Series 4 > Papers on Sutherland Estate Management 1802-1816 > Volume 9

154 SUTHERLAND ESTATE MANAGEMENT: CORRESPONDENCE
going on under your management to him, as unless he cooperates
and is acquainted with all these things there will be constant
mistakes from our want of knowledge of the subjects alluded to,
as well as from the time necessary for correspondence in our
absence from the Country. I therefore trust to your making him
acquainted with all these subjects. He is so very conversant in them,
and is such a first rate authority in such matters that we rely on his
superintendence. And whatever little circumstances may have
arisen in his own Family which may have made a partnership in
the Farms unpleasant to you, I am sure from his candour of dis¬
position and friendship for you, there will be no reason for any
reserve between you. ’ I send this incase it should be proper for you
to tell Young that I have written it.
Patrick Sellar to Marchioness of Stafford
Culmaily, 29 July 1811
I beg your Ladyship pardon for the trouble 1 am Going to Give you
of reading this letter in Reply to your Ladyship’s of the 20th; which,
having been missent to Clyne for Culmaily, is now brought to me.
It is, humbly, to entreat and beseech your Ladyship to authorise
Mr Young, Mr McKenzie and as many more as may seem proper,
scrupulously to inquire into every part of my duty as I get on;
to limitt my duty to whatever particulars your Ladyship pleases;
but not, by constituting me the servant of Mr Young in place of
that of your Ladyship, and by placing us in a predicament, which,
by giving me the odium of whatever may (and at times must)
be unpleasant in my department, while I cannot use my own
discretion in such matters, will marr your Ladyship’s business, and
bring me, certainly, to disgrace.
When Lord Stafford proposed to Mr Young to take the General
management of your Ladyship’s Estates, and Mr Young wished
me to Join him in this undertaking, I explained to Mr Young that
I could not come to the Country as his Clerk, but under a precise
line of duty for which I should be responsible.
Accordingly in his Answer to My Lord he chalked out a distinct
department which he proposed to ‘devote’ to me. I beg to refer
to the minute which Mr Young sent your Ladyship from Inverugie