tenants, forming two boats' crews, had entered into a written
agreement to fish to Laurence Williamson in 1871; but they were
obliged to leave him and he says 'I slightly objected to it but of
course I could not help it .... Of they had to leave me because they
knew, or at least they believed, they would be differently dealt
with if they did not leave.'

[W. Sievwright, 15,118; T. Williamson, 9493; W. Robertson,
13,660; L. Williamson, 9003, 9005.]

In short, it has been so much a habit of the Shetlander's life to
fish for his landlord, that he is only now discovering that there is
anything strange or anomalous in it. This man, William Stewart,
to whom Mr. Sievwright wrote, had lived in Whalsay, as I have
already shown, under what appears to have been a still more
disadvantageous and servile tenure. He is a fair specimen of the
average peasant of such a district as Yell. It is evident that men
who have been brought up in such habits, and with the tradition
among them of a still more subservient time in the past, are
prepared not only to submit to extreme oppression on the part of
their proprietors, or those to whom their proprietors hand them
over, but also to become easily subjected to the influence of
merchants who possess no avowed control over them.

CASE OF ROBERT MOUAT AT MOUL

An instance of the abuse to which the system is liable in the
hands of an unscrupulous tacksman, is afforded by the case of
Robert Mouat, who held, until two years ago, a tack of the estate
of Mr. Bruce of Simbister, in Sandwick parish. A number of