Earls of Cromartie > [NSLBLANK]

1789.] REBUILDS TARBAT HOUSE. cclvii
bill for the restoration of the forfeited estates, Lord Balcarres made a speech in
the House of Lords, from which the following eloquent passage is taken : —
" Banished their country, their properties confiscated, and impoverished in
everything but their national spirit, they offered their services to foreign princes,
in whose armies they were promoted to important commands and trusts, which
they discharged with fidelity ; but the moment they saw a prospect of return to
their friends and restoration to the bosom of their country, there was not a man
of them that hesitated ; they resigned those high stations, and from being general
officers and colonels, accepted companies, and some even subaltern commissions in
our, service. They were indeed returned to their friends, and received with open
arms, nor, in the course of those twelve years, was there a man who had abandoned
his chief because he was poor, or had deserted him because the heavy hand of ad-
versity hung over his head. A few more years promoted them to commands in
the British service ; and, at the beginning of the late war, we again see armies
rushing from the Highlands, but not with the same ideas that formerly animated
them. They had already fully established their attachment to their sovereign,
and a clue regard to the laws of their country. They had repeatedly received the
thanks of their King, and of the two Houses of Parliament, but they now found
themselves impelled by a further motive — they saw themselves commanded by
their former chieftains — they hoped that, by the effusion of their blood, by the
extraordinary ardour and zeal they would show in the service, they should one
day see their leaders legally re-established in their paternal estates, and be enabled
to receive from them those kindnesses and attentions which they had so generously
bestowed upon them in their adversity. It was this hope and these ideas only
that put a stop to those emigrations which had almost depopulated the northern
parts of the kingdom."
Sir John Goi'don left his estate of Invergordon to his nephew, Lord Macleod.
There is a family tradition that he meant at one time to leave it to his other
nephew, Henry Dunda,s, but was generously overruled by the latter, from friend-
ship for his cousin, Lord Macleod, who was the son of the eldest sister of Sir
John, while Mr. Dundas was son of a younger sister. Lord Macleod sold Inver-
gordon to Mr. Macleod of Cadboll, whose family had previously acquired the
Baronies of Tarbat and Tarrell.
On the restoration of the estates, Lord Macleod began to renovate the family
estates of Tarbat, which during the forfeiture had been much dilapidated. He
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