"Instructions for the Collectors of Her Majesties Customs in the North part of Great Britain"

This book contains instructions for Customs Laws in the eighteenth century and would have been used by Burns in his work as an Excise Officer.  It includes an appendix with Forms of Dispatches, Schemes for Calculations, and Methods of Accompting for Officers, and tables local export statistics.  It is bound in brown leather boards with Royal Coat of Arms impressions on both covers.   Excise was a tax similar to VAT but collected at the point of manufacture or import rather than at the point of sale.  A wide range of goods was liable for it, notably silk, tobacco and spirits.  Burns as a gauger had to calculate and collect the tax due.