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, '

sixty-two in number, entitled " Trade Papers," embracing a miscellaneous collection of documents relating to trade and foreign plantations from 1542 to 1761, was submitted to my inspection, agreeably to the terms of the Secretary of State's order. In the course of my researches I ascertained that there were other sets of books and papers in which documents relating to our history were contained, but which my order, as it stood, did not allow me to examine. I was consequently obliged to apply to Lord Aberdeen for further permissions, which were granted ; and nearly a hundred other volumes and bundles of papers were submitted to my inspection. " ' Thus upwards of five hundred volumes and bundles of papers were thoroughly and carefully examined in the State Paper Office. Each document desired for transcription was indicated by a slip of paper, and subsequently reexamined by a gentleman connected with the Foreign Office, under Lord Aberdeen's direction. Such of them only as were not obje(;ted to were copied. The copies were made by the regular clerks of the office on the terms above stated and in every instance the orthography of the originals was scrupulously followed. ;