Ayrshire > Volume 2

142 HISTORY OF AYRSHIRE
commission, as Chamberlain of Argyll, to uplift the
fines inflicted on delinquents by the Marquis. He was
also appointed " joint General Commisar of the King's
Army, now drawing to the fields " under George, Earl
of Dumbarton, for the suppression of the disturbances.
The laird's correspondence gives a vivid picture of
the state of confusion into which the rebellion plunged
the country. Archibald Lord Lorn, afterwards first
Duke of Argyll, represented himself as in such financial
straits that he must either sell or mortgage Roseneath ;
and he offered the Government his aid to resist the
rebellion — a politic measure no doubt suggested by the
necessity for standing well with the Crown, so that in
any event the estates might be preserved for the family.
The granaries of Bute had been plundered and emptied
of their contents by some shiploads of rebels under
Argyll himself, and the King's Advocate wrote to
Kelburn asking him to supply the food grains needful
to keep the people from starving. In July, 1686, Lord
Montgomerie wrote to him that all the meal in Lady
Cochrane's girnel had been arrested for the King's use,
and begged that, as the rebellion was now at an end,
it might be sold for her benefit. An official, writing
from Inveraray in August, bemoaned the condition of
the country, but would not summon any rebels or
anyone else until Kelburn was on the spot. And
Patrick Stewart, writing from the same place, August 2,
gives an interesting description of the conditions of the
country : —
' I cam from Kintrye eight dayes agoe. Ouhill
I was ther, ther was moir erichemen heillanders and
all soirts of peapell that I with the healpe of the
cuntriem(en) had much adoe to get them sent away
out of the cuntrie and the cuntrie preserved, that I
meaid heast out off the cuntrie to the Tarbett and
gerdit that paisse (pass) quhen I was at Locheard,
and since I left ane gaird ther and ther was not much
skeath done, and now that cuntrie is peaceabell and