INTRODUCTION.

THE present volume of the Calendar of Treasury Books and Papers is continuous in date from the last volume published in 1889, but differs widely from that and preceding instalments in scope and plan. The portion of the Calendar hitherto published comprises six volumes, covering the years 1557-1728. But that portion is not, even in a restricted sense, a calendar of Treasury Records. It is entirely a calendar of one particular and single class of Treasury Records, viz. Treasury Board Papers. The general description of this class, Treasury Board Papers, is given by Mr. Redington in the preface to Vol. I. of the Calendar and need not be repeated. But it will be clear from that description how restricted is their official range when regard is had to the whole routine of Treasury work. In order to produce a correct impression or to give a proper account of each year's work at the Treasury, it would be necessary, in the first place, to record the resolutions of the Treasury Board, viz. from the Treasury Minute Books. Such resolutions do not appear on the Treasury Board Papers, save exceptionally and accidentally in the way of endorsement on particular papers. The proportion of papers among the Treasury Board Papers bearing such endorsements of Treasury Board Minutes is very small. Secondly, it would be necessary to take account of that

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class of Treasury work which, originating in other departments or with the King himself, came before the Treasury Board for final decision. From the King came letters patents, Privy Seals, royal sign manuals, or warrants under the royal sign manual, granting commissions or salaries or pensions and gifts of royal bounty, or directing particular payments or expenditures, as, e.g. presents to foreign princes. From the Admiralty, Paymaster of the Forces, Board of Works, Lord Chamberlain, and Officers of State, the Board of Trade and Plantations, and the various Commissioners of Customs, Excise, &c. came demands for the established allowances, or extraordinary demands or extraordinary propositions for work or expenditure implying demands. The record of all this mass of matter and routine work is contained in the King's Warrant Book, Lord Chamberlain's Warrant Book, and in a more scattered way in the Treasury Minute Book, Customs Book, Affairs of Taxes, and other books, and not at all, or quite fractionally and incidentally, in the Treasury Board Papers. It may be safely stated that for one communication of the nature just indicated which has strayed into and survived among the Treasury Board Papers (say, an original letter of demand from the Master of the Horse or the Paymaster General), there are hundreds such preserved in these subsidiary or departmental records, and there alone. Again, and in the same way, the actual executive work of the Treasury Boardits decisions as to expenditure or work involving expenditure, its warrants or endorsements of warrants for payments or appointments, and so on-all this is to be gathered from the Treasury Minute Book, the Money Book, Order Book, and Public Disposition Book. It would be perfectly futile to look for it in the Treasury Board Papers. If the large class of departmental reports-