282 AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LAIRD 



250, 9s. lid. ; which is a most extravagant account, there 

 being 18 of them died by the way going to the Mercat of 

 the murrain, which was a Ly invented by him for they were 

 killed by overdriving, and all the fat heavy nolt died being 

 driven till ten at night & got neither water nor grasse, 

 he constantlie Drunk and never came near them & under- 

 charged the prices he got. Soe there remains onlie to 

 bear charges 702, which makes them above 7 shil : 3 half- 

 pence per beast, which must be grosse mismanadgment or 

 dishonestie, which is the same as to my losse. Losse on 

 drove 172, 2s. 2d. sterling which is 2065, 6 Scots or 

 3098 merks; this besides the death of my cows & other 

 breeding stock, & death of my bull, in all 30, & the death 

 of my bay pad worth 30, being alsoe robbed of my cash, 

 the losse of which I cannot yet know till the accompts of my 

 cash book be made. Soe this year 1728 has been a remark- 

 able year to me for misfortunes & Calamities that are 

 unusuall.' 



As every other landowner in Galloway, great and 

 small, seems to have been engaged in the cattle trade, 

 the amount of money flowing annually from England 

 into that remote part of Scotland must have been very 

 large. The money transactions between the lairds 

 borrowing and lending were incessant; the records 

 thereof preserved in these books are of bewildering 

 intricacy. At first the balance showed against Sir 

 Alexander, who owed in 1712 2049 sterling against 

 1306 owing to him ; but in 1730, the last year of his 

 life, he was able to write complacently, ' Bona excedunt 

 debita per 491, 10s. 6d. sterling.' For although, as 

 I shall show, he spent liberally, he was careful in small 

 disbursements, how careful, let entries like the follow- 

 ing testify : 



