November 16 Paid Mr. Smagge for a mahogany 21 0 0 (Ibid.) 57 15 4 December 23 Paid Mark Frecker, Esq. to satisfy It is important to remember, and it will be evident from the above, that such books as Lowther's accounts are not Secret Service Books in the real sense, or rather that they represent only one of the less important branches of the Secret Service expenditure. They are more like a Privy Purse account, the objects of the various payments being restricted largely to office fees and small pensions or gifts of bounty. The Secret Service of England during the period under review in this volume, 1729-30, can be traced in quite another direction, viz. the periodic payments of so much to the Secretary of the Treasury, John Scrope, or to either of the Secretaries of State (mostly to Holles, Duke of Newcastle) of so much for Secret Service.* But Among the Treasury Records there are four volumes of Secret Service Books, covering the years 1689-1710. They are distinctly the Secret Service Books of the Secretary of the Treasury (not of the Secretary of State), and might be styled the predecessors of John Scrope's Secret Service Books, if John Scrope's Secret Service Books only existed. Of these four volumes No. I. covers April 1689, July to 1691 (accountant, Wm. Jephson); No. II. covers July 1691 to April 1695 (accountant, Henry Guy); Nos. III. and IV. cover May 1695 to June 1701, and June 1701 to August 1710 (accountant, Wm. Lowndes). Jephson's and Guy's volumes. are skeleton and tabular in form, but Lowndes' volumes have more the form of entry books of payments and receipts, are fuller of information as to the items or method of disbursement of these latter sums there is no account known to exist. Presumably the Secret Service fund of the Secretary of State was intended for foreign negotiations, services, diplomatic gifts, &c. while that of the Secretary of the Treasury was devoted to parliamentary bribery, pensions, &c. &c. The only traces of secret agents yielded in the present volume are contained possibly in the applications of "Le Connu (q.v. in Index) for salary. But there are no traces of the Duke of Newcastle's expenditure, and as to John Scrope's Secret Service moneys, the tradition that Walpole subsequently destroyed all record of such expenditure is an extremely probable one in itself. After the elimination of the above material there remain as fit for the purposes of a Calendar of Treasury Records the following series: 1. Treasury Minute Book. Book.This noble series of volumes commences in 1667, and after three breaks, 1670-1, 1671-1689, and 1689-95, continues to the present day without the further loss of a single volume, although there is a lacuna between 1722, April 28, and 1723, January 13. The general question of the origin and development of these Minute Books has been illustrated by a long series of extracts by Mr. Black in the report above quoted (Deputy Keeper's Report VII. Ap. II. pp. 14 and 66–97). The system of Minute Books, and with it a good deal more that is characteristic of our modern Treasury system, in the entries, and very often preserve the original receipts, which are pasted in. A similar and preceding volume of Henry Guy's, covering 1679-88, has been published by the Camden Society (o. s. Vol. LIII.), and in the Clar. Corresp. I. 654-5, there is an account (charge without discharge) of the Secret Service, 1687-8. In the latter case the majority of the items are charged to the debit of Henry Guy, but other recipients. appear representing possibly smaller Departments of the Secret Service, besides a sum of about 40,0007. for the Privy Purse. began in 1667 as a result of putting the Treasury into commission after the death of Southampton. The early Warrant Books of the time of Charles I. which cover the year when the Treasury was in commission under Laud and others, and also the period of Juxon's High Treasurership, bear only a slight resemblance in form to a Minute Book. The first surviving volume is entitled a "General Entry Book of Warrants, Resolutions, Orders, and other Transactions of the Lords of the Treasury," 1635-6. The entries in this volume and in the succeeding volumes relating to the same period frequently contain the full text of warrants or orders. Petitions are entered sometimes in full, sometimes in brief, and the resolutions thereon are occasionally entered rather in the terms of an order or a letter than of a minute. At other times a form more nearly approximating to that of a Minute Book is adopted. This mixed species of Entry Book or Warrant Book and Minute Book proper is still preserved in 1660, but from the latter date up to 1667 a process of transition can be partially traced. The "Early Money and other Warrant Books" series contains a miscellaneous set of 14 volumes, covering this transition period and affording a clue to the later bifurcation. In Vol. I. of this series (extending 1660, June 22 to November 22, and thus covering the period June 19 to September 8, when the Treasury was in commission under Sir Edward Hyde and seven others, and a slight portion of Southampton's High Treasurership) there are entered without discrimination warrants relating to land and warrants for money, the long verbal text of orders relating to appointments, petitions in full, and reports also in full made on reference. Certificates and royal sign manuals, all in full, are mingled with brief minutes proper of resolutions of the Lords of the Treasury or of the Lord High Treasurer Southampton. But the form of the book is preponderatingly that of an order book or entry book of orders, as is to a certain extent indicated by the MS. title given to it by a contemporary hand, "Perticuler persons orders touching the Exchequer." Vol. II. (November 20, 1660, February 28, 1660-1) is an Entry Book pure and simple signed by Southampton from beginning to end. The few minutes which occasionally appear in Vol. I. as recording resolutions of the Lords Commissioners necessarily disappear. The entries comprise orders of reference upon petitions, reports in full upon such reference, letters in full, royal sign manuals, warrants touching money, land or appointments. Vol. XIV. is labelled "patents" and covers 1660, November 26, to 1661, October. It opens with seven pages of briefs of letters patents relating to payments of money, but almost immediately, from December, 1660, becomes a Money Book proper, i.e. a book of entry of money warrants from the Earl of Southampton to Sir Robert Pye, authorising him in quite the usual form to draw orders or pass debentures for such and such payments. Vol. III. is labelled "money" and covers 1661, October, to 1662, October. Like Vol. XIV. it contains the verbal text of the High Treasurer's warrants addressed to the Auditor of the Receipt, Sir Robert Pye or (Sir) Robert Long, or to the Commissioners and Farmers of Customs, or as otherwise necessary, together with royal sign manuals and royal warrants for money. Vol. IV. and V. like Nos. XIV. and III. relate to money, and cover November 20, 1662, to December 18, 1663, and December 14, 1663, to July 24, 1665. Vol. VI. lettered "C." extends from 1660, September 12, to 1661, June 11. It is an Entry Book parallel or partly synchronous with No. XIV. and is labelled "Lands." It contains in its earlier portion reports and warrants relating to Crown land leases, Privy Seals dormant as to salaries, letters patent as to appointments, royal warrants as to trade with France, warrants as to money, the pay of the army in Scotland and pensions. But from about November 1660, the volume relates almost entirely to lands, Crown land leases and grants, Commissioners for sale of lands, &c. Vol. VII.* lettered E. covers 1661, July 11, to 1661–2, February 24. It is labelled "warrants of several natures," and with the exception of a few private petitions and reports thereon and warrants for appointments, consists entirely of entries of warrants, &c., relating to the Crown lands, exactly in the style of No. 6. Lettered" perticuler Vols. VIII. IX. X. refer to Customs. VIII. covers 1660, June 22, to 1661, May 21. persons orders touching the Customs." Page 1. "At the meeting at the Council Chamber at Whitehall of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury. Thursday, June 22, 1660." Then follow such minutes as refer to Customs, and appended to the minutes are such letters, warrants or orders in full as were written or made in pursuance of such minutes. From August 28 the minutes as such cease, and after September 8 the warrants, letters, instructions and orders of references pass in the name of Thos. Earl of Southampton. * At pp. 116-7 of this volume occur the following entries, affording some unsatisfactory clue to the parallelism of the documents contained in this series. "Lancelott Tomlyn petition and reference to the Surveyor General entered in the Book B. folio 5. Whereupon Sir Richard Prideaux reports (here follows the report, the case relating to Crown lands). "Mr. Congden, petition and reference to Sir Charles Harbord entered in the Book D. folio 237. Whereupon Sir Charles reports .. (here follows the report, the case again relating to Crown lands). |