The contents include:

A letter about the Darien Company from the Earl of Cromartie, 1705;

A letter from the Earl Marischal to James Francis Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender, 1738;

A letter from David Hume about Adam Ferguson, 1772, and translations of two Hume letters, in the hand of the philosopher, Jean le Rond D'Alembert, about the quarrel with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1766 (see also MS.5722);

Letters of Dugald Stewart, many of them to Baron De Gerando, 1792-1816;

A letter about Thomas Gainsborough's unfinished portraits of Lord and Lady Douglas, 1797;

A letter of General Sir Ralph Abercromby about the expedition to Holland, ?1799;

Letters about medicine from James Currie, James Russell, James Gregory and William Fergusson, 1798-1814;

Letters to William Smith from James Currie, 1795, and from George Dempster, 1801-1814;

Letters to Sir James Mackintosh from Sydney Smith, William Wilberforce, François Guizot, and others, 1804-1845;

Letters from Thomas Telford to Archibald Alison, 1810, undated;

A letter from William Hazlitt to Lord Jeffrey, about an article on Samuel Coleridge, 1817.

Among the writers of the other letters are: Abraham Gronovius, Principal William Robertson, John Adam the architect, James Anderson the economist, Sir John Sinclair, Adam Ferguson, Henry Mackenzie, Mungo Park, David Wilkie, Lord Jeffrey, John Rennie, and James Hogg.