Matheson Collection > Macleods of Dunvegan from the time of Leod to the end of the seventeenth century

IAN. FOURTEENTH CHIEF 149
Raasay, Glengarry, were aU his brothers-in-law. To
all of these, and to some others, Ian was fatally good-
natured. He became ' cautioner ' or security for them
whenever they wanted to borrow money. This they
appear to have been constantly doing. I can trace sums
amounting to 75,000 merks which he and his sons had
to pay, the principals having failed to do so, and there
may be other sums which I cannot trace.
I gather from a contract dated September 19, 1628,
between MacLeod, Seaforth, MacDonald of Sleat, Clan
Ranald and MacLeod of Raasay, that the great herds of
deer, which had roamed from time immemorial in the
forests, had decreased in number, and were in danger
of becoming extinct, both by the operation of native
poachers and more especially by the depredations of
men who came in boats from the territories of neigh-
bouring Chiefs. Under this agreement each Chief under-
takes to stop poaching by his own people, the penalties
being fixed for each offence, and covenanted that he
would not permit his people to go by boat to poach on
his neighbour's lands. In 1658 some men in the Lewes
bound themselves not to kill deer in MacLeod's forest in
Harris. This shows that the efforts to preserve the deer
continued.
III. His Relations with the Government
Ian was a good law-abiding subject. On May 2, 1639,
Charles i. wrote him a letter from Durham, thanking him
for his past services, and assuring him of his future
favour. I am not aware that Ian had rendered any
special services to Charles at all, and I suspect that the
King's gratitude was a ' lively sense of favours to come.'
Charles, when he wrote, was probably at Durham,
on his way to Berwick, where he arrived in June 1639 at
the head of an army of 20,000 men, with which he hoped