Maclellan took from Macleod a lease of the farm of Ensay, in the island of Harris, from Whitsunday 1813, for a term of twenty-one years, at a yearly rent of 250L...
...Macleod agreed to allow a reduction, and both parties agreed that the amount of deduction should be referred to Robert Brown of Hamilton, who had been factor for Macleod...
...In the meantime, Maclellan held on...without paying any rent, its falling in arrear being held immaterial, as Macleod was indebted to Maclellan in 1,000L. on bond.
The intricacies of this case are not what interests me (although Macleod being in debt to Maclellan to the sum of 1000L in 1813, which could be perhaps be the equivalent of £100,000 or more today, is somewhat alarming!) but because of the fact that it tells us who was farming Ensay at this time and that the Factor was a Robert Brown of Hamilton.
Macleod was Alexander Norman Macleod, son of Alexander Hume Macleod and grandson of Captain Macleod of Harris. He had inherited the island only a couple of years before this letting of Ensay and it must have been around this time that he made the disastrous appointment of Donald Stewart, who had moved to Luskintyre from Lewis in 1809, as his new Factor.
Within 4 years of this court case, Harris had been sold to the Earl of Dunmore and soon afterwards this profligate Macleod was dead and yet another new Factor, Duncan Shaw, had been appointed.
Ref: Reports of Cases upon Appealsand Writs of Error in the House of Lords, and decided during the Sessions of 1831-1832. London 1832
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