AND STIRLlNGSHmE HUNT 



posed of by public sale at this period. Such 

 a step had most likely been decided upon in 

 connection with the change in the manage- 

 ment, yet it would seem that eventually the 

 pack was not disposed of in this way, but was 

 parted with privately to Lord Elphinstone ; for 

 the only reference to any sale of hounds at 

 this time is contained in an entry in the ac- 

 counts, of date the 14th of February 1807, 

 which shows that the Hunt received credit for 

 the sum of £104, 7s. as the price of "Hounds 

 and others" sold to his lordship. Such a sum 

 could hardly have been a full price, even in 

 those days, for a pack of fox -hounds consisting 

 of from twenty to thirty couples, but as there 

 would then almost certainly be considerable diffi- 

 culty in effecting satisfactorily the sale of a 

 pack whose kennel was situated so far north, 

 the Hunt would no doubt be glad to accept a 

 nominal sum as its value, more especially when 

 it was known that the hounds were to remain 

 in the country. 



Lord Elphinstone had been in office but a 

 year when he was joined in the management 

 by Mr George Ramsay of Barnton, the only 

 surviving son of Mr William Ramsay of Barnton, 

 banker in Edinburgh, one of the directors of the 

 Royal Bank of Scotland. Mr George Ramsay, who 

 was born on the 10th of August 1767, began 

 to hunt almost immediately after his return to 

 this country from Paris in the end of the year 



43 



