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 ;

of New-York records from the Secretary's office between 1696 and 1752. These volumes are composed, chiefly, of letters from the Governors to the Secretaries, which are, in many instances, almost literal copies of those sent to the Lords of Trade. There are very few letters from the Secretaries to the Governors during this period. There are no Secretary of State's records whatever, relating to New-York, between 1752 and 1762 but after this year, ;

XXX GENERAL INTRODUCTION. and down to 1781, the correspondence is full and voluminous that relating to this Province, ;

aloae, fillino- nineteen large folio volumes, and comprising, as well, the letters of the Secretaries to the Governors. Besides the several series relating to the different Provinces, there is a set of volumes, numbering eighteen, entitled " Plantations General," in which the general correspondence of the Secretaries with the Colonies and with the Superintendents of Indian Affairs, &c., between 1760 and 1781, is preserved. " In addition to the volumes above mentioned, amounting in all to 356, a series of books, '