DEPARTMENT OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH. 155 



TEXTUAL PUBLICATION OF DOCUMENTS. 



Dr. Burnett's work upon the projected series entitled ''Letters of 

 delegates to the Continental Congress" has been more or less inter- 

 rupted by occasional duties in connection with other portions of the 

 Department's activities, but on the whole he has been able to spend 

 most of his time during the year in continuing the process of 

 annotation. The annotations referring to the Journals have been 

 completed; those having the nature of cross-references to our own 

 materials have been carried through the year 1784 in all respects, 

 and in some respects to the concluding date, the year 1789. 



Miss Davenport has occupied herself continuously with her col- 

 lection of "European treaties having a bearing on United States 

 history." From November to June her work was carried on in the 

 office of the Department at Washington, and consisted in reducing 

 to final shape for publication the earlier portion of the first volume. 

 In this work she had the assistance of Miss Sanderhn. Since her 

 return to London she has been carrying out the same sort of work 

 with respect to a further section of the treaties, and hopes to have 

 the first volume of the work ready for print before long. 



The series called "Proceedings and debates of Parliament respect- 

 ing North America, 1585 to 1783," has during the year advanced in 

 several particulars, though the advance has been less signal than 

 might have been wished. The copjdng or cutting and mounting of 

 the relevant entries in the Journals of the House of Commons has 

 been carried throughout nearly the whole of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury and more than half of those years of the eighteenth century 

 which the book is intended to cover. Mr. Stock has carried down 

 to 1752 the search for those portions of the Lords Journals which 

 are desired. The search for printed texts of debates has made less 

 progress. In respect to manuscript reports of Parliamentary debates, 

 the Director was able to make some progress in discoveries during 

 his visit to England in the spring and is indebted to Lord Lucas, 

 to the librarian of Trinity College, Dublin, the librarian of Exeter 

 College, Oxford, and the authorities of the Pubhc Record Office for 

 facilities offered in this endeavor; but he was unsuccessful in the 

 attempt to trace the missing shorthand volumes of Henry Caven- 

 dish, corresponding to Egerton mss. 215-263, which if discovered 

 would be so valuable to the proposed compilation. 



Mr. A. Percival Newton, of London, has, at the request of the 

 Director, prepared for the Department a report upon the papers of 

 the Royal African Company at the Public Record Office with ref- 

 erence to use which may be m.ade of them in a later publication 

 proposed by the Department. Whenever it becomes advisable to 

 institute a series of volumes of documents relative to the history of the 

 negro, the slave-trade, and slavery in America, considerable use must 



