PROCEEDINGS FOR 1895 XXVIL 
establishment of this extremely useful branch of the public service whose 
importance is hardly yet as fully understood as it ought to be by the 
general public. Students at home or abroad, however, fully recognize 
the value and the efficient manner in which it is conducted by Dr. 
Brymner. 
It is to be hoped that the dominion government will ere long be 
able to afford more suitable accommodation for the valuable collections 
of the documents and books that have already been collected within the 
few years this service has been in existence, Sufficient importance, we 
are afraid, has not been always heretofore paid to the preservation of 
historic documents relating to our past history and as a consequence 
much has been lost to posterity. 
For instance, it is a matter of public notoriety that the original 
papers connected with the Quebec conference of 1864 when confederation 
was provisionally adopted by delegates from the several provinces of 
British North America, cannot be found in any of the public departments. 
It is a melancholy commentary on public indifference to historical 
evidence that papers of such supreme importance should not be preserved 
as memorials of the most memorable event so far in our national annals. 
The society have obtained the following information with respect to 
the copying of the Archives : 
“As the copying of the state papers and other documents in the 
various government offices in London relating to the old province of 
Quebec and to Upper and Lower Canada was approaching completion, 
it became necessary, in order to secure continuance of the work, that the 
documents relating to the other provinces should be examined with a 
view to have them transcribed, so as to make them accessible to historical 
investigations in Canada. 
“In accordance with the determination to have the work of research 
prosecuted, Dr. Brymner, the archivist, proceeded to London in the latter 
part of 1892, and immediately on his arrival entered upon the task, visit- 
ing the Record Office, the various government offices, the British Museum, 
Lambeth Palace, the rooms of the Society for the Propagation of the 
Gospel, and the Moravian missions, much ecclesiastical history having 
been obtained from the three last named places bearing on the progress 
of the provinces. 
“The searches were exhaustive, and extend from 1603 down to 
1801, covering the history of Nova Scotia and the provinces which were 
formed out of its original territorial extent, namely, Prince Edward 
Island (originally St. John Island) in 1769, New Brunswick and Cape 
Breton in 1784, and papers relating to Hudson's Bay. The length of the 
abstracts may, however, make it impossible to publish all the results in 
one report, but should that be the case, there is no doubt the whole will 
be completed in the report for 1895.” 
