The Court records in the late 1600s and 1700s show that fighting was a common past-time of the crofters.  The Burgars were often involved.

See Court case concerning the Burgar family in 1694 and 1700

Having acquired their estates the Laird would live comfortably on the rents and tithes paid by the crofters.  The lairds would accept payment in kind, which would be in the form of smoked fish, butter, oil and knitted garments. The Lairds then sold these products on to the German merchants who had bases in Shetland.

See German Merchants

In addition to the rents and tithes from tenants, the Lairds received goods in kind from the merchants in payment for allowing them to set up Booths (shops/warehouses) from which the merchants transacted their business. 

The merchants paid the Shetlanders in cash, normally German and Dutch, Scot and English coinage.  These merchants were the backbone of the Shetland economy. 

The Lairds had another source of income; they charged the Dutch fishing fleet for all fish taken.

See Dutch fishing Industry

The products sold to the German Merchants were described in 1685 by Hugh Leigh: ⁴⁸

The product of this Countrey is mainly Fish, Oyl, Butter, Wool, Feathers, Beef, Tallow, Hides, Stuff, Woolen Stockings and Woolen Gloves and Garters.

In addition the Dutch had an enormous fishing fleet which would buy fish from the Shetland fishermen.

However, by 1700 most of the Merchants ceased to operate and the Dutch fishing fleets stopped coming.

See reasons for decline of German Merchants

See destruction of Dutch fishing fleet by the French

Up to this time the Lairds had received income from renting the land and receiving various tithes from the crofters.  These tithes were in the form of fish, butter, cloth, and the items mentioned above, which the Lairds then sold on to the merchants.  In addition they received goods in kind from the merchants in payment for allowing them to set up Booths from which the merchants transacted their business.  The merchants also paid the Shetlanders in cash, normally German and Dutch, Scot and English coinage.  The Lairds also charged the Dutch fishing fleet a charge for all fish taken.

When the merchants and fishing fleet left Shetland, the income of the Lairds fell drastically and they had to change the way the Islands were run.

However, being a Laird was not always easy.  In 1615 Earl Patrick Stewart, Earl of Orkney and Shetland was found guilty of treason and subsequently beheaded on the 6th February1615. ¹³

 In order to increase their incomes the Lairds started up as merchants in their own right.  They bought produce from the crofters and shipped it abroad. They also built shops so that the crofters could buy the necessities of life.  This included hiring them fishing boats which were now too expensive for the crofter/fisherman to buy. The shops also sold all the fishing tackle that was required to catch the fish.  The snag for the crofters was that they were only allowed to sell their produce to the Laird and had to buy everything from his shop.  The pricing was arranged so that the crofter/fisherman could just subsist, but the Laird made large profits.  This system was referred to as Debt Bondage, since the crofter/fishermen were always in debt and therefore bound to the Laird for their livelihood.  It was not until the late 1800s that things improved when new legislation was brought in to prevent such abuse.  It can be seen that life in Shetland was hard.

From 1700, the Lairds' major source of revenue was from fish not the rental of crofts.   Thus they did everything they could to get a larger catch of fish, which meant getting an increase in the number of fishermen.  This was achieved by reducing the size of the crofts so that a crofter could no longer survive by agriculture alone.  New crofts were also carved out of unproductive land.