, whether savage or civilized-whether sunk in heathen ignorance, or cheered and instructed with rays of revelation, an extraordinary degree of sanctity has always been attached to the fulfilment of testamentary declarations and dispositions. This must not be ascribed to vague usage, or even to traditional fixedness of feeling-we must mount much higher in order to offer a satisfactory explanation of the almost universal reverence with which the dying wishes of the departed are regarded by those who follow in the funeral tracks of a common mortality. It is by means of Testaments that the God of all grace hath been pleased to make known his immutable will, and unspeakable mercy to mankind; and therefore it seems to be a part of the divine wisdom, that men should possess an innate consciousness of the importance of any observance which shadowed forth the determinations of Deity. The scriptures of truth abundantly attest the solemn sense which the Jewish people were taught to cherish of the weight of testamentary obligations; and one of the earliest instances is in the case of Joseph, who, we are told, gave commandment concerning his bones-which was most reverently obeyed-Exod. xiii. 19. Not that we are to suppose that the previous patriarchs had not exercised their rights of command and bequeathment; but this instance is emphatically declared to have been allied with faith; and consequently bears a more direct impress of the divine mind as to the origin, dignity, and confirmation of testaments. Wherever legal institutions prevail, forms have been multiplied in the alleged view of hedging round the intentions of testators with all the precautionary technicalities that professional shrewdness can frame; and yet, truth to say, with very little beneficial effect. Five-sixths of the litigation growing out of the construction of wills, arises from the studied perplexity and vicious verboseness of modern will-making, which, in the vain attempt to give additional security to simply enunciated purposes, involves a testator's thoughts in a lawyer's mesh of crafty confu

sion. The clearest wills are, generally speaking, those which are penned by the disposing parties, for they know best what they have to leave, and how they mean to leave it; and surely if a testator has ordinary faculties for imparting his intentions, he can hardly fail of rendering his desires clearly intelligible.

These observations may fitly usher in a subject which engrosses not only a considerable measure of local interest, but which, from its general importance, as comprising great principles, requires to be made extensively known for diffusive public benefit. More than two months since there appeared in this journal a notice, signed by parties in London and Inverness, of an intention to apply to Parliament in the ensuing session, "for leave to bring in a bill to unite, under one trust and management, in whole or in part, the funds and property called THE MACKINTOSH FARR FUND, held by the Provost, Magistrates, and Dean of Guild of Inverness, under the will and relative codicils made and executed by the deceased WILLIAM MACKINTOSH, and the Funds and Property belonging to the Directors and Managers of the INVERNESS ACADEMY." After some farther and more specific details of the objects to be accomplished by the proposed bill, the notice winds up with a momentous intimation of the avowed intent to alter, explain, and enlarge the powers and provisions of the said will and codicils. No mistake, therefore, can exist as to the result sought to be effected by the promoters of this bill. A will-clear as the noon-day in its main design-severely scrutinized by twofold litigation in the English aud Scottish courts; and acted upon for a period of twenty-five years, under the sanction of a "Decreet of Declarator," which, with all its tedious circumlocution, nevertheless establishes beyond the possibility of cavil, the judicial sanction of all the testator's intentions-this will, properly framed, fully litigated, and finally ratified and executed, is about to be abolished, if any one of the published notifications of the menaced bill shall pass into parliamentary enactment. Let us not be wheedled out of our conscientious common sense by any glosses which may be given to this proceeding. The very circumstance of applying to Parliament regarding a will, denotes a renunciation of the trusts which executorship involves; for, as we have recently remarked, is not the resort to legislation equivalent to making a new will for a dead man? If it be alleged that some instances have occurred in which the interference of the Legislature was successfully invoked to qualify the mode of administering bequeathed property; we reply that the instances have been most rare, and that the strongest possible case was required to be made out to shew the public impolicy of a devisor's injunctions-such, for example, as in the celebrated, Thelluson case. But in the case of Captain Mackintosh's will, we boldly maintain that the intentions of the testator are not only ex