HISTORICAL, RESEARCH — JAMESON. 201 



undertaken elsewhere, yet of great importance, is the collection of all access- 

 ible reports of debates in Parliament respecting American affairs previous to 

 1783. Doubtless it is popularly supposed that all this is in Cobbett; but this 

 is far from being the case. Without going into the complicated bibliography 

 of the pre-Hansardian debates, it may be said, briefly, that large parts of the 

 debates can only be found by searching a variety of antiquated collections, 

 wrongly supposed to have been superseded by Cobbett, and few of which are 

 to be found in the libraries of the United States ; while large amounts of 

 additional material exist only in manuscript, some in England, others, only 

 recently discovered, in France. It would be a great boon to students of the 

 British administration of our colonies, and to students of our colonial history 

 in general, if from all sources, printed and manuscript, a scholarly edition 

 of the American portion of these debates were to be compiled, and it is 

 hoped that a beginning may be made at once. 



