144 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



British Museum and Public Record Office (from both of which, however, 

 some materials have already been secured), before any such degree of 

 completeness will have been achieved as will warrant publication. 



Meanwhile, Professor John S. Bassett, of Smith College, was so 

 good as to place at the disposal of the Department the greater part 

 of his time during the summer and to advance the search, for materials 

 for Miss Donnan's book, especially in respect to the nineteenth cen- 

 tury, by investigations in the Manuscripts Division of the Library of 

 Congress and in the archives of the Navy Department. In the former 

 the search extended through the papers of the African Colonization 

 Society, the Slave-trade Papers formerly transferred from the 

 Department of the Interior, etc. ; in the latter, through the Squadron 

 Letters and Captains' Letters from the African Station during the 

 period after the passage of the act of 1807, which made the importa- 

 tion of slaves into the United States from Africa illegal. It is a pleasure 

 to acknowledge not only Professor Bassett's aid, but the kindness of 

 Mr. Charles W. Stewart, superintendent of the Office of Naval Records 

 in the Navy Department, in facilitating his labors. 



Work was begun in July on another portion of the Department's 

 series of documentary volumes illustrating the social and economic 

 history of negro slavery in America. A rich store of actual instances, 

 showing in detail nearly every aspect of American slavery, is to be 

 found in the judicial reports of the States in which slavery flourished. 

 They are instances which no one selected to prove a case, pro or contra; 

 they are simply such as naturally arose in the course of legal business. 

 The narratives embedded in these reports are therefore excellent 

 material for the historian; and the decisions rendered by the courts 

 supplement and correct those views of the law respecting slavery 

 which might be derived from the statutes, standing alone, to which 

 another publication may be devoted. Since in planning the series 

 the social history of slavery is regarded as a more important object 

 than the history of the law respecting slavery, it is intended that the 

 substance of the judicial decisions shall be set forth with the utmost 

 compression consistent with clearness and exactness of legal statement, 

 while ampler space is thus secured for presenting the narratives and 

 documents, often of great interest, which constitute the evidences for 

 social and economic history. For the difficult task of compilation 

 along both these two lines, the Department has been so fortunate as 

 to secure the services of Mrs. R. C. H. Catterall, a member of the 

 Boston bar, and a lady possessing much exact legal and historical 

 knowledge. She has completed her work for Maryland. 



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. The 



