Patrick Sellar burned houses in Strathnaver for the Sutherland estate, a jury acquitted him of culpable homicide in 1816, and the duke's statue still stands over Golspie

In 1766 the 18th Earl of Sutherland died leaving only an infant daughter, Elizabeth. Two other claimants challenged her, and the House of Lords found for the baby. In 1785 she married the heir of the Marquess of Stafford, who was made Duke of Sutherland in 1833. From about 1810 Patrick Sellar was factor of their estates, about 1.5 million acres. Between 1811 and 1821 about 15,000 people were removed from the Sutherland estates. On 13 June 1814, during the eviction of William Chisholm's family in Strathnaver, the roof was set on fire while his mother-in-law, Margaret Mackay, was inside. She was carried out and died five days later. Sellar was tried for culpable homicide, real injury and oppression before the Circuit Court of Justiciary at Inverness on 23 April 1816, Lord Pitmilly presiding. He was acquitted in the early hours of 24 April. He became a sheep farmer, a tenant of the Sutherlands on land cleared under his management, and died at Elgin in 1851. The 1st Duke died in 1833. His statue on Ben Bhraggie, a little over 9 metres high on a plinth that makes the monument about 33 metres, says it was erected "by his tenantry and friends." Calls to remove it began in the 1990s. It stands.