Historical and genealogical account of the Clan Maclean

86 HISTORICAL NOTICES.
her cause alone could be Macdonald's motive,
does not appear to have heartily entertained the
proposal, and subsequent representations of the
English ambassador in Scotland on the subject
to the Scottish privy council induced the two
chiefs to relinquish the project.
The peace, which had now for years happily
existed between the Macleans and Macdonalds,
was again about to be most fatally disturbed by
recurrence to the unhappy and endless dispute
about the lands in Isla. Sir James Macdonald,
having recently succeeded his father in the estates
of Isla and Kintyre, burned for occasion to mea-
sure swords with his uncle the Lord of Duart, for
the numerous injuries he conceived his clan to
have suffered in former years at the hands of the
Macleans.* The lands in dispute were lately con-
firmed to Sir Lachlan by a grant from the crown,
and in so far as this particular point was con-
cerned, his nephew does not appear to have felt
disposed to oppose his possession of them ; only
that he still claimed his right of feudal supe-
riority over the possessor.
But while this point was in agitation another
subject became the cause of an immediate rup-
ture. A certain farm on the sea side, called Port-
askaig, which formed the boundary line between
their estates, and which, from its convenience as
$ Vide Spottiswood's Church History, anno 1594.