.

[625] As I have faithfully recorded so many minute particulars, I hope I
shall be pardoned for inserting so flattering an encomium on what is now
offered to the publick. BOSWELL.

[626] See _ante_, iv. 109, note 1.

[627] 'The islanders of all degrees, whether of rank or understanding,
universally admit it, except the ministers, who universally deny it, and
are suspected to deny it in consequence of a system, against
conviction.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 106.

[628] The true story of this lady, which happened in this century, is as
frightfully romantick as if it had been the fiction of a gloomy fancy.
She was the wife of one of the Lords of Session in Scotland, a man of
the very first blood of his country. For some mysterious reasons, which
have never been discovered, she was seized and carried off in the dark,
she knew not by whom, and by nightly journeys was conveyed to the
Highland shores, from whence she was transported by sea to the remote
rock of St. Kilda, where she remained, amongst its few wild inhabitants,
a forlorn prisoner, but had a constant supply of provisions, and a woman
to wait on her. No inquiry was made after her, till she at last found
means to convey a letter to a confidential friend, by the daughter of a
Catechist, who concealed it in a clue of yarn. Information being thus
obtained at Edinburgh, a ship was sent to bring her off; but
intelligence of this being received, she was conveyed to M'Leod's island
of Herries, where she died.

In CARSTARE'S STATE PAPERS we find an authentick narrative of Connor
[Conn], a catholick priest, who turned protestant, being seized by some
of Lord Seaforth's people, and detained prisoner in the island of
Herries several years; he was fed with bread and water, and lodged in a
house where he was exposed to the rains and cold. Sir James Ogilvy
writes (June 18, 1667 [1697]), that the Lord Chancellor, the Lord
Advocate, and himself, were to meet next day, to take effectual methods
to have this redressed. Connor was then still detained; p. 310.--This
shews what private oppression might in the last century be practised in
the Hebrides.

In the same collection [in a letter dated Sept. 15, 1700], the Earl of
Argyle gives a picturesque account of an embassy from the _great_ M'Neil
_of Barra_, as that insular Chief used to be denominated:--'I received a
letter yesterday from M'Neil of Barra, who lives very far off, sent by a
gentleman in all formality, offering his ser