The contents are as follows.

(i) Miscellaneous letters and papers, 1782-1850. The writers and subjects dealt with include Ebenezer McCulloh, on ash-burning for bleaching salts, etc., 1782, 1784; memorial of the fishermen of Holy Island complaining of oppression, 1790; state of the population of Edinburgh, 1791, made for Sir John Sinclair’s ‘Statistical Account’; necessity for a free importation of coal into the Western Isles and coasts of Scotland, 1792; observations for Lieutenant-Colonel Duncan Macpherson of Cluny upon two reports by the Barons of the Exchequer on his restored forfeited estates, 1792; election of Scottish peers, 1793; John Bruce, the historian, on ‘the practice of Parliament in modifying the articles of the Bill of Rights to cases in which sedition or treason were apprehended or actually committed', [?1794] (folio 40); manufacture of sail-cloth and number of looms in Dundee and neighbourhood, 1803-1804; Craigleith Quarry, near Edinburgh, 1811; recommendation of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe for the secretaryship of the Order of the Thistle, 1819; proposed railway down Gala Water, 1820. (Folio 1.)

(ii) Letters of Gregor Farquharson, Captain (H.P.), 84th Foot, on public questions, many of them written under pseudonyms, 1796-1800. (Folio 122.)

(iii) Letters relating to the Poor Law, 1834, the Scots Poor Law Commission, 1843, and Scots Poor Law Bill, 1845, chiefly correspondence between Sir James Graham, Home Secretary, Duncan McNeill, Lord Advocate, and the 2nd Lord Melville. (Folio 276.)