TENTH REPORT OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON HISTORICAL TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY, WE, Your Majesty's Commissioners appointed by Your Royal Commission to inquire what papers and manuscripts belonging to private families would be useful in illustrating Constitutional Law, Science, and the General History of this country, and to which their respective possessors would be willing to give access, respectfully beg leave to submit this. our Tenth Report to Your Majesty. The death of Lord Houghton has caused a vacancy among Your Commissioners which it will be difficult to fill. His many services to historical and general literature are too well known to require special mention in this Report. The ordinary work of inspection since the publication of our Ninth Report has been carried on by Mr. J. C. Jeaffreson, Mr. W. O. Hewlett, Mr. H. C. Maxwell Lyte, Mr. H B. Tomkins, the Rev. J. A. Bennett, and the Rev. Joseph Stevenson for England; by Dr. Fraser for Scotland; and by Mr. Gilbert for Ireland. Mr. E. F. Taylor and Mr. F. Skene have continued their work on the manuscripts of the House of Lords. To Mr. Walter Rye Your Commissioners are under obligations for an account of the valuable Gawdy MSS. in his possession; and Mr. R. N. Worth has contributed a supplementary report on the Records of Plymouth Corporation. The chief collections of manuscripts upon which reports have been completed since the submission of the Ninth Report to Your Majesty, are the following: England.-Marquis of Abergavenny, Earl of Kilmorey, Earl of Powis, Earl of Westmorland, Lord Braye, Lord Muncaster, Lord Stafford, Sir P. T. Mainwaring, Bart., Sir N. W. Throckmorton, Bart., Captain J. F. Bagot, the Misses Boycott, George Browne, Esq., G. Wingfield Digby, Esq., E. L. Gatacre, Esq., Stanley Leighton, Esq., M.P., S. Z. Lloyd, Esq., G. F. Luttrell, Esq., the Rev. C. R. Manning, N. Storey Maskelyne, Esq., M.P., A. Salwey, Esq., the Rev. W. H. Sewell, J. L. Parkinson, Esq., Capt. Stewart, of Alltyrodyn, C. F. Weston Underwood, Esq., &c., &c.; Wells Cathedral, Stonyhurst College, the counties of Essex and Middlesex, and the Corporations of Bishop's Castle, Bridgnorth, Eye, Kendal, Plymouth, Southampton, &c. Scotland. The Duke of Hamilton, The Earl of Eglinton and Winton, Sir John Stirling Maxwell, Bart., and C. S. H. Drummond Moray, Esq., &c. Ireland.-Marquis of Ormonde, Earl of Fingall, the Sees of Dublin and Ossory, the Corporations of Galway and Waterford, the Jesuits' Archives, &c., &c. Your Commissioners beg to subjoin a brief account of many of the above-named collections. Full particulars of each will be given in the supplementary reports to be submitted to Your Majesty during the current year. The Earl of Westmorland.-Lord Westmorland allowed to be deposited in the Public Record Office, for the Commissioners' inspection, some volumes of his MSS., consisting of original letters and miscellaneous documents, and some ancient copies (in many cases contemporaneous) of others. Among the originals the most interesting are those contained in a volume entitled "A collection of curious letters and docu"ments connected with the Westmorland family," lettered from A. to K. Under C. are some letters from William Pitt, the younger, on the subject of his candidature for Cambridge University in 1779, for which constituency, however, he was not returned Under the same letter is a list of members of the University who were friends of Lord Westmorland in 1776, commencing with Pitt, of Pembroke, and ending with Affleck, of Magdalen. In the collection lettered H. are the following: a letter from General Sir Thomas Fairfax, in 1649, to the Committee of the West Riding of Yorkshire; a pass signed by the Lord Protector; two letters from the Duke of Marlborough, dated in 1702, from the camps of Assenlen and Great Heppach, and addressed to Lord Westmorland at the Hague; a warrant under the sign manual of Prince George of Denmark, appointing Thomas, 6th Earl of Westmorland, one of the gentlemen of his bedchamber; and letters from the Earl of Sunderland, Lord Godolphin, Mr Stanhope, and others. In the same collection are copies of two letters from Queen Anne, dated in 1714, to the Princess Sophia of Hanover and to the Elector, afterwards King George I., protesting against Prince George's design of coming to England; there is also a copy of a letter from the Earl of Oxford to the Elector, after the refusal to allow the writ of summons sent to him as Duke of Cambridge. Among others worthy of note in this volume is a letter, dated December 1720, from William Mildmay to the Earl of Westmorland, giving a long account of the state of Italy, in which country he was travelling. In the |