the tie of property was broken yet the feeling of clanship remained entire. "Whatever was in the island," writes Johnson, "Sir Allan could demand, for the inhabitants were Macleanes; but having little they could not give us much." A curious scene described by Boswell bears witness to the strength of the devotion of these poor people.
"Sir Allan had been told that a man had refused to send him some rum, at which the knight was in great indignation. 'You rascal! (said he,) don't you know that I can hang you, if I please?' Not adverting to the Chieftain's power over his clan, I imagined that Sir Allan had known of some capital crime that the fellow had committed, which he could discover, and so get him condemned; and said, 'How so?' 'Why, (said Sir Allan,) are they not all my people?' Sensible of my inadvertency, and most willing to contribute what I could towards the continuation of feudal authority, 'Very true,' said I. Sir Allan went on: 'Refuse to send rum to me, you rascal! Don't you know that, if I order you to go and cut a man's throat, you are to do it?' 'Yes, an't please your honour! and my own too, and hang myself too.' The poor fellow denied that he had refused to send the rum. His making these professions was not merely a pretence in presence of his Chief; for after he and I were out of Sir Allan's hearing, he told me, 'Had he sent his dog for the rum, I would have given it: I would cut my bones for him.' It was very remarkable to find such an attachment to a Chief, though he had then no connection with the island, and had not been there for fourteen years. Sir Allan, by way of upbraiding the fellow, said, 'I believe you are a Campbell.'"
The memory of the power so lately exercised throughout the Highlands by the chiefs was not soon forgotten. It was noticed so late as 1793, that in Scotland master was still, for the most part, the term used for landlord. As an instance of this it was mentioned that in a sermon preached in the High Church of Edinburgh in 1788, the minister thus described the late Earl of Kinnoul in relation to his tenants.[1] Even after the abolition of the jurisdictions of the chiefs the powers left in the hands of the justices were very great. "An inferior judge in Scotland," wrote the historian of Edinburgh in the year 1779, "makes nothing of sentencing a man to whipping, pillory, banishment from the limits of his jurisdiction, and such other trifling punishments, without the idle formality of a jury."[2]
In Iona, however, there was no need of threats. The poor people were devoted to their former chief. "He went," says Johnson, "to the headman of the island whom fame, but fame delights in amplifying, represents as worth no less than fifty pounds. He was, perhaps, proud enough of his guests, but ill prepared for
