Genealogical memoirs of the Duffs

56 Genealogical Memoirs of the Duffs.
year 1675 ; of it I shall give a more particular
accot. after.
Besides the Fishings on Dovern from Lord
Airly, Cullen, and down from Lord Cullen and
other Lands near Banff, he bought a great deal
in the Strathisla and about Keith.
There was then a number of small Heretors
in that country, most of them ran in debt all
their Estates ; he pickt up some from the Pro-
prietors, but acquired many of them by buying
up their debts and adjudications, Comprysings, or
other Slump or emperfect Rights on their Land.
And if he only got possession he was not very
scrupulous about the security more than about
the Justice of his Title, by which means these
Gentlemen or their heirs had many of them
Claims and Complaints too well founded for the
most part ; in all these his son, one of the most
upright worthy men alive, did every body Justice
by entering into a fair compt. and reckoning, and
paying them the ballance which appeared to be
due, and the last Lord Fife told me that all these
clearances cost his Cousin above a- Hundred