388 Proceedings of the lloynl Irish Academij. 



The history of the Paris volumes, as given by De Lisle, is not without 

 interest.^ He tells us tliat they were captured by the French at sea in 1707 

 on the ship " Unitd," while on their way from Dublin to Loudon, and that 

 they were presented by M. de Yalincourt, Secretaire General de la Marine, 

 to the Bibliotheque Xationale. Tliey afterwards disappeared, and no one 

 knew wliat had become of them ; but in 1727 they were once n.iore restored 

 to the library by the widow of De T-isle, the geographer, to whom, as it 

 appeared, they had been lent by the Abbe Dubois. Hardinge says that at the 

 time they were captured they were the property of Henry I/jrd Shelburne, 

 Sir William Petty's son,' and there is every reason to believe that the state- 

 ment is correct, for amongst other papers connected with the Down Survey 

 " Two Great Barony Books " were bequeathed by Petty in his will,' and the 

 description exactly fits the Paris volumes, while no other " Great Barony 

 Books" are to be found elsewhere. It would seem too that tlie maps in 

 these books liad been destined for the engraver, and iuiiecd tliey nuiy have 

 been on their way to London for that very puipose. 



The series at all events is a complete one of 215 baronies, and all these, 

 as well as the counties and provinces to which they belong, are in their 

 con-ect sequence, while llie frontispiece of the volumes, with its title 

 " liiberniae Regnuni," is very similar iu arrangement and design to the 

 "Hiberuiae Delineatio" which heads the vohime of the county maps, as 

 engraved and published. 



A formal request was made in 1786 by King George III tliat the Paris 

 maps might be restoi^d to the country of their origin, and, on the refusal of 

 the French Government, they were carefully copied by liand under the super- 

 intendence of Colonel Vallancey. The copies are at the Public liecord Office, 

 but it is perhaps not sutticiently known tliat modern photographic reproduc- 

 tions of all or any of these ma]>s can now be obtained from the Ordnance 

 Office for a trifling sum. 



More than half of the original Down Survey baronial maps are thus 

 accounted for in the Lansdowne collection, but it remains to be considered 

 from what source the rest of the Paris set were derived. Here it seeics we 

 must have recourse to the maps which came to light in the first half of the 

 nineteenth century, and which are now in tlie Public Kecord and Quit Eent 

 Otlices in Dublin. 



Of the Public Record and Quit Rent Offices barony maps there are two 

 distinct types. 



> (Munet des Manuscrita de la Bibliuthdque Iui]>erijile, 1868, Tome i, 33.3. 

 - HartliDgc, p. 33. 

 'Hardinge, \>. 112. 



