DEPARTMENT OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH. 143 



ago, but so interesting and valuable that the Virginia Historical 

 Society has now published a translation of it. The same catalogue 

 shows one other American manuscript in the library, and but one; it 

 relates to an entirely different field. 



Now if a compilation could be made of all the American items in 

 all catalogues of the sort, British, French, Spanish, German, Italian, 

 and properly indexed, it would reveal to the student a large amount 

 of material almost wholly unknown to him hitherto. In this con- 

 viction, arrangements were made with Mr. David M. Matteson, an 

 accomphshed student of American history, practised in library 

 methods, who has begun drawing off from these catalogues their 

 American items. It will be understood that no effort can be made to 

 verify these data by examination of the manuscripts themselves, that 

 the catalogue entries will for the present be taken at their face value 

 and simply copied, and that the descriptions are widely disparate in 

 form of presentation; but, taken as they are and combined in the 

 manner indicated, they will be distinctly useful. 



TEXTUAL PUBLICATIONS OF DOCUMENTS. 



Aside from "war work," Miss Davenport has been able to make 

 ready for publication four more treaties, 1661-1665, for the second 

 volume of her "European Treaties bearing on the History of the United 

 States." 



In Dr. Burnett's series of "Letters of Delegates to the Continental 

 Congress," besides making completely ready for print the manu- 

 scripts of the first two volumes, extending respectively to July 4, 1776, 

 and to the end of 1778, he has advanced the preparation of the third 

 volume through the month of December 1779. 



Mr. Stock has, for reasons already indicated, been able to make 

 very Uttle progress with his edition of the "Proceedings and Debates 

 of Parliament respecting North America"; but in the last month of 

 the year under report Miss Galbraith has begun the decipherment 

 and transcription of the American portion of Henry Cavendish's notes 

 of debates in the House of Commons of 1768-1774, from photographs 

 of pages of the original shorthand among the Egerton Manuscripts 

 in the British Museum. 



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

 upon the American Historical Review nor embraced in her leaves of 

 absence, has continued her search for and examination of material 

 upon the American slave-trade, the sources and metnods of supply. 

 From sources printed, but as a rule not accessible in most libraries, 

 and unprinted, she has accumulated material for a sizable volume of 

 much interest and value to students; but the search, hitherto mostly 

 conducted in Washington, Boston, and Cambridge, must be extended 

 to manuscripts in several other American cities, and especially in the 



