ANTICIPATES THE 'UNEARNED INCREMENT' 207 



' part and parcel ' of his nature as the Scotch groats 

 upon which he had been fed in childhood. 



But why should the gathering of wealth trouble one 

 without wife, child, or even near relative ? To answer 

 this now would be anticipatory. Therefore, the reader 

 must be contented with knowing that, in his grace's 

 mind, a reason existed for ' riding ' the Queensberry 

 and his other titular estates hard. 



As tenant for life, without impeachment for waste, 

 and with an almost moral, if not legal, possibility of 

 issue extinct (and similar English law sophistries for 

 which, no doubt, the Scotch law provides, either 

 express or implied), the Duke enjoyed a singularly 

 favourable position. I therefore recite the means 

 used by Queensberry to 'sweat' his estates in Scotland, 

 to assist in piling up the magnificent fortune he left. 

 To show cause for my statement, I am bound to take 

 the reader a few years ahead of events. After the 

 decease of his grace, the Earl of Wemyss, who had 

 succeeded as heir to the estates and dignities of the 

 Earldom of March, brought an action ^ against the 

 executors of the then late Duke of Queensberry to 

 recover and reclaim lands alleged by the plaintiff to 

 belong to the Earldom of March at Neidpath. Dur- 



^ Heard before the FirsV Division of the Court of Session, Edin- 

 burgh, June 21st, 1820. 



