lived six days there together, that the rates of everything are higher and dearer than in any other town of the three districts of Scotland, as likewise that the confluence of strangers is much greater there than in the other three districts put together, exclusive of the great number of Her Majesty's forces quartered in that town and in the neighbourhood; that it is unnecessary to be very particular, the very name of the parish of Inverness, its circumstances, and situation, carrying a stronger conviction than a thousand ordinary arguments to call upon your Lordships' attention to give such an augmentation that the Magistrates of that town may have it in their power at all times and on all occasions to be supplied with the most able, faithful, and laborious Ministers that are to be found within the peal of the Church of Scotland to support and maintain the sacred and civil liberties of their country." The petition then goes on to show that the importance of the parish was recognised by "good Queen Anne," who obtained an erection of another church, and doted for a stipend £881 1s. 6d. (Scots) in perpetuum, a stipend to which the parishioners of Inverness had added £20 by voluntary contribution. The Magistrates of Inverness had also recognised the importance of the petitioners' charge, and the inadequacy of their stipend, when, on 12th October, 1720, they, "upon a narrative of the smallness of the stipends, and of their duty to provide for the comfortable living of the Ministers, that their thoughts might be wholly taken up with the work to which they were called, and that thereby, through the blessing of God, their ministry might be more successful in this corner, and thereby the glory of God advanced, did augment the stipend of each Minister to 1600 merks, attour their manses, and gave £200 by the year to a factor for uplifting the old stipend." The petition then goes on to show that if, when this arrangement was made with the town, the Ministers had elected to collect the old stipend themselves, their stipend would have amounted, with manse rent, to 1850 merks, and having established this, they thenceforth argue on the assumption that from 1720 their stipend had been of that amount, and conclude therefore that now, thirty-five years afterwards, however it "may be opposed from mercenary and pecuniary considerations," "there is convincing evidence of the necessity of an augmentation which cannot be destroyed by the

ingenuity of the defenders" (the landward Heritors), "by the price they are willing to pay for a peck of meal, or the low rate they are able to furnish a pound of beef." A good deal of the Ministers' argument is directed against the Heritors' contention that the value of the glebes should be taken into account in modifying a stipend, and in this connection it is stated that the glebe of the First Minister has a number of huts built on it, and yields a precarious rent of 300 merks by the year, but the rent is uncertain, as the greatest part of it "depends on the standing or falling of those huts." The buildings on the glebe of the First Minister must have been in a very bad state, indeed, if Mr. David Dalrymple, who signs the petition, was not adding some colour to his clients' story. The glebe of the Second Minister was set for 150 merks. The Ministers state that each of them had a manse, the Second Minister by Mortification, the first in the ordinary way, but both of them were given up to the town of Inverness, and the Heritors of the parish, on an agreement that £100 should be paid to each Minister yearly in the proportion of two-thirds by the town, and one-third by the landward Heritors. "It is acknowledged that the Magistrates have punctually paid their money, but little or nothing has been received from the landward Heritors, and yet they have so far benefitted by their neglect or refusal to pay that by the foresaid interlocutor they are exeemed and freed in all time coming"-a passage which, taken in connection with the opening sentence, already quoted, of the Magistrates' petition, shows that, notwithstanding the previous litigation between the Ministers and the town, no ill-feeling remained, and that, so far as the Ministers and the Magistrates were concerned, this suit was a friendly one.

The three petitions of the Magistrates, the Ministers, and the landward Heritors came before the Court on 26th February, 1755, and the parties were ordered to answer each other by Ist June following. This was intimated by Mr. Forbes to Provost Hossack, by a letter dated 27th February, on which there is indorsed, probably in the handwriting of the Town Clerk, "6th June. The Magistrates wrote an answer." Business was done in a leisurely fashion in those days, and done too in a manner which contrasts strangely with the mode in which it is done now. Were an important lawsuit, to which the town was a party, pending

now, every step taken, and every step contemplated, would form matter for discussion by the whole Council, but in 1775 things were managed very differently. Everything was then controlled by the Magistrates, a select body inside the select and self-elected body which constituted the Town Council, and the Council Record, as the minute book is called, contains no notice of these proceedings. Indeed, it would seem as if, although the Magistrates are constantly spoken of in the correspondence, the whole matter was managed by the Provost alone, for not only are all the letters from the Edinburgh agent addressed to him, and all the instructions of the Edinburgh agent given in letters signed by him, but, from incidental reference in some of the pleadings in the earlier process at the instance of Mr. Fraser and Mr. Macbean, it would appear as if he had still greater power in his hands, and that the fact of Mr. Murdoch Mackenzie, then the Minister of the Third Charge, being the son-in-law of Provost Hossack, had secured him in the continued payment, notwithstanding the embarrassed state of the town's finances, of the supplemental stipend, for which his colleagues vainly sued. A copy of the Magistrates' letter of 6th June, 1755, has not been preserved, but part of its contents are given in a memorandum by Mr. William Forbes, dated 10th July, 1755, which will be afterwards quoted.

Answers were not lodged for the Magistrates in terms of the order of 26th February, their advisers being of opinion that it was not necessary, but Answers were lodged for the Ministers and for the landward Heritors. The prints are dated 7th and 8th July respectively. Both documents are mainly argumentative, but they contain one or two statements which may bear reproduction. The Ministers say that the usual market price of victual does not exceed £5 per boll, or £80 per chalder, and that even were it, as the Heritors contend, £100 per chalder, the old stipend to be divided between the two Ministers (laying out of the calculation glebes and manses), was only £147 3s. 7d., which they maintain is insufficient. The glebes, they contend, ought not to be taken into account in fixing the stipend, "and least of all in such a case as the present, when one of the glebes at least appears to be a donation and mortification, the deed of which is produced." But if the glebes are to be computed, the Heritors' value is too high

the true values being, Mr. Macbean's glebe, £16 13s. 4d. sterling, and Mr. Mackenzie's, £100 Scots, or at most £9 sterling. Then there is given a calculation showing that, taken at the true values, the stipend of the two Ministers, including glebes, is £154 13s. 4d., or £77 6s. 8d. each. By the interlocutor complained of, an addition of £22 4s. 5d. was made to the stipend, making that of each Minister £88 8s. 10 d. sterling. The Ministers "appeal to your Lordships as to the dearness of all kinds of vivres in the mercats of Inverness, as there are severals of your own number who have had occasion to know with what truth it is asserted that beef sells in any season of the year at three halfpence per pound, and to any body who knows the situation of that part of the country, as it has been for several years past, and is likely to continue, it is no mystery how living should be dear in the town of Inverness." They hope you are sensible, as they themselves have good reason to be, of what importance it is in many respects, and particularly for the interest of His Majesty's Government, that the town of Inverness be supplied with able and sufficient Ministers, and that there should be such provision for them as will encourage those of the best abilities of the Church to come there, and enable them to live amongst a numerous people, composed of such a variety of different characters, conditions, and denominations, with such proper dignity and independence as is necessary to the success of their endeavours to promote either the civil or religious interests of those under their care."

The Answers for the landward Heritors, in referring to the Ministers' petition complaining of the smallness. of the augmentation granted, say that "they (the Ministers) are abundantly well satisfied with what they have already obtained, and have presented this petition with no other view but to guard against any defalcation from the stipend already modified;" and, in dealing with the petition of the Magistrates, a neat, back-handed slap is given when it is said that "these gentlemen appear to be extremely well satisfied that your Lordships should give whatever augmentation the Ministers shall please to ask, providing no part thereof is to be made a burden upon their funds." In answering in detail the petition of the Ministers, no new fact is brought out, and the only thing worth quoting is the answer to an argument which

the Ministers based upon the stipend of the Third Minister, to which £20 had been added by voluntary contribution. On this point the heritors say:-"As the charity of well-disposed Christians was the original and proper fund for the maintenance of the Clergy, when they were sure of being rewarded according to their labours, the respondents have no objection that the stipends in question should in like manner be augmented out of that fund." In answer to the statement made by the Ministers, as to the price of victual in the parish, the Heritors allege that the chalder yields no less than £100 Scots, and this conversion they offered to pay yearly to the Ministers. In answer to the petition of the Magistrates and Town Council the Heritors say that, from the decree of modification and locality in 1665, it appears that the Lords Commissioners for Plantation of Kirks and Valuation of Teinds did recommend to Murdoch, Bishop of Moray, to endeavour to settle matters amicably between the parties as to the augmentation and locality of that stipend, and to report; that at an after-calling there was produced a condescendence and agreement, containing a special locality, both of the former stipend and of the then augmented stipend, proportioning both upon the different heritors, and which, inter alia, contained the following article relative to the Town of Inverness :

"Out of the lands holding in feu by the Provost, Bailies, and Council of Inverness, or the Kirk thereof, the sum of 100 merks, as old Locality, payable out of the Common Good of the said Burgh; and sicklike, the sum of another 100 merks, payable by the Provost, Bailies, and Council of the said Burgh, out of the said Common Good, sicklike is hereby holden and accepted of by the said Mr. Alexander Clark, and Mr. James Sutherland (ie., the Ministers), for themselves and successors, serving at the said Cure of Inverness, to be in lieu and vice of what was promised by the said Magistrates and Council, their predecessors, to the Ministers serving the said Cure, according to an Act of Council, of date 11th February, 1650.' And which agreement concludes in these words: "The above-written localled stipend, augmentations, and teind-silver, with the above-mentioned 100 merks, is hereby condescended upon, by consent of the above and within-named Ministers and Heritors, to be and continue as a constant stipend,