n, a servitor to Lachlan MacLean of Torloisk, "had convocated six
or seven score of armed men, and he had exhibited to them a royal
warrant bearing his Majesty's protection and free liberty to Captain
Smith and his servants to work at the wreck-ship at Tobermory, and
prohibiting any of his Majesty's subjects from interrupting them.
Captain Smith then required the MacLeans to dissipate the armed men,
part of whom were in a fort or trench at Tobermory, newly built by them
for interrupting the work, and the rest in the place or houses
adjacent,--as John MacLean of Kinlochalan acknowledged,--and in his
Majesty's name required them to give him and his men liberty to
prosecute their work at the wreck.

"Upon this Kinlochalan answered that the men in arms were not commanded
by him but by Hector MacLean, brother of Lachlan MacLean of Torloisk,
and others; and he declared that not only would Captain Smith and his
men be hindered, but that the men in arms would shoot guns, muskets and
pistols at them, should any of them offer to duck or work at the wreck.
Whereupon Captain Smith took this instrument, protesting against the
aforesaid MacLeans and their accomplices, at Tobermory in Mull, 7
September, 1678." The militant and tenacious MacLeans struck terror to
the heart of Captain Adolpho Smith, according to another official
document called a "notorial instrument at the instance of William
Campbell, skipper to the Earl of Argyll's frigate, called _Anna of
Argyll_. This worthy sea dog, it appears, as procurator for the Earl,"
had compeared, desired, and required Captain Adolpho E. Smith and his
men to duck and work at the wreckship and to conform to the minutes of
contract betwixt the Earl and him, otherwise to give the bells, sinks,
and other instruments necessary for ducking to William Campbell, and
the men on board the Earl's frigate, who would duck them without any
regard to the threatenings of the MacLeans.

"Notwithstanding this, Captain Smith and his men refused to duck and
work, or to give over the bells, etc., necessary for the work to
William Campbell who thereupon, as procurator for the Earl of Argyll
asked and took instruments and protested against Captain Smith for
cost, skaith, and damage conform to the contract. The instrument was
taken by Donald McKellar, notary public, at and aboard the yacht
belonging to Captain Adolpho E. Smith, lying in the Bay of Tobermory in
Mull, 7 September, 1678."

The wreck of the gall