of little more than £1,000 remained after all the claims, legal fees, and other expenses had been met. In 1725 the Forfeited Estates Commissioners ceased to operate, and the unsold estates were transferred to the Barons of the Exchequer. Baronet Munro After having been the effective leader of the clan for many years, Colonel Robert became Munro of Foulis and the sixth baronet on the death of his father in 1729. As a landowner he pioneered the planting of woodlands, of which he added nearly 500 acres (2 km2) on the Foulis estate. As a heritor and an elder of the Church of Scotland, he was one of those who arranged on behalf of the General Assembly for the spending of £1,000 a year of the "Royal Bounty" on the "reformation" of the Highlands and Islands by means of itinerant preachers and catechists. Described by a clansman as "an obliging, civil, moral gentleman, well beloved of his name", Sir Robert lived on friendly terms with his neighbours. His marriage to a member of a great English family – Mary, daughter of Henry Seymour of Woodlands in Dorset – took place in London in 1716, and the romantic story of a courtship interrupted by the purloining of their letters has been preserved by tradition. Their eldest son Harry was sent to Dr. Doddridge's academy at Northampton, Westminster School and Leiden University. Another son entered the Royal Navy. Of Sir Robert's activities in Parliament, the almost complete absence of reported debates leaves little to be said. Outside the British House of Commons, we find him at various times trying to secure the reinstatement in a Customs post at Inverness of a neighbour's brother; he took an active part in pressing for Simon Fraser's pardon and succession to the Lovat estates; he helped to find employment for the son of a Mackenzie friend, and for a scape-grace of the Atholl family, but a political foe alleged that as Sheriff of Ross he had a Mackenzie sheriff-substitute stripped of office and replaced by a Munro. The clan rivalries which had erupted in rebellion were finding an outlet in local politics. The chief of Mackenzie's Earl of Seaforth came to an end in 1716, and it seems to have been arranged that while the Rosses held the county seat the Munros would represent the Tain Burghs. To secure the burghs, control of three out of