worked out by consulting the following series: Notification Books, 31 volumes, 1708-1783; Commission Books, 38 volumes, 1660-1783; and Home Office, Military Entry Books and Warrant Books. Lists of successions can be found in the Succession Books, volumes 1-4, 13-14, arranged both regimentally and chronologically. These volumes contain no entries concerning the officers of the provincial regiments. Information on that subject can be obtained from War Office, Monthly Returns, Foreign Stations, 8 volumes, 1776–1783, where rosters of the provincial and German troops will be found. The student may also be referred to a paper-bound folio volume in Treasury, Miscellanea, Various, bundle 179, and to the War Office, Establishment Books, Military, volume 171, 1783-1789, a bulky volume that should be used in connection with War Office, Annual Army Lists, numbers 164-166, which were made up for the purpose of meeting the claims of families of officers of the several provincial regiments in America raised prior to 1783. The first 46 volumes of War Office, Establishment Books, Military, 1685-1783, are the same as Treasury, Registers, Establishments, Military, except that they contain a few statistics of earlier date (1684–1699). Of the Home Office papers the public is permitted to inspect only those preceding the end of the year 1779, but the student can obtain a written permit to search the papers after that date. The collection forms a body of documents peculiarly difficult to handle, partly because of the great number of volumes and partly because of the difficulty in determining from the lists what volumes contain matter relating to American history. The situation is somewhat further complicated by the fact that a Home Department was not created until 1785, and that consequently a sharp line cannot be drawn, before that date, between State Papers, Domestic, and Home Office records. The greater part of the Home Office documents prior to the year 1693 (excepting the years 1675-1689) have been calendared under the head of State Papers, Domestic; from 1693 to 1760 there are more than 250 volumes of uncalendared matter; and from 1760 to 1783 102 volumes, of which those as far as 1775 have been calendared under the title Home Office Records, including State Papers, Miscellanea. This latter collection formerly consisted of 500 bundles, most of which have now been dispersed, including the well-known "addresses to the king ", printed in Force, Archives. Only 97 of these bundles remain to constitute the collection of Miscellanea, and of these very few (seven at most) have anything to do with American affairs. The other documents, those bound in volumes, are rich in Americana. Besides the State Papers, Domestic, there are the State Papers, Domestic, Petitions, first series, 7 volumes, 5 bundles (1708-time of George II); second series, 4 volumes (1760-1781); Petition Entry Books, 28 volumes, (16881760), of which the second series of State Papers, Domestic, Petitions, is really the continuation, full of important petitions from the colonies; Warrant Books, 30 volumes, 1609-1633; and Entry Books, 56 volumes, 1681-1779, containing but little of importance. The Home Office records, listed under that title, consist, first, of letters sent by the secretaries of state to various other departments, such as the admiralty, ordnance, customs, war, and post-office, and to the Privy Council. These letters are accompanied by various. enclosures (copies of letters, memorials, and the like), of which the original letters were copied (in full or in abstract) into the entrybooks of the office; secondly, letters sent to the secretary of state from the same departments as well as from private individuals, and arranged by the clerks under such headings as Admiralty, Treasury, Ordnance, Circular Books, Ireland, etc. Warrants were entered separately in warrant-books, passes in books of passes, and other documents in their proper entry-books. It often happened that enclosures were not entered at all, and must be searched for in State Papers, Domestic, or among the Colonial Office papers. Of first importance are the papers in Home Office, Admiralty, volumes 166-198, 1775-1783, the greater part of which relate to America and consist of letters from the Lords of the Admiralty to the Secretary of State, with enclosures (both originals and copies) received from the admirals in American stations. Many of these enclosures are duplicates of papers in the Admiralty records. Admiralty Entry Books, 19 volumes, 1693-1784, contains entries of letters sent to the Lords of the Admiralty; Domestic Entry Books, 27 volumes, 1706-1785, contains a few American documents before 1772 but nothing after that date; Ordnance, 8 volumes, 1732-1784, contains useful letters from the Ordnance Office relating to the colonies, though after 1765 the number is small; Ordnance and War Office, 2 volumes, 1776-1782, includes chiefly entries of letters from Lord George Germain to the ordnance and war departments relating wholly to American affairs and therefore of considerable value. Among the most useful of the Home Office records are the documents labeled Post Office, Treasury and Customs, and Custom House, Miscellanea. The first, in 9 bundles, 1704-1780, deals with the inauguration of the system of packet-boats to America and the West Indies, and throws much light on the mail facilities during the period 1756 to 1780, a matter of no little importance; the second, in 21 volumes, 1729-1783, contains papers of the utmost value for the period after 1775, showing the sources of much of Lord George Germain's information and outlining his policy. It includes also original letters from the Custom House, with copies of enclosures, the originals of which have probably been destroyed; and extracts from ship-captains' letters, the contents of some of which are amusing, as the following extract will show. Under date of December 14, 1775, one captain writes, "This day a person came to this place who left Philadelphia the 3d of last month; he says that the Congress are quarrelling and in great confusion; that they have voted to establish the Presbyterian religion all over America; that this is carried by the New Englanders very much against the minds of the southern delegates as well as the Quakers". Custom House, Miscellanea, I volume, 1768–1775, is an entry-book of letters sent by the "register general of shipping over the ports under the management of the Honorable Board of Commissioners from No. America" to the collectors and comptrollers of customs at the different ports in the colonies from Halifax to Savannah. This is a valuable volume, supplemental to the Treasury Board papers, for any one wishing to study the career of the American Board of Customs Commissioners. The Foreign Office records, which are open to public inspection to the end of the year 1780, after which date a written permit is required, need not detain us long. There is but one volume, covering the period before 1783, containing diplomatic papers relating to the United States. These include letters and papers from the American ministers, Franklin, Adams, and Jay, at Paris. They concern the preliminary articles of the treaty, the opening of ports, the extension of trade, various propositions for a definitive treaty, and the like. It would be necessary, however, for the student investigating the diplomacy of the period to search the French, Dutch, German (Hanoverian, Brunswicker, and Hessian), Prussian, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Swedish papers, where will be found documents of great importance in the communications of the various British ministers to the home government. A new classification of some of the Foreign Office papers is in progress. In closing, attention may be called to three classes of papers belonging to our subject that cannot be dealt with here at length. In the Public Record Office are many groups of important documents, already more or less known to scholars: the Manchester papers, calendared in one of the reports of the Historical Manuscripts Commission; the Shaftesbury papers, in part unpublished, but listed in the thirty-third Report of the deputy keeper; the Pitt despatches, soon to be edited and printed under the auspices of the Society of Colonial Dames; and the Cornwallis manuscripts, a number of which have been printed in the Cornwallis-Clinton Correspondence, edited by B. F. Stevens. Secondly, in the various docket-books, in the collections of king's bills, signet bills, privy seals, king's sign manuals, and patent-rolls, and in the accounts of the Clerk of the Hanaper. there is ample information for any one desiring to trace the passage of a colonial charter through the seals; and in the records of the Chancery Court and the Court of King's Bench may be found the proceedings and fees connected with the vacation of colonial charters. Lastly, there is the great mass of Colonial Office papers, calendared to 1697 and contained in nearly 2,000 well-arranged volumes or bundles, an analysis of which is in itself a sufficient subject for a separate paper and can well be left for another time. Within a few years there have been discovered more than 600 volumes, classified under the title of Modern Trade papers and now known as Board of Trade, Commercial, two series, that must have been originally a part of the Board of Trade papers. I shall not attempt to describe these papers now. After a careful examination of the entire collection, I am convinced that, as compared with the other Board of Trade papers, these volumes and bundles contain but little of importance for colonial history. Single volumes are occasionally of value. but as a whole the collection is disappointing. I have now passed in review some of the most important of the materials in British archives for American colonial history. Enough remains, however, undescribed to constitute a mass of material la.ger even than that which we have here presented. The Colonial Office papers, the ecclesiastical records, and the documents in private hands. make up a formidable body of evidence, better known, however, than that contained in the departmental volumes. In time all this material will be made available for historical students, and while the extent of it is often discouraging and the content frequently disappointing, nevertheless it is a distinct gain if we know what there is and what it contains. Imperfect as I know my examination of these documents to have been, I find encouragement in the thought that even an imperfect examination, if it be neither inaccurate nor misleading, is better than no examination at all, and that better men will build on what their predecessors have tried to accomplish. CHARLES M. ANDREWS. Private. DOCUMENTS Some Papers of Franklin Pierce, 1852-1862. (Second Installment.) XIII. HON. JOHN W. GEARY TO PRESIDENT PIERCE. His Excellency, Franklin Pierce. My dear Sir: Your friendly letter of the 12th ult:, by the hands of Col: Winston' has been received. I thank you, not only for your many personal assurances of confidence, but also for your public and decided approval of my official action. Next to my personal honor and the approbation of my conscience, I value the success of your administration and hold sacred the delicate trust confided to me. "Be so just and true to the right that no man can challenge your impartiality", is an instruction so eminently just that it meets a warm response in my heart and will be my steady rule of action. In the discharge of my executive duties, I have known and will continue to know "no party, no section, nothing but Kansas and my country", and any measured success I have attained here is due to my determination to administer "equal and exact justice". Fully conscious of all the difficulties surrounding my delicate and responsible mission and with the general prediction of failure, I entered upon it calmly and deliberately with no fear of failure so long as I was conscious of your cordial and energetic support. This feeling was necessary for my success, and my usefulness will be destroyed the moment this consciousness ceases. The removal of Judge Lecompte became a necessity and "public policy" will certainly justify it in the eyes of all right thinking men. His peculiar entanglement in Kansas affairs and his partizan feeling evinced on repeated occasions, destroyed his public usefulness and was a great obstacle in the way of the recognition of the authority of the courts. The collision between the Judge and myself must be judged in the light of its Kansas surroundings." I deemed the act necessary (and upon the maturest reflection have no reason to change the opinion then formed,) to prevent the rescue of the Free-State prisoners and to preserve the peace of the territory. 1 Isaac Winston, United States marshal for Kansas Territory. 2 See "A Defense by Samuel D. Lecompte ", in Kansas Historical Collections, 1903-1904 (VIII, 389 ff.). See also ibid., VII, 375, note. |