' I confess that is true where
friends are real friends, but we ordinarily find, and partly know
by experience, that, where friends or kinsmen become great and
rich in interest, they readily become emulous, and will ordinarily
advise for themselves if in the least it may hinder them from
becoming a chief or head of a family, and forget their former
headship, which was one of the greatest faults, as also the ruin
of Munro of Miltown, whereas a common man will never eye to become
a chief so long as he is in that state, and therefore will advise
his chief or superior the more freely." What a change in the
relationship between the chiefs and clansmen of to-day!
Sir William Fraser, who quotes the foregoing narrative from the
former edition of this work, says that John Grant, fifth of
Freuchie, in whose time this incident is said to have occurred,
was not "uncle" but cousin to Kenneth Mackenzie of Kintail. But
he adds that the "story is so far corroborated by the fact that
about the time the incident is said to have happened, the young
Chief of Kintail granted a receipt to the laird of Freuchie for
the charter of comprising, granted on 4th May, 1548, to James Grant
of Freuchie, which, with relative papers, was now handed over to
Mackenzie, in terms of a disposition by the Laird to him of lands
in Kessoryne, Lochalsh, Lochcarron, etc.
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