my examinations were to be made in the presence of an officer of the establishment, and that I was merely, in the first instance, to indicate, by slips of paper, the documents I might wish to transcribe, and not to transcribe, or make extracts of any of them, until the papers so indicated should have been examined and allowed, on the part of Lord Aberdeen. " ' This order was interpreted by the keeper of the state papers with such strictness as to cause me serious embarrassment and inconvenience. I was not allowed to make the slightest

xxviii GENERAL INTRODUCTION.

note or memorandum, even of the date of a document; which, under the circumstances the -- mass of papers to be gone over being so large -- was desirable, and even necessary, ia order to avoid the risk of marking duplicates, and the embarrassment of depending on memory alone. This, and other points -- one of which was a permission to employ copyists of my own selection, by whom the transcripts could have been made at a much less expense than that incurred by the charges of the regular clerks of the office -- formed the subject of a subsequent note of Mr. Everett to Lord Aberdeen. His lordship promptly replied, giving me the further permission desired respecting the making memoranda, &c., but declining to accede to the request that I might be allowed to employ a private copyist. I was obliged, in consequence, to pay to the clerks of the office 4d. sterling for every folio of 72 words that they transcribed. " Her Majesty's State Paper Office, in London, is strictly a part of the Sovereign's own '