PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 93 



but circumstances having occurred which prevented him from 

 delivering it, his place was supplied by Mr. Woollcombe, the 

 President, who read a paper (which was intended for Jan. 1st, 

 1835) on Public Records. 



The lecturer commenced by showing the value and importance 

 which should be attached to public records in general; and the 

 absolute necessity for their preservation. He pointed out their 

 value to the lawyer, by their affording him precedence in cases 

 of doubt; to the historian and topographer, since they are fur- 

 nished from them, with numerous facts and incidents, whether 

 connected with national history or only confined to the history of 

 a borough or parish. He considered that every one who has 

 reflected at all on this subject must be aware that a vast mass of 

 works of our parliamentary proceedings and of our courts of law 

 and equity exist somewhere, and must therefore come to the 

 conclusion that if they exist, and are of the value they are alledged 

 to be, it is desirable that they should be preserved somewhere, 

 beyond the reach of common accident of fire or damp, where 

 they should be rendered easy of access to all who might desire to 

 consult them. 



The lecturer described the principal places where national 

 and other important records were preserved, viz. the Tower, the 

 Rolls^^' Chapel, in Chancery Lane, comprising the Petty-bag 

 office, the Crown office, the Examiners' office, as well as the Six 

 Clerks' office, also in Chancery Lane; at Westminster (though 

 these records have been since deposited in the Rolls' Chapel, or 

 in apartments in the basement story of the eastern wing of 

 Somerset Place;) also at the British Museum, in the Chapter 

 House of Westminster, the Temple, the King's Bench Treasury, 

 the common Pleas' Treasury, and the Treasury of the receipts of 

 the Exchequer. 



The earliest records now extant in the Tower are the Cartae 

 Antiques, the charter and rolls of the first year of King John, 

 and divers records of the court of Chancery, in the 2nd, 3rd, 

 and 6th years of that King's reign. 



These records, together with the returns of the Knights and 

 Burgesses to Parliament, the petitions and proceedings in Par- 

 liament, all matters relating to the See of Rome, the Rolls of 

 Scotland, Treaties of peace. Instructions to ambassadors. 

 Inquisitions post mortem, and a variety of other instruments, 

 forming a collection of memorials of great national importance, 

 were, in the reigns of the three first Edwards, preserved in the 

 archives of the Court of Chancery in the King's Treasuries. 



