“

An Ordinance & Constitution of the Treasurer, Council & Company in England for a Council of State & General Assembly, July 24 th. 1621.

This last is from Stith.

A Commission to the Archbishop of Canterbury & eleven others for governing the American colonies 1634;--and

The Commonwealth’s Instructions to Cap t. Dennis &c “appointed Commissioners for the reducing of Virginia, & the Inhabitants thereof, to their due Obedience to the Commonwealth of England.”--1651.

"These are all I have yet been able to procure . . .”

These tracts are all printed by Hazard in this volume.

On February 17, 1791, Hazard wrote to Jefferson: “M ^r. Hazard presents his respectful Compliments to M ^r. Jefferson. It has occurred to him that if M ^r. Jefferson would favor him with a Line or two recommendatory of his Undertaking, which he might be permitted to publish, it would expedite the printing of his Collection of State Papers, and render the public Appearance of that work less problematical than it will otherwise be, as the Sanction of M ^r. Jefferson’s name will undoubtedly occasion considerable Additions to the List of Subscribers.”

Jefferson wrote from Philadelphia on February 18: “ I return you the two volumes of records, with thanks for the opportunity of looking into them. they are curious monuments of the infancy of our country. I learn with great satisfaction that you are about committing to the press the valuable historical and state-papers you have been so long collecting. time & accident are committing daily havoc on the originals deposited in our public offices. the late war has done the work of centuries in this business. the lost cannot be recovered; but let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use, in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident. this being the tendency of your undertaking, be assured there is no one who wishes it a more complete success than Sir Your most obedient & etc. ”

This letter was acknowledged by Hazard on the evening of the same day.

Jefferson mentioned Hazard’s work as a forthcoming publication in the Notes on the State of Virginia (1782). On page 326 with his own list of American state papers occurs the passage: An extensive collection of papers of this description has been for some time in a course of preparation by a* gentleman fully equal to the task, and from whom therefore we may hope ere long to receive it . . .

* Mr. Hazard.

Ebenezer Hazard, 1744-1817, postmaster general and archivist. The second volume was published in 1794 but not sold to Congress by Jefferson.

These tracts relate to the impending Molasses act, passed in 1733, and repealed in 1764 by the Sugar act.