Appendix

Calendar of Treasury Books, Volume 19, 1704-1705. Originally published by His Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1938.

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'Appendix', in Calendar of Treasury Books, Volume 19, 1704-1705, (London, 1938) pp. 79-80. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-treasury-books/vol19/pp79-80 [accessed 24 March 2024]

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Introductory Note

In the Appendix to Vol. XVII of this Calendar, pp. 104 and 436, an account was given of the Treasury Alphabetical Register of Papers read and minuted at meetings of the Treasury Board. At the same time the difficulty was explained of reproducing in chronological form the various entries in this Alphabetical Register. That explanation applies to the present instalment with the further particular that when the papers were read to the Queen by the Lord Treasurer whether at St. James's or Windsor or Bath the decision which is taken and is recorded as a Minute is to be understood as Queen Anne's own decision.

The Alphabetical Register itself so far as it survives is very broken in its sequence. After a gap of 2 years and 9 months it resumes in March 1704-5, thus covering only the last month of the Treasury Minutes reprinted in the present volume. For that month there were four occasions on which the Treasury Board read and considered papers viz. March 21, 23, 27 and 29 see supra pp. 76, 77. It is not possible to allocate the following papers as between these four Board meetings.

The entries occur alphabetically, those under the letter A being on 4 pages succeeded by 24 blank pages : then the entries on B on 6 pages succeeded by blank pages and so on through the alphabet to the letter W. But the entries for K, Q and Y are displaced and occur at the end of the volume.

The volume also contains a loose sheet of paper headed

10 June, 1706
At Windsor Castle

present : her Majesty, Lord Treasurer, Mr. Chancellor [of the Exchequer].

Abstract of papers to be laid before the Q.

Thereupon follow 27 entries of the decisions or minutes taken : the first entry being as follows :

"Mr. Stuart: if some employment in Ireland it would be better."

This paper will be found in situ under its own date in the present Calendar.

Its contents make quite clear the procedure then in use at the meetings of the Treasury Board when petitions were considered. The Secretary attended with the originals and with an abstract of them. As each item was decided upon he took a rough hasty note of the decision on the abstract. Thereafter when the meeting was over he made an entry of the paper and its minute in the proper place or sequence in the Alphabetical Register running his pen through each item in the abstract as he entered it up. In this way he has struck through 12 items out of 27 which occur on this particular paper. The remaining items he did not enter up : evidently his work was interrupted by some accident or intrusion : or alternatively the Alphabetical Register method of entering up may have been re-considered at about June 1706 and a different method adopted for a time.

The reference for the record here abstracted is T 4/16 (Index 4630).