1878.] OF THE SENATE. 293

have been bound in volumes and kept in the Land Office ; but
the effort then made by your memorialist to have a system
adopted which would be creditable to Maryland, proved un-
availing, so that he appeals once more, and this time, directly
to your Honorable Body, for the speedy initiation of suitable
measures. Our records show that several attempts have been
made in Maryland for the examination and preservation of its
State papers. As early as September 1693, not long after
the establishment of a royal government in this Province in
place of the Proprietary, an inquest of the records and docu-
ments was made by a commission which even then reported
the neglected condition of our archives. Many State papers and
records covering a period of several years had disappeared

during the so-called "Protestant Revolution " in Maryland,
nor have they been recovered to this day.

Manuscripts which I have seen, show a "list of books in
the Council Office in 1765;" another contains a "list of
Assembly Proceedings and of Council Proceedings, and of
Upper House Journals delivered to the Governor in 1792, as

received at that time from Doctor Upton Scott."

At the Session of the General Assembly, 1835-1836,
Mr. David Ridgley, then State Librarian, made three reports

which are printed in that Session's proceedings, and are of
great value now as a partial schedule of the State's Record
Books and Documents of the Proprietary and Revolutionary
times, then still in our government's possession. Your me-
morialist ventures respectfully to recommend the reprinting
of these three reports, as a guide in the future work which it
is hoped you will inaugurate. Mr. Ridgely's account throws

much light on the chaotic condition of this long neglected
property. He found, he says, "a large body of papers, which,
years before, had been carelessly thrown under the stair-
way as you ascend to the dome of the Capitol or State
House ;" also, "in the vault of the old Treasury, the remains
of two sea chests and one box, which, evidently, had con-
tained records and files of papers, the nature of which he
left to conjecture, the whole being in a state of ruin." But
the lists of Records, Councils and Papers which Mr. Ridgely
was fortunate enough to rescue from further decay, and wisely
inserted in his reports, are quite large and amply descriptive.
Many of these were, by authority, copied by him into folio
volumes, though it is stated that after transcription, in many
cases he threw away the originals as useless. Some of these
have found their way into private collections and libraries,
and may probably be recovered. Mr. Ridgely's discoveries

were in the Treasury Department; the Land Office; the
Treasury Cellar; the State House ; the old Chancery Office