The contents are as follow: (i) Correspondence, 1655-1717 (folio 1); (ii) Catalogues of books at Spottiswoode, 1735, 1793, and belonging to Father Richard Augustine Hay, circa 1732 (folio 14); (iii) Legal and financial papers, 1653-1748, undated, including some papers on the election of the Bishop of the Isles in 1672 (folio 53); (iv) Notes, 1784-1785, by John Spottiswoode (died 1793) for his work on Scottish monasteries (folio 115); (v) Poems and miscellaneous items, 1733-1804, undated (folio 134).