The contents are as follows:

(i) Letter of the Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council for Public Affairs, signed by Archbishop Sharp, ordering the Earl of Linlithgow to cause seize Francis Scott of Greenhill in the head of Yarrow, 1679 (folio 1);

(ii) Commission of a captain in Cluny's regiment, signed by Prince Charles Edward, 1745 (folio 2);

(iii) Discharge-certificate of a sergeant, signed by George Washington, 1783 (folio 4);

(iv) Letters of General Philip Schuyler to Stephen van Rensselaer, 1791, regarding his candidature for the Senate, and to Alexander Hamilton, Counsellor-at-Law, New York, 1796, on Robert Morris's mortgages and an outbreak of fever in New York (folio 5);

(v) Letter of Major-General Andrew Jackson to Governor Holmes, 1814, on the movements of the British forces and their dealings with the Indians (folio 9);

(vi) Note to Abraham Lincoln, 1864, requesting the discharge of a soldier, endorsed with a note of Lincoln ordering it (folio 11);

(vii) Original manuscripts of Edward Lear, “The Quangle Wangle's Hat”, with an illustration by Lear, 1872, and 'The Story of the Pobble who has no Toes, and the Princess Bink', 1873; also a letter of Captain George Henry Fitzjames Lushington to Hugh Sharp, 1933, regarding these manuscripts, and a parody of “The Quangle Wangle's Hat” by W T, in honour of Hugh Sharp, 1933 (folio 12);

(viii) 'A Charade, dedicated, without permission, to Miss Marion Terry', in the autograph of Lewis Carroll, 1879; the charade, which refers to Miss Terry's performance in William Schwenck Gilbert's ‘Pygmalion and Galatea’, was first published in ‘Rhyme? and reason?’ (London, 1883) (folio 19);

(ix) Song, 'Remember', beginning 'Forget me not, although I broke your putter', in the autograph of Andrew Lang, undated (folio 20).