In a note on folio i the officer is called Colonel de la Rochette; on folio 42 he describes himself as being addressed as General.

The manuscripts consist of notes and drafts (some of these latter in several versions), chiefly on the following subjects. Some or all may have been intended for the Duc de Nivernais.

(i) The campaigns of Agricola and Roman antiquities in Scotland, with some notes on early Britain in general. (Folios 1-42, 45-47, 58, 63.)

(ii) A journey to Scotland, taken by order of the Duc de Nivernais, 1763. (Folios 42-43, 48-49, 52-57.) Disembarking at Falmouth, the writer travelled by Carlisle and Annandale to Edinburgh, of which he gives a long description including a mention of a conversation with David Hume (folio 57), and then to the Roman camps in Perthshire.

(iii) Jerusalem artichokes and potatoes. (Folios 50-51, 65.)

(iv) The Highlanders. (Folio 62.)

(v) A projected work or works on England, with accounts of London in particular. (Folio 66-74, 78-81.)

(vi) French canals. (Folios 75-77.)