In August 1725, Burt accompanied General Wade at the disarming of the Seaforth Mackenzies at Brahan Castle near Dingwall, when he was promised a punctual payment of rents.
However, on 28 September, Wade was obliged to sign an order authorising military support to help him extract the promised rents, which the Seaforth tenants had failed to deliver.
[1] A letter by a magistrate of Inverness dated 1 January 1726 reveals that Burt was then a Justice of the Peace, part of the 'haughty, keen and unsupportable government of these military and stranger judges set over us' (Salmond, 104).
In 1729 he was appointed manager of the lead mines at Strontian in Argyll,[2] and he continued to be employed in the Highlands for some years after 1741 (Stevenson, 2004).
Edmund Burt Esq; late agent to Gen. Wade, chief surveyor during the making of roads through the Highlands, and author of the letters concerning Scotland."