iv Archives of Maryland.

Pennsylvania, to complete the publication for the whole of the Provincial
period. The librarian of the John Carter Brown Library of Providence
wrote: " I have sincere hope that it may be possible for you to continue
the series of the Maryland Archives, for the whole of the Colonial period,
which have already added so materially to our appreciation of the part that
Maryland played in the events of our Colonial epoch." The Librarian of
Congress wrote: " As to the desirability of continuing " the publication of
the Proceedings and Acts to 1776, "our inability, by repeated effort, during
the last six years, to obtain, by purchase or by gift, the volumes that we lack,
indicates the great advantage, in our opinion, and considering the interest to
this library, of the continuing of your series."

In a recent letter, Professor Charles M. Andrews, of Yale University, writes :
" Maryland stands with her sister states as one that has done a great work
in issuing the materials for her history in a form not only dignified in itself,
but also of great and permanent merit as an aid to the student of our
Colonial history. To give up the series would be from the standpoint of such
student little short of a calamity...... The Maryland Archives should be
continued unbroken down to the close of the Provincial period. Their value
and usefulness need no defense."

Dr. J. Franklin Jameson, director of the Department of Historical Research
in the Carnegie Institution of Washington and editor of the American Histori-
cal Review, after " expressing in the warmest terms my hope that the publica-
tion will be continued to the end of the Colonial period," continues thus: " I am
also very decidedly of the opinion that the importance and value of the Assembly
Journals increase as the Colonial period goes on. I dare say that the contrary
may be the usual impression, for we all have special interest in origins, and thus
in the beginnings of Colonial institutions. But Colonial assemblies increased
in power and importance during the Colonial period, so that these records have
constantly a higher place among the historian's material. Also, in most colonies
the period from 1730 to 1765, and in some respects even to 1775, is much less
well known than the preceding periods. Of course I know little of the actual
contents, in detail, of the Proceedings after 1730, never having consulted
personally either the manuscript or the rare printed volumes; but I cannot help
supposing that what is true of the Virginia House of Burgesses is true of the
Maryland Assembly. Now Virginian history from 1730 to 1775 is absolutely
remade (or will have to be) by the publication of the Journals of the House
of Burgesses. They constitute a mass of material greater, in amount and value
combined, than all the rest of the printed materials for Virginian history in
that period put together.