In 1815 he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of his native county. He
lived generally at home among a devoted tenantry; and only visited
London once during his life. He regularly dispensed justice among
his Gairloch retainers without any expense to the county, and to
their entire satisfaction. He was adored by the people, to whom
he acted as a father and friend, and his memory is still green
among the older inhabitants, who never speak of him but in the
warmest terms for his generosity, urbanity, and frankness, and for
the kind and free manner in which he always mixed with and
addressed his tenants. He was considered by all who knew him the
most sagacious and intelligent man in the county. He employed no
factor after he came of age, but dealt directly and entirely with
his people, ultimately knowing every man on his estates, so that
he knew from personal knowledge how to treat each case of hardship
and inability to pay that came before him, and to distinguish
feigned from real poverty. When he grew frail from old age he
employed a clerk to assist him in the management, but he wisely
continued landlord and factor himself to his dying day. When Sir
Francis, his eldest son, reached a suitable age, instead of
adopting the usual folly of sending elder sons to the army that
they might afterwards succeed to the property entirely ignorant
of everything connected with it, he gave him, instead of a yearly
allowance, several of the farms, with a rental of about L500 a
year, over which he acted as landlord or tenant, until his
father's death, telling him "if you can make more of them, all the
better for you.
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