The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

Ihc Hospital of luverness. 243
heritable or moveable, for yearly interest, as rcaly and
effectuall}' as they are bound to secure the other sums of
money which belong to the Hospitall of Inverness." The
annual rent was to be laid out in purchasing and buying
*' usefull books for the bencfite and encrease of the Library
of the said burgh," at tlie donor's own sight, and as he should
direct during his own life, but reserving to himself to exer-
cise the option of devoting half the income to pa}- a salary
to the master of the Grammar School of Inverness, in case
he should be the Keeper of the Librar\-. But after his
decease, the trustees were to la\- out half the income in the
purchase of books, and half in pa}'ment of a salary to the
schoolmaster as librarian, unless one of the ministers should
be willing to act as librarian, in which case the whole of the
money was to be bestowed in buying books. The books
were to be bought as the ministers of Inverness, or an}' one
of them, should direct, and a schoolmaster could only be
.appointed librarian under various conditions named in the
•deed. His principal duties were to be " keeping the Library,
.and teaching some bo}\s of the name of Eraser, of good
capacity and genius for learning, whose parents are not in
condition to pay the schoolmaster's fees." The deed further
bears that, as trustee of his deceased brother William
Fraser, late Governor of Fort St. George, in the East Indies,
under whose will he was empowered to allocate legacies for
public charitable uses, he had paid over to the abox'c-
mentioned ministers, magistrates, and elders, the sum of
nine hundred merks money of Scotland, upon the 2nd (jf
Jul}', 1718; and he directs that this money "shall be
secured, improvcn, and bestowed in all respects as the
above-mentioned thousand merks."
Mr Fraser exercised his right of selecting books during
his life, as the following report of a Committee of the Kirk
Session, given in on 23rd August, 1720, shows :—" The
Committee appointed to receive the books bought by Mr
James Fraser, and to consider the ballance that was due to
him, did report that they viewed all the books, which were