INTRODUCTION xli

11.0-137.

He kept his accounts with great care. There were no banks,
and his method was to account for each sum which he received,
detailing how it was spent in dollars, merks, shillings sterling
and Scots, pennies, etc. We have both his accounts during
his period 'of travel, which are included in the first manuscript,
and those during the years 1670 to 1675. From the latter
copious extracts are given, and they are informatory as to the
prices of commodities, and the mode of life of a young lawyer
recently married. There was settled on him by his father in
his marriage contract an annuity of 1800 merks (£'100),
secured on land. His wifes marriage portion was 10,000
merks (about £555), half of it paid up and invested, the
remainder bearing interest at 6 per cent. His pension' as
one of the assessors of the burgh was £12 (sterling). His
house-rent was £20 (sterling) in one place it is stated a
little higher and he sublet the nttics and basement. The
wages of a woman servant was nearly 22 (sterling). We
find the prices of cows, meal, ale, wine, c1othing, places at
theatres, etc., the cost of travelling by coach, posting, fare
in sailing packet to London and so on.

There are many illustrations throughout Lauder's manu-
scripts of the poverty of Scotland, relatively not only to the
present time but to England. The official salary of a judge
before the Union was RQOO, and it only reached that figure
during his lifetime. Some time after the Union it was raised
to £500. On the appointment of the Earl of ~liddleton as H
joint Secretary of State for England with Sunderland, in place
of Godolphin, Lauder notes, 1 This was the Dutchesse of
Portsmouth's doing, and some thought l\Iidleton not wise in
changing (tho it be worth £5000 sterling a )'ear, and 3
or 4 years will enrich on), for envy follows greatnesse as
naturally as the shadow does the bocl~·, and the English would
sooner bear a olahometan for ther Secretar than a Scot, only
he has now a good English ally, by marrieng Brudnell Earle
cl