# Manx Primary Source Archive — Transcription

**Source image:** `20260219_143540.jpg`  
**Transcribed:** 2026-02-25 19:26  
**Method:** Automated (Claude Batch API — claude-opus-4-6)

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among the motives which induced the servants
of the Crown to re-acquire this petty semblance
of a regality. Had they thought fit, measures
of a harsher nature might have been resorted to,
and if unavoidable would undoubtedly have
been employed, by which the same object would
have been effected.

The noble family of Stanley, residing on the
opposite coast of England, whither the Islanders
ever have been, and now continue most to re-
sort, and where they are connected, enjoyed
these proprietory rights more than three centu-
ries.

The noble family of Murray, seated in a
remote part of the United Kingdom with which
the Islanders have no direct connexion, pos-
sessed these rights about thirty years. During
this period, it is not known that more than one
personal visit was paid to the Island, and that
for a short time, by any member of the latter
family. No feudal attachment can therefore
be pretended to exist towards them on the
part of the Islanders.

Still, no actual dispute arose between any of
that family and themselves, till about the year
1780. Most serious alarm then, indeed, was
excited by intimations on which they could rely,
that his Grace of Athol was bringing in ques-
tion the validity of the tenures by which all