benefices taken by virtue of the statute, 26 Henry VIII. Copies of some had been incorporated in two large old vellum books, "finely written," the first of which had been recovered from private hands and restored to its proper repository by Sir George Wheeler, Knt., D.D., a name thus deserving remembrance. Many other Church documents had likewise been recovered and restored by Sir Thomas Hanmer. Almost pathetic is the " humble hope" expressed that if similar books were found to be in private hands, the holders would generously give them up.

Lastly may be mentioned the Crown Office, which harboured records from the first year of King Edward I, among them the "Bagg Rolls," containing memoranda of every trial during the course of the intervening centuries, stating the defendant's name and “addition,” and the nature of his offence. Here, too, were the records of attainders, formerly kept in the Baga de Secretis— a chest (or press) with three locks, the keys of which were in the several charge of the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, the Attorney General and the Clerk of the Crown. The contents of this baga, were not really records of the court, but proceedings upon special commissions in high treason and the like, of the highest importance in relation to the title to the Crown.

These are some of the facts elicited by the committee of the House of Commons in the spring of 1732. The king's reply to the address from the House of Commons when presented was that he would give directions accordingly. But little action of an effective character followed. No custodian was disturbed in his possession; if he had been slack in the performance of his duties, he so continued. In the last year of the century the House of Commons was again moved to consider the state of the records. There followed the Royal Commissions of 1800, 1806 and 1831, with consequent activity, an activity, however, that was ultimately found to be both prodigal in expense and inadequate in result, though some ponderous and valuable works appeared. A final step was taken when, by the passing of the Public Record Office Act of 1838, all the records of the Kingdom were placed in the "charge and superintendence" of the Master of the Rolls, and in course of time the Public Record Office was built.

One important repository of public documents, namely the State Paper Office, temporarily escaped this general surrender. The features considered to be peculiar to itself were that its

contents mainly concerned the relations of the kingdom to foreign nations, and that, described in the patents of appointment of its keepers as "the King's Library of Manuscripts," they were rigidly excluded from the public view except upon an order from the sovereign himself or one of his principal Secretaries of State and in the case of anyone not a British subject, only on the production of a warrant under the King's sign manual. The public records, on the other hand, had chiefly to do with internal administration, and were open to public inspection on payment of fees.

The history of the King's Library has a much later beginning than that of the public records. Its origins are to be traced vaguely to the exigencies arising out of accumulations of correspondence and the like in the immediate circle of the sovereign some time in the sixteenth century. Early in the next century a grant was made to one Edward Collingwood, which secured to him succession to the office of keeper "of the papers and records collected into a sette forme of a Librarie within our pallace of Whitehall," with an emolument of three shillings and fourpence per diem. A few years later an important addition was made to the library by a warrant of 1612 for the delivery of the papers of Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, and of his father, Lord Burghley, which had been bequeathed to King James for his library by the former statesman. This warrant was followed by an oath of secrecy taken by the Keeper.

At the Restoration, the post of keeper was entrusted to Sir Joseph Williamson, who held it for a long series of years, conferring distinction upon the office by his important public services elsewhere and benefiting the library itself by his work in connection with it. Neither the demands of his office of principal Secretary of State nor his employment as ambassador, negotiating the treaties of Cologne, Nimeguen and Ryswick separated him from his keepership of the King's Library or made him indifferent to its demands. When he was freed from these more extensive duties, he remained still faithful to the library, enriching it at his death with a donation of his manuscripts, including his copies of treaties and extracts from the records of the Exchequer. It was during his keepership that Prince Rupert (in 1679) with the king's consent, addressed a letter to him requesting access to the papers on behalf of Roger L'Estrange for the purpose of writing a history of the Civil Wars.

After Sir Joseph Williamson's death, a period of comparative neglect began. In 1704 a committee of the House of Lords proceeded to investigate the condition of the library, and were informed by the keeper (Mr. Tucker) that papers of State had, for some time past, been only irregularly transmitted to the office, and that so important a document as the Treaty of Breda was missing. The Lords' Committee duly reported to their noble House, but no effective action followed. Later in the century, soon after the accession of George III, necessities of practical politics led to some disturbance of the dust of years which had settled on the library's contents. Mr. Pownall, Under-Secretary of State, having to make enquiry concerning precedents of the Restoration on which to rest some current acts of government, found that he must search for what he required among the masses of books and papers lying in an old tower over the gateway at Whitehall, where they had for many years been locked up, and were in so perishing a condition that "the room had become a retreat for pigeons to hatch in." The labels compared with the catalogue that Sir Joseph Williamson had left as a legacy showed that this place had been the sole repository of papers of State, and that nothing had been done with (or for) them since the enquiry before the Committee of the House of Lords at the beginning of the century. This was the somewhat appalling situation brought to the notice of the King's Ministers in 1763. While they were considering it, coincidently came a memorial to George Grenville, the First Lord, signed by Sir Joseph Ayloffe, Dr. Ducarel, Andrew Cottee and Thomas Astle, offering, on terms, " to methodize, digest, bind up, and make calendars and indexes." They had prepared the way for themselves by visiting the Keeper's deputy "and conciliating him to their plan of temporary interference," giving him assurance that their action "would be without prejudice to the person who now has the custody of the library."

The memorialists had acquired some previous knowledge of the materials with which they were proposing to deal, for even before getting sight of the papers, they represented that they had good grounds for stating that more than a hundred and fifty years before, in 1621, all the papers up to that time had been separated into presses under twelve heads, with certain subdivisions under the first head.

The memorialists obtained their desired warrant in July of the following year, 1764, the rights of the Keeper, Mr. Stone, being carefully preserved, and at once proceeded to grapple with their task. But it was an effort that after all did not produce great results. When, after a lapse of years they were asked by the Secretary of State to report progress, they had no more to say than that, so far, they had been able to make detached memoranda only of the papers and had made no attempt to arrange them. Their allowances of £100 per annum each, £100 for their clerks, and £100 for binding, stationery, etc., were perhaps not excessive; but were such as they had considered sufficient. It does not appear that, as year was added to year, much happened in the King's Library.

Shortly after 1789, in view of the amazing events occurring in France, Pitt and Dundas engaged Mr. John Bruce, who had been connected for some years with Indian affairs, to collect precedents from the State papers applicable to the trials for the new kind of sedition and rebellion induced by French opinion and example, and to the facts, treaties and measures supporting correct views of the balance of power. Bruce's work was so much approved that he was appointed Keeper of the State Papers in November, 1792, resigning at the same time his professorship in the University of Edinburgh. There were still, however, no calendars and indexes forthcoming. In 1797 the Select Committee of the House of Commons appointed to consider the finances of the kingdom, elicited from the Keeper of the State Papers that since 1782 the increase of the cost of the department had been £150 per annum, the Keeper drawing a salary of £160 and the other gentlemen employed altogether £650.

During the previous year, Dundas had commissioned Bruce to prepare from the documents under his control an account of the rise and progress of the balance of power in Europe. Sixty copies were privately printed for the use of ministers. The information was derived chiefly from printed sources, since nothing effective was done by the clerks in the office and no assistance was to be had from them." In 1797 he was again called upon by Dundas, then at the War Office, to collect from the State Papers former plans and instructions to naval and military commanders employed in conducting conjunct expeditions for invading the enemy's coasts. Bruce's task in preparing

his report was rendered so much more difficult and vexatious by the unarranged condition of the papers that the king's ministers could not fail to be informed of it. In the following year, when the fear of invasion had become active, Bruce was called upon to produce the plans adopted in Queen Elizabeth's time in prospect of the approach of the Armada, and again, in 1799, in view of the union with Ireland, to report upon precedents drawn from the union with Scotland. This last report was printed and distributed to peers and members of parliament. On account of the difficulties met with in the course of these investigations, and as a reward for his services, Bruce, in September, 1799, was granted a patent of Keeper of the State Papers for life. In March of the following year a warrant was issued for a new establishment for his office. At the same time the warrant to the staff employed since 1764 was revoked; and these same gentlemen, of long service but dilatory habit, formally handed over to the new Keeper, in obedience to a Treasury order, the offices in the Middle Treasury Gallery and at Whitehall.

The new establishment of the State Paper Office was, in regard to emoluments, much improved, but the pay was not excessive, when it is understood that the necessary qualifications were a competent knowledge of Latin, French, geography and the general history of Europe, all the more if there is added to this the acquirement of a style of handwriting, which their extant office books show to be of incomparable beauty and clarity.

It would be useless to enter into any details of the succeeding internal history of the State Paper Office. In 1819 there was a removal of the office from its old ruinous quarters to a house leased in Great George Street, and the clerks received each a gratuity of £10" for personal fatigue, labour and loss of clothes " during the operations, which lasted three months. In 1824 the question was mooted of a new building, better accommodated to the requirements.

A survey of the contents of the State Paper Office in 1828 disclosed volumes not less in number than 8,500, besides a mass of unbound papers equivalent to another 1,500 volumes, and a great number of original treaties; while there was an expectation of another 1,500 volumes to be transmitted for preservation on its shelves within the ensuing two years.

When, in 1831, the annual expenditure on the office—a little