DEPARTMENT OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH. 167 



of the first sort, from the journals of these various bodies, has now been 

 completed. The work on the debates has thus far been confined by- 

 Mr. Stock, editor of this series, to the debates of the English Lords and 

 Commons. This portion of the work requires a greater amount of 

 critical labor than that on the proceedings. The latter, though neces- 

 sarily requiring much time, has consisted simply in finding, and in 

 drawing off from the journals, the passages relating to .\merica; but 

 the debates, being unofficially reported, are presented in a variety of 

 sources, and require the examination of varymg reports of the same 

 debates, the making of decisions as to their mutual relations and their 

 varying degrees of authority, the selection and copying of texts, and 

 the collecting of material for proper annotation. The selection of 

 texts of debates has been finished to 1750, and the beginning of the 

 work of copying them has been made. The remarkable record of 

 debates in the Parhament of 1768-1774, kept by Henry Cavendish, M. P. 

 (a Parhament otherwise but little reported), has been in large part copied 

 from his manuscripts preserved among the Egerton manuscripts in the 

 British Museum, Wright's printed version of certain parts, published in 

 1839-1843, having been found to differ widely and almost constantly 

 from the original. Much of Cavendish's manuscript, in the parts which 

 Wright did not reach, presents great difficulties of reading and interpre- 

 tation, parts of it indeed being in a difficult short-hand ; but it is beUeved 

 that, with the aid of the copies of certahi portions, and the photographs 

 of others, which have been ordered, it will be possible to obtain from 

 this source a considerable amount of additional material regarding the 

 often unportant discussions of American affairs in this Parhament. 



Miss Donnan, in portions of her time not occupied with editorial 

 labors upon the American Historical Review, has been at work in the 

 search for material upon the history of the African slave-trade, the 

 sources and methods of supply, on which it seems possible to bring 

 together an important collection of original material of great interest. 

 Her search has extended through all narratives, found in the Library of 

 Congress and in several other American libraries, of travelers, explor- 

 ers, scientists, missionaries, sea-captains, captives, pirates, officers of 

 the Royal African Company, and slaves, who spent any time on the 

 west coast of Africa between the beginning of the fifteenth and the 

 beginning of the nineteenth centuries. 



MISCELLANEOUS OPERATIONS. 



As heretofore, the editing of the American Historical Review has 

 been carried on in the office of the Department and by its staff. Aid 

 has been given in a number of ways to the American Historical Associa- 

 tion, of which Mr. Leland is secretary, and to various other American 

 historical societies and departments of history in the several States, 

 for which investigations or other services could be performed in Wash- 



