Series 2 > Household book of Lady Grisell Baillie

Ixxviii HOUSE-BOOK OF LADY GRISELL BAILLIE
made out by George Baillie. In these Baillie valued his
landed estates at so many years’ purchase, gave a list of
his investments, and a note of the debts due by him.
In 1693, Jerviswood and Mellerstain were both valued at
twenty years’ purchase, but the value of the latter was raised
in subsequent statements to twenty-two years’ purchase.
In 1736 the Barony of Earlston was bought from Lord
Haddington at twenty-five years’ purchase, and in the
same year the superiority of some subjects in Earlston was
acquired at twenty-one and a half years’ purchase. The
following is rather a curious entry in relation to land
purchase. Baillie, who had bought the estate of West-
fauns for £2000, afterwards acquired the ‘ Snyp Rights
upon it,’ for £432, 4s. 7d., seeming thus to indicate that
they were separable possessions.
These balance-sheets show that it was not until after
the Union that Baillie began to save money, and that
these savings he generally laid out in the purchase of land.
His first balance-sheet in 1693 shows that he was worth
£8037; his last in 1736 that he was worth £37,724.
Although it does not fall within the scope of this paper to
treat of the effects which the Union of the Parliaments had
upon Scotland, it is a subject which naturally bulks largely
in the study of the career of George Baillie. In his own
correspondence we learn that he foresaw much of what
happened, but he probably did not see one effect, that is,
the injury inflicted upon Scotland through the practical
removal from her capital of such men as Baillie of Jervis¬
wood and his father-in-law, the Earl of Marchmont. They
saw no sin in the innocent enjoyment of music, singing, and
dancing. We have already noted how George Baillie got
in the fiddlers to play to his bairns, and Lady Murray gives
the following delightful picture of her grandfather: ‘ As
mirth and good humour, and particularly dancing, had
always been one characteristic of the family when so