Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/116

This page has been validated.
108
Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.

appears that the Earl of Dunbar, Prime Minister of Scotland, and Lord Balmerinoch, Secretary of State, had engaged in money transactions to a great amount with Logan, and were deeply indebted to his estate.

"From the record of the Great Seal it appears," says Mr. Mark Napier, "that in the year 1605, Logan's estate of Restalrig had passed into the hands of Balmerinoch by purchase. But the purchase money had not been paid; and 'when the laird of Restalrig died, the Secretary was in his debt no less than eighteen thousand marks,[1] a large sum in those days. This is proved by the register of confirmed testaments, where Logan's is recorded; and by the same it appears that the Earl of Dunbar was also Logan's debtor to the amount of fifteen thousand marks.[2]"

It further appears by extracts from the Register of the Privy Seal, also furnished to Mr. Mark Napier by Mr. David Laing, that George, Earl of Dunbar, obtained from the King "the gift of the escheit and ferfaultour of the sowme of fyftene thousand markis Scotis money," remaining unpaid by him to the late Robert Logan of Restalrig, for


  1. A mark is 13s 4d.
  2. Mr. Mark Napier's note in the Bannatyne Club Edition of Spottiswood's History, vol. iii., p. 298.