<Adjourned>.
[Page 25]
Lerwick: Wednesday, January 3, 1872.
<Present>-Mr Guthrie.
JOHN LEASK, examined.
1221. You are a fisherman at Channerwick, parish of Sandwick?-
I am.
1222. You came here yesterday for the purpose making some
statement: what was it about?-I wanted to make some statement
about how I have been treated three years back, particularly.
1223. Are you a tenant of land?-Yes.
1224. Are you a yearly tenant?-Yes.
1225. Under whom?-Under Mr. Robert Bruce of Simbister.
1226. Do you pay your rent to him?-We pay our rent to Mr.
William Irvine, the factor.
1227. Is that Mr. Irvine of Hay & Co.?-Yes.
1228. What quantity of land do you hold?-It is rather more than
what are called two merks and about a third.
1229. How much is that in acres?-I don't know. It is a Danish
measurement.
1230. How much rent do you pay for that?-£4, 2s. 10d.
1231. Do you also pay taxes and poor-rates in addition?-No; that
is included in the sum I have mentioned.
1232. What did you come to complain about?-About the way we
were dealt with when we were under tack for seventeen years to
Mr. Robert Mouat. He got bankrupt in the latter end.
1233. How long is it since he became bankrupt?-It was only last
year, and he went away then.
1234. Before that, had he a tack of the whole lands of Mr. Bruce in
that part of the country?-He had Levenwick, Channerwick and
Coningsburgh in tack.
1235. Had you to pay your rent to him?-Yes.
1236. He was what is called a middle-man in Shetland?-Yes; a
middle-man or tacksmaster. The Shetland name for it is
tacksmaster.
1237. You were under tack to him, and you paid the same rent to
him that you have mentioned just now?-Yes, I suppose so, but I
don't remember what rent I paid to him, for I never got my rent
from him.
1238. How do you mean?-Because he was the tacksman, and he
took what rent he liked.
1239. Do you mean to say that you did not pay £4, 2s. 10d. to him
the same as you are doing now?-I paid him more.
1240. When was your rent fixed at £4, 2s. 10d.?-This year.
1241. What was your rent before?-I cannot tell what it was under
Mouat, for I never heard what it was. He never told me what my
rent was; it was just what he liked to take. But after Mouat left,
Mr. Bruce gave us our liberty. We have had our liberty for the
past year, and we go now and pay our rent to the factor, and he has
told us what our rent is.
1242. Did you fish for Mouat when he was there?-I was bound
by the proprietor to do so.
1243. Had you signed any agreement to do that?-I was never
called upon to sign any agreement, but Mouat told me that his
agreement with the proprietor was that I was bound to fish for
him; and he told me that if I did not fish for him, he had power to
warn me out of the place where I lived.
1244. When did he tell you that?-He told me that at the
commencement of the tack, seventeen years ago.
1245. Had you been in the same ground before that time?-Yes.
1246. Who did you hold from at that time?-The tacksman before
Mouat was Mr. Spence, Lerwick. He collected the rents for Mr.
Bruce.
1247. Was he the tacksman or only a factor?-He was a lawyer or
tacksman, taking up the money for Mr. Bruce.
1248. Were you bound then to fish for any particular individual?-
We were always bound.
1249. After Mouat told you that you must fish for him, did you
ever fish for any one else during the whole of these seventeen
years?-No.
1250. Why did you not sell your fish to any one else?-For fear of
being warned off the property where was living; and I had
nowhere else to go to, because I was a poor man.
1251. Is it the home fishing you are now speaking of?-Yes, the
home or ling fishing; but I have been in the whale fishery, and in
the straits fishery, and the Faroe fishery, as well as in the home
fishery.
1252. But you were not at these other fishings for Mouat?-No; I
was at home when I fished for him.
1253. Could you engage with any one you pleased for the whale
fishing or the Faroe fishing?-Yes.
1254. You have no complaint to make about that-No; I could go
to any one I liked, only I was bound under tack to Mouat.
1255. When you fished for Mouat, did you deliver your fish to his
people?-Yes.
1256. Where?-At Levenwick.
1257. Did you deliver them green or dry?-Green.
1258. How were you paid for them?-We were just paid as he
liked to pay us. He gave us just what he chose.
1259. When were you paid for them?-Sometimes in March,
sometimes about the New Year, or just when he chose to make
arrangements for paying us.
1260. Did he pay you then for all the fish of the previous
season?-Yes.
1261. At what time in the season did you begin to fish?-We
began in the spring-generally in the month of May.
1262. And all the fish which you caught from May down to next
winter were paid for in January or February or March?-Yes; or at
any time, just as he chose to make arrangements for paying.
1263. Did you make a bargain about the price at the beginning of
the season?-No.
1264. Did you make your bargain when you delivered your fish to
him?-No.
1265. When did you fix the price which you were to get?-He
fixed the price when he paid us.
1266. Did you ever object to the price which he fixed?-Many a
time.
1267. You made that objection at settling day?-Yes.
1268. What did he when you asked for a larger price?-He told us
that we should have no more, and that we were in duty bound to
fish for him.
1269. Had Mouat a shop?-Yes; his shop was at the Moul of
Channerwick, close to my house.
1270. Are there many fishermen living close by there?-There are
a good many, and almost all men are fishermen.
1271. Do they live near that shop?-Yes.
1272. How many houses may be there, or about that
neighbourhood?-I think there are about nineteen of them close
together.
1273. Are there many more houses at a little distance?-There are
no more at that particular place, but in the town of Levenwick,
about a mile to the south of the Moul, there are more.
1274. Is there another shop there?-No.
1275. Do the Levenwick people come to the Channerwick shop?-
Yes.
1276. What did you get in Mouat's shop?-We got the goods he
pleased to give us.
1277. Did you get the goods you wanted?-No; we did not get the
goods we wanted. We could just get the goods he had.
1278. What did you get?-We sometimes got a [Page 26] little tea
and cotton and anything we asked for that was there. If it was
there for us to get it was very well; but if it was not there, we had
to walk home without, and we could get no money to buy it with.
1279. How could you get no money?-Because he would not give
it to us on any consideration at all.
1280. Did you often ask for?-Every year and every time.
1281. What do you mean by every time?-Every time we came to
that store when we thought his goods were not a bargain for us to
take we asked for some money to go somewhere else and get a
better bargain; but of course we were denied it. We could get
none.
1282. Did you never get an advance of money from the time the
fishing began, until settling time?-No.
1283. Did you ever get any money from Mouat during the whole
seventeen years you fished for him?-No.
1284. Did you not get money if there was, a balance over at
settling time?-No.
1285. Do you swear that?-Yes, I do.
1286. Supposing that at the time of settling there was a balance
due to you after paying your account at the shop and your rent did
you not get, that in money?-No. I had to take it in goods or else
go without.
1287. Were you told that you must take it in goods?-Yes; I could
get no money.
1288. Did you generally take goods there and then or did you get
them afterwards just as you wanted them?-Sometimes I got them
as I wanted them and at other times I might take a little goods
expecting that I would perhaps get a shilling of money along with
them as I was in necessity for it; but I could not get any.
1289. Did you expect that you might get a shilling for the
goods?-As I had a balance due I expected that I might get a
shilling in money; and I did not take all the goods at one time but I
took a little now when I required them, and a little the next time;
and always when I came to the store I asked if I could not get a
shilling in money because goods could not serve me every time.
1290. Did you sell the goods which you got from the shop in order
to raise a little money?-Sometimes.
1291. Did you sell them to your neighbours?-I could not sell
them to my neighbours, because they were in the same state as I
was myself.
1292. Where did you sell them?-Sometimes we would take a
little and fall in with a boy or a laddie, who would buy a bit of
cloth from us, or the like of that, at a reduced price and thus help
us to get a few shillings.
1293. To what boys or lads did you sell these goods?-Just to any
lad that would buy them. Perhaps my own lad would be going
elsewhere, such as to the sea, where he would be paid by a fee;
and sometimes I would get a bit of goods and give it to my boy,
and he would pay me for it with a few shillings out of his fee and
that would serve my ends for the time.
1294. Had you anything to sell off your farm?-Yes.
1295. You sold a beast now and then?-Yes; but Mouat took the
whole of them.
1296. Did he buy your beasts too?-Yes.
1297. Did you not have liberty to sell them to other people?-No,
we had no liberty at all; because he said we were under the same
obligation with regard to beasts and eggs and all the produce of
our farms as we were under with regard to the fish, and therefore,
if he got the one, he compelled us to give him the other too.
1298. When did he tell you that about the beasts and the eggs?-
He told us about it in the same year that he took the tack.
1299. Did you ever try to sell them to another?-Yes, I tried that
sometimes.
1300. To whom did you try to sell them?-To any one who came
round asking for such things; but I knew that if I did such a thing,
and Mouat came to know about it, I must be prepared to take to
my heels and fly.
1301. Did you ever actually sell any of the produce of your farm
to another than Mouat?-I never sold any, except one little horse;
and I sold it when I was in starvation for meal. That was towards
the end of Mouat's tack.
1302. How long ago was it?-I think it is two years past.
1303. Who did you sell it to?-I sold it to a man in the
neighbourhood of Quarff.
1304. What was his name?-Andrew Jamieson, he lives at Quarff
now.