This State has certainly not less interest in rescuing and preserving the memorials of her Colonial condition. " I respectfully commend the petition of ' The New-York Historical Society' to the favorable consideration of the Legislature. " WILLIAM H. SEWARD."

This message of the Governor and the accompanying memorial of the Historical Society were referred by the House of Assembly to a select committee, who, on the 19th of February, 1839, made the following report, by their Chairman, Mr. Chapin:

" That the subject of the communication and memorial has received from the committee the attention to which the opinion of the Executive is entitled, and which the objects of the memorialists seem to claim. " The committee are agreed in believing with his Excellency that upon this subject 'we have hitherto manifested a singular indifference,' and that it is due to ourselves, to the memory '

of our predecessors, and to a just regard for the respect of posterity, that every important circumstance connected with the rise and progress of our free institutions should be recorded.' Nor are they less united in believing that the annals of our Colonial history, now secured in the archives of foreign governments, would, if transcribed and made public, reveal facts of the greatest interest to the State. " The memorialists constitute the Historical Society of the State of New-York, and were chartered for the important purpose of collecting and preserving documents, papers, evidences, and generally all materials relating to or in any way connected with the history of this State. In discbarge of the duties thus imposed upon them, and in pursuance of the objects thus intrusted by the Legislature to their care, they have been for many years ardently and faithfully engaged in securing from the wreck of time numerous and valuable memorials of our early history, which, but for their laudable efforts, would have been consigned to oblivion.