DEPARTMENT OP HISTORICAL RESEARCH. 99 



Office had taken a resolution, which there had been no means of foreseeing, 

 to effect a total rearrangement of that section called the "Colonial Office 

 Papers," naturally the section of chief importance to American history, and 

 constituting, with some other sections which are also to be rearranged, much 

 the largest part of the subject-matter of Professor Andrews's first volume. 

 The reorganization is to be so thoroughgoing that most of the volume will 

 have to be rewritten, and it will last so long that the rewriting can not be 

 undertaken till the summ^er of 1909. 



These conditions seem to force a change of plan. According to the ori- 

 ginal design, volume I w-as to consist of the material relating to the Public 

 Record Office as the chief national archive, while volume II was to deal with 

 the British Museum., the lesser public archives of London, and the materials 

 in the libraries of Oxford and Cambridge. Nothing impedes the printing of 

 this volume. But it is awkward and undesirable to bring out, as volume II 

 of a work, a book which is to be followed only after several years by volume 

 I. Therefore it is proposed, leaving perforce in manuscript the Public 

 Record Office volume, to issue at once a volume bearing the separate title of 

 "Guide to the materials for the history of the United States (to 1783) in the 

 British Museum, in minor London archives, and in the manuscript Collec- 

 tions of Oxford and Cambridge." 



This volume will consist primarily of the data collected by Professor 

 Andrews at the British Museum and at the Privy Council Office. Next 

 will follow Miss Frances G. Davenport's notes from the archives of the 

 House of Lords, of the General Post-Office, of Trinity House, of the London 

 Guildhall, of the Middlesex Sessions, of the Old Bailey, of the province of 

 Canterbury (Lambeth Palace), of the diocese of London (Fulham Palace), 

 of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, of the Society for 

 the Propagation of the Gospel, of Dr. Bray's Associates, of Sion College, of 

 the Catholic province of Westminster, in Dr. Williams's library, at the Con- 

 gregational Hall, at Devonshire House (Society of Friends), in the archives 

 of the Royal Society, and in those of the Hudson's Bay Company. Lastly 

 will follow Professor Andrews's notes on the American papers in the 

 Bodleian Library and in the libraries of the colleges of Oxford and Cam- 

 bridge. This volume is now ready for the press. As it would in any case 

 have a separate index from that of the Public Record Office volume, there is 

 no necessity for uniting the two in publication. 



For similar explorations of French and Mexican archives, Mr. Waldo G. 

 Leland, a memiber of the regular stafif of this DepartmiCnt, sailed for Paris at 

 the end of June, while Prof. Herbert E. Bolton, of the University of Texas, 

 proceeded to the City of Mexico. Mr. Leland's searches are to be limited to 

 Paris. Mr. Bolton is expected, after completing his notes upon the materials 

 for the history of the United States in the archives of the Federal capital, 

 with which he is already familiar, to visit those provincial repositories, civil 

 and ecclesiastical, in which such papers may be expected to be found. These 



