sions of foreign consuls, 1778-87; letters from the Joint Commissioners for Negotiating Treaties with France and Great Britain, 1777-84; letters from the Joint Commissioners for the Formation of Treaties of Amity and Commerce, with plans of treaties in French and Italian, 1784-86; letters with enclosures from diplomatic and consular representatives of France in the United States, 177890; letters from ministers of France in the United States, 1779-84, and ministers representing the United Provinces of the Netherlands, 1783-96; records relating to the Barbary Powers, 1779-92 and 1795; letters and records relating to Spain, 1780-89; letters and a memorial relating to American trade in the French West Indies, 1788-89; and applications for passports or sea letters, 1788-93. There are also records and accounts of Silas Deane, Beaumarchais, and Arthur Lee, 1776-84; letters from Arthur Lee, 1776-80, Benjamin Franklin, 1776-88, William Carmichael, 177691, Charles W. F. Dumas, 1776-96, William Bingham and others, 1777-82, Ralph Izard and others, 1777-84, John Adams, 1777-88, William S. Smith and others, 1779-89, Thomas Barclay and John Lamb, 1782-88, and Thomas Jefferson, 1785-89; and transcripts of many of the letters and reports mentioned above, 1776-89. Also included records relating to the claims for captured vessels, 1777-84, and reports of the committees of the Congresses, relating to Canada, treaties and foreign loans, 1776-86, and foreign affairs, 1776-88. Fiscal Affairs are The records include committee reports on the operation of the Board of Treasury and the national finances, 1776-88; reports of the Committee of Commerce; reports on the public debt in 1781, and estimates of expenses with related papers, 1779-86; letters and reports from the Comptroller of the Treasury and claims of Canadian refu gees, 1783-86; reports on domestic loans. and loan offices and on foreign loans, 1776-86; and committee reports and records on claims of New York and Vermont to the New Hampshire Grants, 1776-84. There are also Board of Treasury reports, 1776-81 and 1784-88; Board of Treasury reports on applications from the States and on other subjects, including a plan for selling the public lands, 1785-89; letters and reports from Robert Morris, Superintendent of Finance and Agent of Marine, 1781-85, with an appendix volume, 1776-78 and 1781-86; Board of Treasury letters, 1785-88; bonds required by commissioners appointed to the Board of Treasury, 1785 and 1787; estimates and statements of receipts and expenditures, 1780-88; estimates and other records relating to the Treasury, including records on the Grand Committee of Congress to consider the national debt, 1780-88; letters and records of bankers in Holland and contracts for loans, 1779-90; records relating to investigations of Treasury offices, 1780-81; accounts of the Register's Office, 1781-83; records respecting unsettled accounts, 1788, and returns of stores, 1783-84; and Charles Thomson's incidental accounts (office expenses), 1785-89. Military Affairs Included are oaths of allegiance of military and public officers, 1776-89; reports on the Army and its various units, 1775-85; reports of the Commissioners of Accounts for the Clothing and Hospital Departments; reports on the War Office and the Department of War, 1776-88; reports on the Prisoners' Department; reports of the Committees of Conference with the Commander in Chief at Cambridge, 1775, and at Valley Forge, 1778-79; reports of committees on the Philadelphia mutiny and the peacetime establishment, 1783-86; letters and records of the Committee to Headquarters appointed to confer with the Commander in Chief, 1780; reports on the Commissary Department and on the loss of certain Army posts, 177686; records relating to the British evacuation of New York, 1783; and records and affidavits relating to the "plunderings, burnings, and ravages committed by the British," 1775-84. Jones, 1777-91; transcripts of his letters, 1778-80; and correspondence of Captain Jones, and letters and records relating to the trials of Capt. Peter Landais and Lt. James Degge, 1778-81. Territorial and State Affairs Included are an undated narration of a journey to the western country by an Indian; petitions about the Indiana region, 1779-83; and ordinances of the Confederation Congress and other records relating to the Western Territory of the United States, 1787-88. Also memorials of the inhabitants of Illinois, Kaskaskia, and Kentucky, 1780-89; reports relating to to communications received from Governors and other State officials, 1777-88; committee reports on relations between the Congress and the States: reports on lands in the Western Territory, 1776-88; committee reports and records on claims of New York and Vermont to the New Hampshire Grants, 1776-84; letters received by Congresses (State Papers), 1775-91, from Governors and other State officials, committees of safety, and State assemblies, relating to the coordination of the Congress and the State Governments and including records relating to claims of territory by Pennsylvania and Connecticut, 1780-85; letters from Thomas Hutchins, relating to his duties as Geographer of the United States in surveying State boundaries; and statistics on population of certain States and calculations of the land area of the United States and the Western Territory, 1774-86. There are reports, 1776-81, and letters, 1780-81, of the Board of War and Ordnance; letters from the Secretary and Paymaster of the Board of War and Ordnance; letters and records concerning the "convention troops," 1777-80; letters and reports from Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, Secretary at War, 1781-83; letters and reports from Maj. Gen. Henry Knox, Secretary at War, 178588; letters from Gen. George Washington, Commander in Chief of the Army, 1775-84; letters and records relating to the Quartermaster's Department, 177880; letters of Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene, 1780-83, with various records relating to the Quartermaster's Department, 1778-80; letters from generals and other officers, 1775-89; transcripts of many letters from military officers, 1775-83; letters from Comte d'Estaing, 1777-86; letters and records relating to the exchange of officers, 1778 and 1780; letters and reports from the Paymaster General and Commissioner for Army Accounts, 1781-88; letters and records relating to charges against Gen. John Sullivan and Dr. John Morgan and to British advances in the Mohawk Valley, 1776-79; and letters and other records relating to the trial of Capt. Richard Lippincott, 1782. Indian Affairs are In addition to a variety of records relating to Indian affairs, 1765-89, there proceedings of commissioners appointed by the Second Continental Congress to negotiate a treaty with the Six Nations of Indians, 1775, letters and records relating to negotiations with the northern Indians, 1776-79, copies of Indian treaties, 1784-86, and committee reports on Indian affairs, 1776-88. Other Records There are also committee reports on applications from individuals, 1776-89; reports on hospitals and on applications of invalids, 1776-88; reports on the executive departments, 1776-86; miscellaneous reports, with lists of postponed reports; and letters and records of Postmasters General, and reports of committees of the Congress on the post office, 1776-88. CARTOGRAPHIC RECORDS. 1781. 1 item. A manuscript map of the Revolutionary War battlefield of Yorktown, Va., compiled by Lt. Col. Jean-Baptiste Gouvion. MISCELLANEOUS RECORDS OF The miscellaneous records of the Con- suls, 1779-90. Many of the despatches duplicate those in the numbered series. There are also letters, memorials, and notes, 1778-79 and 1782, from the Ministers of France in the United States; originals and copies of letters, 1778-87, of Louis XVI of France received by the Congress; letters from the Marquis de Lafayette, 1782-83; edict, June 1, 1786, of Louis XVI providing for the payment at Amsterdam of interest and capital of certain royal loans due in the United Provinces of the Netherlands; correspondence of the Amsterdam firm of John de Neufville and Son, 1778-85, with William Lee, Le Ray de Chaumont, Benjamin Franklin, John Paul Jones, and Charles W. F. Dumas; letters from the Amsterdam firms of Jacob van Staphorst, Wilhelm and Jan Willink, and De la Lande and Fynje, 1782-89, to John Jay, Secretary for Foreign Affairs; bills, 1782-83, drawn on Ferdinand le Grand, Parisian banker; letters relating to Spain and the Barbary States, 1779-86; draft of the proclamation, April 10, 1783, by the Confederation Congress, declaring the cessation of hostilities between the United States and Great Britain; draft of a commission, May 12, 1784, for John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson to negotiate a commercial treaty with Denmark; and a copy of the treaty signed by the United States and Prussia and ratified by the Confederation Congress, 1786. Records relating to naval affairs include reports of the Marine Committee, 1776-79; the Committee's letter book, 1776-80; an account of commissions for private armed vessels, received and forwarded to the several States, 1779-83; and records relating to fiscal affairs, 1783, 1785, and 1787. Records relating to specific States, 1779-1802, include those for Virginia, Massachusetts, and New York, and the Pennsylvania and Connecticut boundary dispute; and deeds of cession of western lands, with related documents, for Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. Among the records relating to the Congresses themselves are credentials of Delegates from each State to Congress, 1774-89, and broadsides and other imprints, 1775-88, issued by the Second Continental and Confederation Congresses. Several of the numbered series of the records of the Continental and Confederation Congresses have been included in various publications. The journals of the Congresses have been published by the Library of Congress in Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 (34 vols., 1904-37). These volumes print selected documents but contain numerous references to many others among the numbered series. The published Journals, which reproduce a significant but small fraction of the manuscripts in this record group, are readily available in printed form to the public. Diplomatic correspondence from 1776 to 1783 was compiled by Jared Sparks and published as The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution (12 vols.; Boston, 1829-39); in 1857 it was reprinted in six volumes. A revised and expanded edition of Sparks' compilation was published as The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, edited by Francis Wharton (6 vols., 1889). Diplomatic correspondence from 1783 to the formation of the Federal Government was compiled by William A. Weaver of the State Department and published as The Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States of America, From the Signing of the Definitive Treaty of Peace, 10th September, 1783, to the Adoption of the Constitution, March 4, 1789 (7 vols., 1833-34). In addition to records in State archives, another important source on the naval history of the Revolution is the one-volume calendar Naval Records of the American Revolution, 1775-1788, compiled by Charles Henry Lincoln of the Library of Congress, 1906. Other publications relating to the Continental and Confederation Congresses include Carl L. Lokke, "The Continental Congress Papers; Their History, 1789-1952," National Archives Accessions, No. 51 (June 1954), pp. 1-19; Jennings B. Sanders, Evolution of Executive Departments of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 (Magnolia, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1971); Jennings B. Sanders, The Presidency of the Continental Congress, 177489: A Study in American Institutional History (Magnolia, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1971); Herbert Friedenwald, "The Journals and Papers of the Continental Congress," American Historical Association, Annual Report (1896), pp. 85-135; Herbert Friedenwald, "The Continental Congress," American Historical Association, Annual Report (1894), pp. 227-236; and Edmund C. Burnett, Letters of Members of the Continental Congress (8 vols.; Carnegie Institution, 1921-36). RECORDS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. 1787. 1 lin. ft. The official records of the Convention include documents turned over to Timothy Pickering, Secretary of State, by George Washington on March 19, 1796: Journal of the Convention, May 14-September 15, 1787; Journal of the Proceedings of the Committee of the Whole House, May 30-June 19, 1787; a volume containing a detail of the yeas and nays given on questions in the Convention; loose sheets of yeas and nays (now bound into one volume); two copies of the Virginia Plan as amended in the Philadelphia Convention, June 13, 1787; Washington's annotated printed draft of the Constitution, as reported by the Committee of Detail, August 6, 1787; an undated draft of the letter from the Convention to the Confederation Congress, to accompany the Constitution; and a few letters received by the Convention from various sources. Documents in the possession of David Brearley, a New Jersey Delegate, were transmitted May 22, 1818, to John Q. Adams, Secretary of State, by Gen. Joseph Bloomfield, executor of Brearley. Not official records of the Constitutional Convention, these include a copy of the propositions offered to the Convention by William Paterson, June 15, 1787; a copy of a plan for a constitution-"Plan of Government"-presented in a speech to the Convention by Alexander Hamilton, June 18, 1787; two copies of the population returns of the several States; a copy of the resolutions submitted to the Convention by Edmund Randolph of Virginia on May 29, 1787; a copy the report of the Grand Committee on the eighth resolution reported from the Committee of the Whole House, and as much of the seventh as had not been of The proceedings of the Constitutional Convention are available in Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (4 vols., revised; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966); and in the Department of State Documentary History of the Constitution of the United States of America, 1786-1870 (5 vols., 1894-1905). Microfilm Publications: Papers of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, M247, 204 rolls, DP; Miscellaneous Papers of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, M332, 9 rolls, DP; and Madison Items From the Continental Congress Papers, T270, 1 roll. WAR DEPARTMENT COLLECTION OF REVOLUTIONARY WAR RECORDS (RECORD GROUP 93) The act of August 7, 1789, that established the War Department provided that the Secretary of War should have custody of all books and papers in the office of the Secretary at War, who had headed the Department of War created in 1781 by the Continental Congress. These books and papers included the records of the Board of War, which had administered military affairs from 1776 to 1781. Most of these records were destroyed by fire on November 8, 1800. When Government buildings in Washington were burned in August 1814 by British soldiers, the War Department's remaining records for the Revolutionary War period were in a fireproof room and were not damaged by the flames. It was subsequently reported, however, that many of them had been destroyed or carried away by persons who entered the room after the fire. As a result there were, until 1873, few records for the period before 1789 in War Department custody. In 1873 Secretary of War William Belknap purchased the Pickering Papers for the War Department. This private collection consisted of papers of Timothy Pickering, who between 1777 and 1785 had been a member of the Board of War, Adjutant General of the Continental Army, and Quartermaster General; the papers of Samuel Hodgdon, Commissary General of Military Stores for several years during the war; and miscellaneous contemporary papers. Belknap also obtained some minor groups of records and single record items for the Department during his tenure. In 1888, however, the War Department collection of Revolutionary War records was transferred to the State Department, which was considering the possibility of publishing the Government archives for the Revolutionary War period. The War Department established in 1889 a Record and Pension Divisioncalled the Record and Pension Office after 1892-to take charge of the records of past U.S. volunteer armies. The purpose of this Office was to increase the efficiency with which military service statements were being provided to the Commissioner of Pensions of the Interior Department. To achieve this purpose Col. Fred C. Ainsworth, Chief of the Record and Pension Office, attempted to have transferred to the War Department all Revolutionary War records from other Government departinents. Although he did not succeed in having all such records transferred, the Congress in 1892 and 1894 did authorize |