Memorials of four old families

38
About this time Sir Alexander appears to have advanced the £2000
stg. to pay some of Drum's debts, and he held several bonds of relief in
respect to obligations for which he had been Drum's cautioner : but he took
very good care to protect himself. He had already got a heritable bond
over the whole of the laird's estates for his life interest, but on 29th April,
1721, he got from him in addition a bond for £10,000 sterling, payable at
Whitsunday following, with £2000 of liquidate expenses and interest, with
letters of special charge, raised thereupon at his instance against Drum, to
enter heir in special to the deceast Charles Irvine, second son of the
entailer, his uncle, in the bond for £80,000 Scots, granted as a provision for
Charles. His object was, by getting this bond from Drum, as for money
borrowed, or paid for him, to be in a position to get the said bond of
provision (originally granted in favour of Charles) adjudged to be due to
the present laird, as his heir, and afterwards to get the estate of Drum
adjudged liable for the payment thereof: he succeeded on 5th January,
1722, in getting a decree of adjudication against the estate for payment of
the sum contained in the said bond, or at least so much of it as would pay
off the £10,000.
It is true that he granted a back bond declaring this £10,000 stg. bond
to be in trust for behoof of himself and Drum's other creditors, but by
purchasing assignations of debts, he was the principal creditor. There was
another decree relative to this same bond after Sir Alexander's death.
Besides this, he got a decree of adjudication with respect to another
bond, one for 8000 merks, granted in favour of Charles' sister, Elspet : in
both cases decree was granted with 30 years' annual rent, the Lords
reserving certain objections raised by Irvine of Crimond, the next heir
substitute in the entail.
For about this time Crimond and his brother, Artamford, interfered,
seeing the risk of the family estates being sold and lost : and John Irvine
the next heir and uncle of the laird, was communicated with for his inter-
est : he was then in Carolina.
An attempt was then made to compromise with these prospective heirs ;
while the creditors on the estate assented to Sir Alexander Cuming's taking
steps to effect a sale of it in order to obtain payment.
A state of the circumstances of the family of Drum was drawn up and
submitted to the creditors in 1723 : there is also extant a memo, concern-
ing Drum's creditors, and a memorial for John Irvine framed in the same
year. These contain much interesting information.
The first of these documents runs as follows, viz. : —
" Alexander Irvine of Drum, entailed his estate with clauses de non
alienando ct non contrahendo debitum, and only allowed the heirs of tailzie