^{page 186 note 1} The essence of a true diary being that it is drawn up for the information of the Diarist only, and, consequently, uninfluenced by the point of view or habits of any but himself: while, on the other hand, a knowledge of his habits and point of view is essential for its comprehension by an outsider. Cf. particularly Pepys.

^{page 186 note 2} Pirenne in his preface to the French edition of Flith, and Fruin, 's Manuel pour le classement… des ArchivesGoogle Scholar gives as the basis for correct arrangement of Muniments, ‘le respect pour les fonds.’Google ScholarFonds may be roughly paraphrased ‘collections as they have come down to us from their collectors.’

^{page 187 note 1} This is a rough definition. In its strictest sense the word ‘Record’ means only judicial proceedings. Cf. Hall, , Studies in English Official Historical Documents, pp. 53seq.Google Scholar

^{page 188 note 1} It is necessary to emphasise the imaginary, or ‘paper,’ nature of this. Documents may be, in this sense, classified over and over again according to individual opinions or needs: a material sorting or arrangement is generally irrevocable; and, as such, is condemned by many authorities.

^{page 189 note 1} The East India Company's Records are kept at the India Office, which has published various lists; for instance that of the ‘Factory’ Records. Some records of other Companies (e.g. the Virginia) are scattered through the State Papers Domestic: and in the State Papers Foreign are some of the Levant Company. But there is no considerable body of such Records except those mentioned in the text. The Muscovy (now the Russia) Company's Minute Books exist, I understand, from a very early date (1666): but these are still in the hands of the Company.

^{page 192 note 1} Scott, W. R., Joint Stock Companies to 1720, vol. ii.Google Scholar

^{page 192 note 2} I am indebted to the courtesy of the editor, Mr. C. T. Carr, for much illustrative matter relating to early chartered companies.

^{page 192 note 3} African Companies Records, 1584.Google Scholar

^{page 192 note 4} SirJohnston, H. mentions this story in his Colonisation of Africa.Google Scholar

^{page 192 note 5} Cf. SirJohnston, H., op. cit.Google Scholar

^{page 192 note 6} Ibid.

^{page 193 note 1} S.P. Dom. Elizabeth 26, Nos. 43 and 44.Google Scholar

^{page 193 note 2} Cf. Ellis, 's History of the Gold Coast, under this date.Google Scholar

^{page 193 note 3} Patent Roll, 1312.Google Scholar

^{page 194 note 1} See Scott, , op. cit.Google Scholar, for notes upon the earliest Companies.

^{page 194 note 2} See the Record Office Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, 1574–1660Google Scholar, Introduction, p. viii.Google Scholar

^{page 194 note 3} Patent Roll, 2170.Google Scholar

^{page 194 note 4} Patent Roll, 2573.Google Scholar

^{page 195 note 1} Patent Rolls, 2936 and 3029.Google Scholar

^{page 196 note 1} This rule holds good from the earliest times. Perhaps the best and earliest example is that of the Winchester Pipe Roll (of which a facsimile has been published by the School of Economics) with its close imitation of the forms of its Exchequer prototype.

^{page 197 note 1} The State Paper Office, whose history has been the subject of several works, maintained a separate existence from about 1578 to 1852.

^{page 197 note 2} Some of the best examples of these are the series of printed lists, often with official annotations, among the Admirally and War Office Records. Of course the absence of annotation in the official copy is equally important as evidence.

^{page 197 note 3} See , D. K.'s Report VII., ii. 21Google Scholar. They were removed to the Treasury, , 07 9, 1824.Google Scholar

^{page 198 note 1} See above, p. 189, note.

^{page 198 note 2} Afr. Co.'s Ree., 75Google Scholar. This volume has been extensively used by Mr Scott.

^{page 199 note 1} See above, p. 195.

^{page 201 note 1} A.C. Ree., 309.Google Scholar

^{page 201 note 2} Ibid. 599.

^{page 201 note 3} Ibid. 544.

^{page 201 note 4} Ibid. 1596 and 1564.

^{page 201 note 5} Ibid. 909.

^{page 201 note 6} Cf. (e.g.) Acts and Ordinances of the Privy Council, vol. v. passim.Google Scholar

^{page 201 note 7} It possibly came from Italy, as is sometimes suggested by the spellings of the word Journal. The Records of the very early Bank of St. George at Genoa, if they existed, would probably throw light on this question. Cabot, 's Ordinances (1553)Google Scholar, quoted by Hakluyt, , refer to ‘a common leger to remain of Record for the Company.’Google Scholar

^{page 202 note 1} The number of Letter Books, thus elaborately classified, belonging to the second Company is fifty-five; of Minute Books sixty-eight.

^{page 203 note 1} There are six Garrison Ledgers, twenty-six Cash Books, nineteen Petty Cash Books, and thirty-two Custom Books. With regard to Customs, see below, p. 215 note 2.

^{page 203 note 2} A.C. Rec., 1210.Google Scholar

^{page 204 note 1} The most important attempt to compromise the matter of Interlopers: see below, pp. 210 and 214. The moving force is the Statute, 25 Geo. II, 40Google Scholar, which declared it lawful for all the king's subjects to trade between Cape Blanco and the Cape of Good Hope upon payment of an Entrance Fee of £2.

^{page 204 note 2} There remain the Day Books and kindred accounts of eleven forts-There are also the Council Minute Books from Cape Coast Castle (1770–1818) and one earlier volume, very carefully kept according to instructions from the Home Committee (all Minutes, said one Rule, were to be entered in two books, each of which was to be signed and one of them to be sent home). These instructions applied also to the details of record keeping at the smaller forts.

^{page 205 note 1} A.C. Rec., 1454–1456Google Scholar. There are also the earlier Lists of Living and Dead at the Company's Forts, Lists of Passengers, Castle Charge Books, etc, (Nos. 1423–1453).

^{page 206 note 1} See particularly the works of Clarkson, Wilberforce and Granville Sharp. The Pamphlets are referred to on p. 210, note 2 below.

^{page 206 note 2} This matter of supplementary material is referred to again below.

^{page 207 note 1} A.C. Rec., 1.Google Scholar

^{page 207 note 2} Ibid., 1530. These are the instructions quoted above.

^{page 207 note 3} The ending of this (with the Company badly in debt to Spain) meant bankruptcy. Cf. Dubois.

^{page 208 note 1} A.C. Rec., 936.Google Scholar

^{page 208 note 2} Ibid. 1574.

^{page 209 note 1} Op. cit.

^{page 210 note 1} ‘Interlopers’ was used here as in the case of the East India Company, both of foreign rivals in the trade and unauthorised English ones. The instructions sent by the Company to Captains of its ships always deal at length with this point: and there is constant allusion to the same in letters.

^{page 210 note 2} See the large collections in the British Museum; for instance 8223 E, No. 26, which contains the words ‘If ever any Paper was composed of a Rhapsody of Fictitious Positions and Fallacious Inferences, certainly this called “Considerations on the Trade to Guinea” is one’—a sufficient illustration of their general tone and usual title.

^{page 210 note 3} Cf A.C. Rec., 67A.Google Scholar

^{page 211 note 1} E.g. the Treaty of Versailles in 1783.Google Scholar

^{page 212 note 1} Cf. W.O. 17/1162Google Scholarseq. and other places.

^{page 212 note 2} Adm., 1/3810.Google Scholar

^{page 212 note 3} Reference to some of the Statutes concerning the African Companies has already been made.

^{page 212 note 4} A.C. Rec., 169–177Google Scholar, dating from 1681 to 1777.

^{page 213 note 1} Ibid. 1515, a printed list of goods to be sold ‘by the candle,’ is the earliest example of this.

^{page 213 note 2} Ibid., 905–907. The balance sheet for 1804, to take an example, shows Total Receipts £18,441 7s. 11d., of which £17,540 4s. 0d. is contributed by the Treasury, while £4 is from Entrance Fees. It is signed by the Committee and the Cursitor Baron of the Exchequer. A list in A.C. Rec., 1601, makes the total of the Grants between 1750 and 1815 £963,000.

^{page 213 note 3} Ibid. 357–359.

^{page 213 note 4} February 1906.

^{page 213 note 5} At least one actual Record of the Company contains a note that it was produced in evidence upon some legal occasion.

^{page 214 note 1} See above, p.195 and p. 204 note 1. According to Scott, , op. cit., pp. 22Google Scholarseq., even the first Company, which was highly successful up to 1678, and moderately so for another twelve years, began to decline towards the close of the eighteenth century after an organised attack upon its monopoly in 1692, and Exchequer subsidisation was necessary to maintain the Company (and the forts) long before the third Company was started in 1750.

^{page 214 note 2} See above, p. 213 note 3. By the Act of 1750 the moneys granted were carefully apportioned, only £800 going to Office expenses. See also Note 68 below.

^{page 215 note 1} The Pipe Office and Audit Office Declared Accounts run from ‘the King's Adventurer with the Company of Adventurers.…’ (1661), through the moneys ‘imprested’ to the African Company for the support of trade (c. 1730), down to the expenditure (1822–1826) on the ‘settlement late under the Management of the African Company.’

^{page 215 note 2} The first instance of Parliamentary interference was the Statute 9 and io William and Mary, which contained an attempt to deal with the ‘Interloper’ difficulty on the basis of a percentage payment by way of customs. A good instance of less direct Statute interference will be found at the time of the treaty of Versailles (1783). See p. 211 above.

^{page 215 note 3} Loc. cit. Lists of members will be found in A.C. Rec., 1507–1510.Google Scholar

^{page 216 note 1} See p. 211 above: the Dutch held at one time Secondee, Dixcove, Apollonia, Accra and Cape Coast Castle. No doubt, too, there was often a state of actual warfare between the traders of different nations in times of nominal peace. A seventeenth-century letter refers to the capture of an ‘Interloper’ as a matter ‘not propper for every common peruser.’

^{page 216 note 2} One such correspondent thinks ‘the Dutch way is the best: if trade is wanting to have other Nations [i.e. African tribes] fall upon them that are false and cutt them to pieces.’

^{page 217 note 1} A.C. Rec., 1456.Google Scholar

^{page 217 note 2} A large amount of correspondence between the brothers remains among the Companies' papers and a number of their private account books. Richard appears to have been connected with the Committee after his retirement from the service. The more important articles of trade (gold, ivory, and slaves) the Company's servants were specifically forbidden to touch in their private capacities. There is little doubt that in spite of these rules, even strengthened by Parliamentary authority, the servants did meddle privately in some or all of these, as well as in the lesser local barterings which were, perhaps, left open to them.

^{page 219 note 1} Still enclosed in the document.