Plan of the present (1782) and of an improved day book of the stamp warehouse. A sketch of an Act for consolidating the various branches of the revenue of the customs.

On the national debt, by John Johnson, 1758.

An account of the clear annual income of the public revenues of the crown, with the certain annual charges thereupon, 1753.

A list of the nominees to the annuities for lives, created in 1745, ditto for 1746, and their annual amount. Of the manner of exporting goods from the port of London, 1773. A list of all the officers employed in collecting His Majesty's revenues on salt, 1754.

A certificate and presentment of His Majesty's officers and others residing within the palaces of Whitehall, and St. James's, and the precincts of the Verge, and also of their houses and tenements, made and rated 10th May 1757. An original.

Extracts, references, opinions, and judgments on excise, 1789.

A list of such pensions as have been added by warrants to the establishment, from 1741 to 1748.

An account of the proceedings in the office of Register of the lands of the crown since it was established, 1762.

An account of the total sums paid for bounties from 1766 to 1781.

Proceedings of the commissioners appointed by the Act for an application for a sum of money granted to His Majesty for making compensation to the Royal African Company, &c., 27th January 1755. Several other papers on the same subject.

B. Vol. 136.

A folio volume, labelled " Army, War Office, Pay "Office, Ordnance, Estimates, Militia, Home Defence.'

It contains drafts, copies, &c., and original reports and letters from Gen. Sir Allan Maclean, Mr. Wilkinson, Sir George Yonge, Gen. Conway, Gen. Fawcett, R. Mackenzie, Lord Grantham, Colonel Barré, Baron Alvensleben, Duke of Richmond, Lord Mahon, Gen. Alex. Mackay, Gen. A. Gordon, Henry Maister, J. Call, Lord North, Sir Charles Grey, B. Johnson, Henry Cruger, B. Pigot, Lord Selkirk, Sir Robert Smyth, Rev. John Wesley, and some anonymous letters.

A folio volume, labelled "Secret Admiralty Book " in 1758-1760."

It contains copies of 65 letters from Mr. Pitt to the Lords of the Admiralty, Board of Ordnance, and Secretary at War, from 31st December 1757 to 21st July 1760.

Vol. 154.

A brown-paper parcel, containing :A.-Miscellaneous naval papers, and some original letters from Robert Greyson, Montague Burgoyne, James Pierson, and Major Thos. Wood, 1786, 1789.

B.-A sketch of the present mode of victualling the navy. Thoughts on the interest and discount to be paid on victualling bills in 1751. Estimates of the advantages, if such interest had arisen from an agreement.

C.-Three books of Richard Oswald's remarks on his contracts for supplying the British and allied army in Germany in 1763.

D.-Supplies to the navy, ordnance, British forces and foreign troops in Africa and America, from 1748 to 1789.

E. Three volumes of answers from counties and towns in England, Wales, and Scotland, to the plan for augmenting the domestic force of the nation, 1782.

F.-J. Dalley's account (Oct. 7, 1782) of the tonnage of British and Foreign ships which have entered inwards and cleared outwards at each port of England, &c., in 1709, 1716, 1723, 1730, 1737, 1744, 1751, 1758, 1765, 1772, and 1779.

Vol. 155.

A brown-paper parcel, containing :

A.-Contract between the commissioners of the navy and W. Barnard, of Deptford, for building a third-rate ship of war to carry 74 carriage guns, 31st December 1781. Printed.

B.-Do. to build the "Hector," which was launched in 1774, a third-rate ship to carry 74 guns, 18th February 1771.

C.-Estimate of the rebuilding and repairs of the ships of war, &c., for the year 1739.

D.-Army accompts, Anno 1700. Miscellaneous papers on the subject.

E.-A small folio, labelled "Sided Contract, Navy "Office, 1st Oct. 1773."

MARQUIS LANSDOWNE

MARQUIS

F.-Ordinary Estimates of His Majesty's Navy for

1753.

G.-Do. for 1756.

H.-Do. for 1760.

Before concluding this report and taking leave of these MSS. till the Report of next year, I may perhaps be allowed to make a few brief observations on their character, so far as I have as yet examined them. It may be observed generally that the vols. 1-42 contain a very complete set of State Papers relating to foreign politics from 1754 to 1769, and that the large collection of documents relating to trade and commerce in this division and in Division IV. A.B., show the importance attached to these subjects by the Earl of Shelburne, a fact otherwise witnessed to by the evidence of contemporary writers. Vols. 9, 10, 11, contain a complete account of the secret negociations which preceded the peace of 1763. The statements of Mr. Adolphus, alluded to at p. 131, are thereby confirmed. Vol. 38 is interesting for many reasons, but more especially for the correspondence between Guerchy and Choiseul. Vols. 29, 30, 31, 40 contain very full information as to the politics of the Northern Courts of Europe and Lord Chatham's schemes for a Great Northern alliance. Vol. 37 is a full account of the operations against Belleisle, and may be of interest to military writers.

The continuation of this report will, as stated above, appear in the next Report of the Historical MSS. Commissioners. I hope in any case to bring it down as far as the end of Division II. and of the Correspondence. These two heads contain the most important portions of the MSS. now under review, since they relate to the war and the peace with America. Mr. Bancroft, as stated by him in the preface to his History of the United States, has been given free access to this collection; but his work, which is now in process of completion, has not as yet reached so far as 1783. Sir Cornewall Lewis also, when writing his "Ad"ministrations of England in the 18th Century," made use of some of these papers, as mentioned in the notes to that work; while the most important portions of Mr. Oswald's letters have been printed by Mr. Sparks in the notes to Franklin's Correspondence. As, however, these MSS. are very numerous, I am not altogether without hope of finding some fresh information even on those topics which are the subject of the above-mentioned books. EDMOND FITZMAURICE.

THE MANUSCRIPTS OF THE MOST HONOURABLE THE MARQUIS OF SALISBURY, AT HATFIELD HOUSE.

THE CECIL MSS.

The collection of MSS. in the possession of the FALIS Marquis of Salisbury at Hatfield House is, perhaps, BURY. the largest, certainly the most valuable, of any pri

vate collection in this kingdom. It consists partly of ancient vellum MSS. of early date, partly of correspondence commencing with the reign of Henry VIII. and ending with that of Charles II. But the great bulk of the collection refers to the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. The royal letters alone, during the lives of these two sovereigns, are so numerous and so important as to exceed by far any other similar series: and during these periods there is scarcely a personage of any eminence in the Church or in the State who has not contributed to these treasures. In this respect the Cecil Papers rise to the rank of national importance, and the loss of them would be an irreparable injury to English history and biography, during the most brilliant and stirring period of our annals. How much they have already contributed to the elucidation of great events in the times of the last of the Tudors and the first of the Stuart princes is known to all who have studied the history of this country with any degree of care. The valuable collections of Haynes and Murdin, which still remain as the most important contributions we possess towards the original materials for the reigns of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, were taken exclusively from the Salisbury Papers. How much Lodge, how much Birch in his Letters and Works of Lord Bacon, how much in later times the editors of the Camden Society, and the authors of the lives of Raleigh and other Elizabethan worthies, have been indebted for their most valuable information to the same sources, may be seen by reference to their pages. In fact, it would be

quite impossible for the history of the Reformation, and the changes consequent upon the accession of the Stuarts, or for the great religious and political questions of those times, or the conduct of those who were engaged in them, to be fully understood, without the assistance of these papers. A tolerable fair guess may be made how minute, varied, and interesting that information is from the necessarily jejune list of names and dates here subjoined.

The collection consists at present of papers bound in 310 stout volumes, and of others not yet bound, which it is calculated would fill 20 volumes more, allowing for 150 to 200 documents to each volume. They are not yet arranged throughout in chronological order. A catalogue of one portion of them, made in 1834 by Mr. Stewart, the bookseller, was copied and deposited in the National Record Office for the Record Commission. It was not suspected until I visited Hatfield that this catalogue was incomplete; and it was generally supposed that Mr. Stewart had furnished the Record Commissioners with a complete list of the Hatfield Papers. On a subsequent search fresh letters and papers, now bound in 58 large volumes, were discovered, during the life of the late Marquis, many of them of the greatest interest and value; and scarcely less important than those in Mr. Stewart's catalogue. In the year 1868 the present Marquis instituted a further search, which resulted in adding to his collection a number of letters relating to Queen Elizabeth's history before her accession-to the intrigues connected with Mary of Scotland-and to the Gunpowder Plot. Among them also was found one of the casket letters of Mary Queen of Scots, of which the Hatfield collection now possesses two. This last discovery must be considered very important, for though this letter is evidently part of the series already known, and is numbered by Lord Burleigh in his peculiar way, the handwriting of it differs from the rest, and the French, in which it is written, has undergone numerous corrections. All these papers lately brought to light had, through the great and unfailing courtesy of the present Lord Salisbury, been examined by me with some attention, even before I was employed by the Historical Commission to report upon them. I had also examined with some minuteness the entire collection, which Lord Salisbury generously threw open to my inspection without the least reserve;-a kindness for which I cannot sufficiently express my acknowledg

ments.

In attempting to prepare this report numerous difficulties presented themselves. The collection is so large and the papers so important that I was at a great loss how to begin and where to end. No mere selection of the more interesting documents, and no general description, where all was so minute and interesting, seemed to me adequate to meet the requirements of the case, or likely to satisfy the justifiable curiosity of those, to whom this collection of MSS. is naturally a subject of very great interest. Dividing, therefore, the whole into two parts, i.e. the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., I had to determine which of the two I should first grapple with; and though I have inverted the chronological order in so doing, I have given the preference to that of James I.; because as the late accessions to this part of the collection were more numerous (as it seemed to me) and more important, so they were also less known; and chiefly because the works of Haynes and Murdin, taken exclusively from the earlier portion, seemed to me in in some measure sufficient to enable all readers to form a judgment of the rest.

In preparing the following list, which contains all the correspondence now existing in Hatfield House relative to the important reign of James I., my progress was necessarily impeded by the want of chronological order in a collection of papers, which had by successive discoveries reached its present state. Besides, in examining that portion of it of which a report had been furnished many years ago, I found numerous omissions I had not suspected. I was, therefore,compelled to proceed de novo; to recollate all that had been previously done, and arrange the whole series in one uniform chronological order; not indeed altering the place or position of the papers in the volumes where they now stand, but leaving them as before. The present list may be considered as presenting an exact index of all the papers relating to the reign of James I. And they can now easily be referred to without the necessity of re-arrangement. work I have been greatly assisted by Mr. Gunton, his Lordship's secretary and librarian, who is now engaged in preparing a complete catalogue of the whole collection, upon the same plan as that adopted in the Calendars of State Papers, published under the superinten

In this

SIR WALTER COPE TO VISCOUNT CRANBORNE. Sir, I have sent and bene all thys morning huntyng for players Juglers & Such kinde of Creaturs, but fynde them harde to finde; wherefore leaving notes for them to seek me. Burbage ys come, and sayes there is no new playe that the quene hath not seene, but they have revyved an olde one, cawled Loves Labore Lost, which for wytt & mirthe he sayes will please her excedingly. And thys ys appointed to be playd to morowe night at my Lord of Sowthampton's, unless yow send a wrytt to remove the Corpus Cum Causa to your howse in Strande. Burbage ys my messenger ready attending your pleayours most humbly, WALTER COPE. Dated From your library. Addressed: To the right honorable the Lorde Viscount Cranborne at the Courte.

sure.

Endorsed: 1604, Sir Walter Cope to my Lord.

COUNTESS OF SOUTHAMPTON TO EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON. My dear lorde and only Joye of my life, I bechich you love me ever, and be pleasd to knoe, that my La: Riche wil nides have me send you word howe importunat my Lo: Riche is with hir to come to London, fearing he shale lose most of his lande which my Lo: Chamberlan hopes to recover, but he thinkes if she wer heare [in] London she wolde make means to have the swet [suit] not presed tel hir brother's coming home, which elce he fears wil goe on to his loues befor that time; therefor goe to him nides she must. She is, she teles me, very loth to leave me heare alone, and most desirus, I thanke her, to have me with hir in Essex tel your retorne unto me, and teles me she hath writen both to you and hir brother that it may be so. For my selfe I protest unto you that that your wil is, ether in this or any theng elce, shale be most plesing to me, and my minde is alike to all plasis in this il time to me of your absenc from me, being at quiat in no plase. I pray you resolve what you wil have me do, and send me worde of it. If you wil have me goe with hir, she desirs

BURY.

that you wil write a letter to my lorde Riche, that I may MARQUIS do so, and she hath sent to hir brother to do the like, for OF SALIS she ses she knoes his [h]oumer so wel as he wil not be pleasde unles that corse be taken. She wil be gon befor Bartolmy daye, therefor before that time let me I pra you knoe your pleasur what I shale do, which no earthly power shal make me disobaye; & what you dislike in this letter I bechich you lay not to my charge, for I protest unto you I was most unwiling to give you case of trobel with thinking of any such matter for me in your absenc, but that she infinitly desird me to do it; & this lastly protesting unto you againe, that wher you like best I shuld be, that plas shal be most pleasing to me, and all others to be in most hatful to me, I end never ending to praye to God to kepe you ever from all dangers parfitly wel and sone to bring you to me, whoe wil endlisly be your faithful and obedient wife, E. SOUTHAMPTON.

Chartly the 8th of July.

All the nues I can send you that I thinke wil make you mery is that I reade in a letter from London that Sir John Falstaf is by his Mrs Dame Pintpot made father of a godly milers thum, a boye thats all heade and veri litel body; but this is a secrit.

Addressed: To my dearly loved husband the Earle of Southampton.

Endorsed: The La: Southampton to her lord. [Letter from an unknown correspondent touching the Gunpowder Plot.]

Who so evar finds this box of letars let him cary hit to the king's magesty; my mastar litel thinks I knows of this, but yn rydinge wth him that browt the letar to my mastar to a katholyk gentlemans hows anward of his way ynto lin konsher (Lincolnshire), he told me al his purpos, and what he ment to do; and he beinge a prest absolved me and mad me swar nevar to revel hit to ane man. I confes myself a katholyk, and do hate the protystans relygon with my hart, and yit I detest to consent ethar to murdar or treson. I have blotyd out sartyn nams yn the letars becas I wold not have ethar my mastar or ane of his frends trobyl aboute this; for by his menes I was mad a goud katholyk, and I wod to God the king war a good katholyk; that ys all tha harm I wish him; and let him tak hed what petysons or suplycasons he taks of ane man; and I hop this box wil be found by som that wil giv hit to the king, hyt may do him good one day. I men not to com to my mastar any mor, but wil return unto my contry from whens I cam. As for my nam and contri I consel that; and God mak the king a goud katholyk; and let ser Robart Sesil, an my lord Cohef Gustyse lok to them selvse.

same.

same.

the

Mar. 24. Sir E. Hoby to the same. 25. Sir W. Bowes to

same.

Mayor of Plymouth to the same.

Sir Th. Fane to the same.

Ld. Burleigh to the same.

Ld. Fyvie to the same.

Commrs. for Passengers

to the same.

The King to

6. Ld. Ch. Just. Popham to

Cecil.

Sir E. Coke to the same.

F. Clerk to Sir G. Mark

Ld. Burleigh to the same. Lesieur to the same.

[Sir R. Mansell] to the