had heretofore been sought in vain, and established valuable claims that had been given up as desperate. Before, unless the name of the commanding officer of the company, or (in some cases) of the regiment, was remembered by the aged applicant or by his widow (perhaps married late in his life), there were no means of finding the proof of his service; while the new index contains the name of every subaltern and private, with references to the muster rolls on which it is borne. I think that, of the recent applications, not much, if any, less than one half are successful by this means, and that, in respect to the other half, nearly three fourths of all the service ascertained is discovered in the same way. In several instances, widows of soldiers, who have been in the alms houses, and others who were about to be removed thither, have received present and permanent relief from pensions, the claim to which they had been unable to prove, and must have continued to be so, without the index made this year.

By a Resolve of the last General Court (chapter 69), the Secretary was directed to take measures for the publication of the Map of the Commonwealth. In obedience to this law, I contracted with Mr. Charles Hickling, of Boston, to furnish for the distribution ordered in the 6th section, 760 copies, at a cost. of $2774 64, viz: $3 50 for printing, coloring, varnishing and mounting each map, and $114 64 for printing a pamphlet explanatory of the Geological Map, and for certain incidental expenses. Mr. Hickling is also under contract to keep copies on sale, at $5 each, executed in the same style as the best furnished to the Commonwealth, and to pay into the treasury $150 for each copy sold. The work has been executed in a highly satisfactory manner. Early in last October, as soon as a sufficient number of copies was prepared, I advertised in the public prints that they were ready for delivery to the parties (within the Commonwealth) entitled by law to receive them. About one half yet remain uncalled for.

Some errors exist, which I have not felt at liberty to have corrected, in the statistical table presented on the map; and as, from time to time, railroads are constructed, and the boundaries. of towns are changed, it would seem proper that some officer

of the government should have authority to have them recorded on the plates.

By a Resolve of the General Court of 1844 (chapter 25), the sum of twelve hundred and sixty dollars was appropriated "to be expended by the Secretary of the Commonwealth under the direction of His Excellency the governor, in providing for completing the arrangement of the papers and documents in the public archives of the Commonwealth."

This business was placed under the skilful and experienced management of Rev. Joseph B. Felt. He has assorted and arranged a large amount of the ancient papers, and caused them to be bound in 27 volumes, each furnished with a table of contents. The papers are assorted under the following divisions, and those under the respective heads are placed in chronological order.

Three other volumes of papers of the Executive Council, between the dates of 1777 and 1783, are nearly ready for delivery, two of them being already in the binder's hands.

Previously to the present year, Mr. Felt had prepared and caused to be bound 219 similar volumes, as follows:

Hutchinson's Letters, A. D. 1741 to 1774, 3 vols.

The result of the whole is, that of the papers in the Secretary's custody relating to the action of the government of the Commonwealth, the whole mass, (with the exception of Acts and Resolves, and maps, plans and descriptions of towns,) of dates previous to the year 1780 (that of the adoption of the Constitution), and the greater part of those previous to the year 1783 (that of the treaty of peace), are now arranged and bound in substantial volumes, suitable for safe keeping and convenient consultation.

The collection is, of course, extremely rich. But still there are important chasms in the series, which it is probable that legislative action might supply. The chief deficiencies are the following: The greater part of the correspondence between Massachusetts and the Lords Commissioners for New England, and of special agents from the British sovereigns, down to 1701, on various topics of Colonial and Provincial concern: a less, but still considerable, number of other papers of a similar class, subsequent to the year last named: all the journals, except a few rough drafts, and many papers and acts, of the Dudley and

Andros administrations from 1686 to 1689: the regular books, except a small one, containing the transactions of the Council down to 1747, and further, from 1765 to 1775: three large volumes of the General Court Records, being now very defectively represented by one of certain items from July 15th, 1737 to February 14th, 1747.

A principal cause of these deficiencies was the destruction of the old Court House, where they were deposited, by the fire of Dec. 9th, 1747. The General Court instructed their agents in England, two days afterwards, to have the three volumes of their proceedings copied and sent hither, and to make enquiries respecting the means and expense of having those of the Council from 1692 to 1747 transcribed there. But neither of these projects was carried into effect.

There is strong reason to believe that in many cases the originals, and, in most others, copies of these documents are now in one or another of the public offices in London. The historian Chalmers frequently refers, in treating of this Commonwealth, to manuscripts in the British Plantation Office; and our sister States of Georgia and New York, once sustaining like political relations with ourselves to the British crown, have recently obtained from that source abundance of precious materials, illustrating their colonial history.

Certain valuable papers of the same character, formerly in the Secretary's office, and now constituting three volumes under the title of the Hutchinson papers (from their having been used by Governor Hutchinson in the composition of his history), are in the library of the Historical Society. For any thing that I can discover, they are the property of the Commonwealth. They are supposed to have been given to the Historical Society by the Governor and Council, in the year 1820. But I find no vote to that effect on the Council record. There was probably a misapprehension of the purpose of the Governor and Council in respect to the papers; and, at all events, that branch of the government had no authority to alienate them.

By an Act of the last Legislature (chap. 153), the journals of the two Houses were ordered to be in the custody of the clerks