" ' The records of the Board of Trade were kept with much care and system. Their proceedings on all subjects brought before them were accurately entered in a series of large folio journals, commencing with 1696 and extending down to 1782; and which, including the records of the proceedings of the Committee of Privy Council, between 1675 and 1696, number about 130 volumes. " The documents relating to the affairs of each Province and Colony were regularly and '

separately preserved in two series of books the one styled " Entries," in which were recorded ;

all the letters and representations of the board in reference to its concerns ; and the other entitled " Papers," in which all the original documents received at Whitehall were carefully bound up. There are 123 large volumes of " Entries " and " Papers," relating to the Province of New-York, in the Board of Trade series, commencing with 1664 and extending to 1782; in which are included the documents relating to the proprietary government under the Duke of York, which were transferred to the Committee for Foreign Plantations, &c., upon the devolution of the Province to the Crown on the accession of King James II. Documents of general concern to all the Provinces and Colonies were recorded and preserved in a separate series of books, amounting to sixty, entitled " Plantations General." " The records of the State Paper Office, properly, are not nearly so perfect, especially in '

the earlier periods, as those of the Board of Trade. It was only in matters of great secrecy and concern that the Provincial Governors were required to correspond directly with the Secretaries of State and it is probably in consequence of this that there are only six volumes ;