Estate Management in the Eighteenth Century. 155 



be manufactured in the country, agreed to give all reasonable 

 encouragement to those branches of the woollen manufactures in 

 the town of Moffat and neighbourhood, and a master comber 

 from England, spinning and knitting mistresses, and a stocking- 

 weaver having been procured in 1767, and several quantities of 

 wool from the tenants of the Marquis's store farms, with combs, 

 pots, wheels, reels, and other utensils which was necessary in 

 order to keep them in constant work for instructing apprentices 

 and scholars. A considerable quantity of wool was combed and 

 spun, and several combers and a great number of spinners and 

 knitters taught from 1767 to 1771 inclusive, which has already 

 proved very advantageous to the country, and will no doubt be 

 still more so in a little, I)ut which, with salaries, premiums, and 

 apprentice fees, and the rents of houses taken for the accommo- 

 dation of the several persons employed, occasioned a considerable 

 expense above the produce of the work from 1767 to 1771 

 inclusive. The account whereof is not yet finally settled, the 

 returns for the yarn sold not being all come in, and some yarn and 

 stuffs manufactured in Moffat being still unsold, but there is 

 allowed to Mr Story, the factor, in his account crop, 1771, £400 

 as' part of said expense. 



The Blacklock Manuscripts at Annan. By Mr Frank 

 Miller, Annan. 



The manuscripts which I have undertaken to describe were 

 presented to Annan Mechanics' Institute in 1898 by the late Mr 

 W. R. Duncan, Liverpool, a descendant of Mary Blacklock, the 

 poet Blacklock's .sister, whose husband, William M'Murdo, 

 merchant, Dumfries, was an uncle of Burns's friend, John 

 M'Murdo, Drumlanrig, father of " Bonie Jean " and " Phillis 

 the Fair." 



I shall read the letter in which the MS'S. Avere offered to the 



Institute, as doubtless you will be glad to know w'hat the donor 



said about them : — 



"Liverpool, May 25/98. 



Dear Mr Miller, — In looking over my late father's books, I 

 came across a number of the works of the late Dr Thos. Black- 

 lock. As he was a native of Annan, I thought it likely that the 



