374 HISTORY OF THE EOYAL BUCKHOUNDS AND ASCOT RACES. 



to do with the then establishment of the Civil List, except so 

 far as it related to the Royal Buekhounds. 



It seems (so far as we can ascertain) that the nominal 

 yearly cost of the Royal Buekhounds from the 1st to the 22nd 

 regnal year of the reign of George III. was 2,341^. ; but there 

 must have been additional annual expenses for kennels, 

 hound meat, and other incidental charges which we are not 

 allowed to ascertain. However, we may take it generally that 

 the annual cost of the pack from 1761. to 1782, when Lord 

 Bateman went out of office, was about the same as prevailed 

 during the reign of George II. In the latter year, the depart- 

 ment of the Treasurer of the Chamber having been abolished, 

 some of the duties of that office were transferred to other 

 departments ; that of the Master of the Horse taking over and 

 administrating some functions and discharging certain liabilities 

 incidental to the pack, which had been executed in the office 

 of the Treasurer of the Chamber during the preceding 225 

 years. 



Owing to a fortuitous oversight on the part of a clerk at the 

 Public Record Office, we obtained access to the accounts of the 

 Master of the Horse from 1783 to 1813, the outcome of that 

 mistake having led to the withdrawal of the restrictions which 

 had been previously placed on the official documents of that 

 classification — viz ., the Audit Office Records, Declared Accounts 

 (Treasury Series), all of which are now open without reserve 

 to the investigation of historical students down to the year 

 1821. Thus in the first of these accounts it transpires that 

 the department of the Master of the Horse was saddled in 1 783 

 with certain duties which previously had been executed by 

 the defunct department of the Treasurer of the Chamber ; and 

 " according to His Majesty's Establishment, dated the 27th of 

 August, 1783," we obtain the following payments in connection 

 with the Royal Buekhounds for the year 1783, viz. : — 



George, Earl of Jersey, and Viscount Hutchingbrook, successively 

 Master of His Majesty's Buck Hounds, at 2,000^. #>* ann., 

 and for an allowance for breakfasts at Swinly Lodge, at 300?. 

 #' ann., for the same time — 2,300?. 



