DECEMBER 279 



folios, once ivory-white, now tawny and tarnished with 

 the vicissitudes of two centuries. They form a set of 

 household and estate books wherein my great-great- 

 great-grandfather kept his accounts in a delightfully 

 conversational way, yielding a good deal of insight 

 into the daily life of a Scottish laird. 



Sir Alexander Maxwell succeeded his father in 

 1710 in the estate of Monreith, which was then almost 

 identical in area with what it is now. Galloway 

 certainly was not a rich agricultural district in those 

 days, being mainly pastoral, and pretty rough at that : 

 it may be assumed that Sir Alexander's 17,000 and odd 

 acres did not yield the income that might have been 

 derived from similar extent in the Lothians or 

 Tweeddale. 



'The gentry were miserably poor,' says Mr. Graham, 

 speaking of the early part of the century ; ' the nobles and 

 lairds were constantly at their wits' end to get means to pay 

 their way, and were obliged to live sparingly. . . . Gold was 

 never seen ; silver was exceedingly scarce, especially after all 

 the Scots coinage had been called in subsequently to the 

 Union.' 



Sir Alexander, however, succeeding three years after 

 the Union, found a good deal more cash than a 

 Scottish gentleman of to-day would care to keep lying 

 beside him. 



Sterling. 

 ' In harn bag marked with much wax 40 queen 



an's guineas 43 



Sealed in large harn bag 413 guin : 9 shi : 4d 



ster. (8000 merks Scots) . , , . 444 8 10 



