142 Exhumation of Robert Bruce. 



I took over to Dumfermline, to assist me at the resur- 

 rection. On our return, at the inn at the Queensferry, he convinced 

 me that he had not returned empty-handed, by producing a me- 

 tatarsal-bone of King Robert, very little decayed. This he de- 

 clares that he did not steal; but he must have received it know- 

 ing it to be stolen. However, as it was impossible, by that time 



to restore it to its rightful owner, it remains with — ■- till 



King Robert shall claim it ; and in the mean time I have put it 

 carefully in a glass phial, with a ground-glass stopper, and an 

 explicit memorandum telling whose bone it is, and when it was 

 stolen. 



Dr. Monro, who was also at the resurrection, brought with 

 him an excellent artist, (sculptor,) Mr. Scoular, to take casts of 

 the king's head, and of his face too if it had remained. Mr. 

 Scoular is a kind of pupil and assistant to Mr. Chantry, whose 

 fame and merit are well known. 



Art. XIII. Reports of the Commissioners appointed for in- 

 quiring into the mode of jireventing the Forgery of Bank 

 Notes, 



To His Royal Highness George Prince of Wales, Regent of the United 

 Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 



In obedience to the directions contained in His Majesty's Commission, 

 we proceeded, in tlie latter end of the month of July last, to consider the 

 important subject referred to us. 



Our attention was first directed to the proposals for improvement in the 

 form of the notes issued by the Bank of England ; and it being known that 

 many plans had been submitted to that body, which they had not thought 

 it expedient to adopt, we felt it proper, in the first instance, to obtain correct 

 information upon this point ; and we therefore requested the Court of Di- 

 rectors to furnish us with an account of such plans. They did accordingly 

 furnish us, without delay, with a detailed account of o)ie hundi-ed and eight 

 projects, regularly classed and arranged ; together with the correspondence 

 respecting them, a statement of the trials to which they had been sub- 

 jected, and specimens of the proposed originals, and of the imitations ex- 

 ecuted by order of the Bank. They also laid before us about seventy 

 varieties of paper made at their manufactory in experiments for its im- 

 provement, in which almost every alteration recommended for adoption had 

 been tried, and, in some instances, anticipated by their own manufacturer. 



We have also received and answered communications from about seventy 



