The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

242 The Highland Monthly.
This discharge includes the balance due to his predecessor,
paid ; also, a debt due by the Hospital to Drummure,
^950 14s 6d, and Dipple's letter, ^^333 6s 8d ; also, outstanding
debts, ;^678 i8s od ; cesses, stipends, feu-duties,
&c., £iig los od ;
^198 4s 6d ;
and
advances by order of Session,
also, a new item, mentioned above—a payment
to the Treasurer for his trouble. Considering the
great improvement in the management of the fund, as well
as in the mode of keeping the accounts, as compared with
what was done, and omitted to be done, in Treasurer
James Maclean's time, some thirty years before, the money
was well earned.
There follows a list of bonds and securities made over
to his successor, not added up in the account book. In a
memorandum at the end of his accounts occurs, " Baillie
David Fraser's Mortification of a thousand merks, with
interest from Whits., 1724, is to be a part of his Charge [i.e.,
the new Treasurer's], as also the iron chest delivered him,
with the Communion cups and cloaths for the tables."
It was during Bailie William Macleane's treasurership
that an extract of the deed of mortification made by Mr
James Fraser, Secretary and Register [? Registrar] of the
Royal Hospital of Invalids at Chelsea, was presented by
him to the Session, and recorded in their minutes on 14th
July, 1724. This mortification was made over, and the
money paid to the Session, twelve years before, not for
ordinary charitable purposes, but for the improvement and
maintenance of the library. The fund ought to have been
kept in a distinct account, but for a good many years it was
kept as part of the Hospital account. The deed bears that
the donor, Mr Fraser, had, in the year 1712, "already com-
mitted and payed to the Reverend th-e Minister, Magistrates,
and remanent members of the Church Session of Inverness,
the sume of one thousand merks money of Scotland, as is
clear from the Hospitall books of the said Burgh," The
mode of investment is then prescribed, viz., " to lend out
and employ the said mortified sume on sufficient security.