SAMUEL D. BELL, Manchester, Publishing Entered according to an act of Congress, in the year 1866, by the Publishing Committee of the N. H. Historical Society, in the Clerk's office of the District Court of NewHampshire. PREFACE. It seems proper to remind the reader that no complete records can be found of the Provincial Government of New-Hampshire for many years after it became a separate Province. Scattered fragments remain, some in the Recorder's office of Rockingham county, others in the Secretary of State's office, at Concord, and in the New-Hampshire Historical Society, and some have been found in private hands. An effort has been made to collect together all that can now be found, and to put with them such historical documents as were supposed likely to be useful and interesting. The Publishing Committee dare not flatter themselves that they have collected all that can be found of the Province Records; they will be much disappointed if the publication of this collection does not bring to public notice many, perhaps some already in print, which have escaped atttention. The plan of the Committee, if they find their effort to publish these papers sustained, will be to publish all that come to their knowledge. It will be recollected that the Government of New-Hampshire was superseded in 1686 by the government of Dudley, and after him of Andros, till 1689, during which the records could hardly be said to have had any proper depository, and, during the renewed connection with Massachusetts, from 1689 to 1692, the situation was no better; so that, on the whole, it is fortunate so much is left. The historical papers form but a small part of the documents to be found in the recorder's office at Exeter and Concord, but most of them are of personal interest alone. But most of the papers herein published will be found to contain matters of interest to the general reader. The It will be seen that the Provincial Records and Court Papers fill 303 pages of this volume. These have all been carefully copied from, and compared with, the originals, or with attested copies of the same. ancient orthograpy has been retained in only a part of the articles, and that more as a matter of curiosity than of utility. Many of the original papers were so defaced, torn, or otherwise mutilated, that in some cases it was impossible to decipher the meaning. Hence, blanks were left. Many names were almost illegible. The editor has not taken on himself the work of an annotator or expositor of the records. He has simply aimed to make a faithful transcript; and, if errors are detected, he begs readers to believe that he has done the best he could. ERRATA will be noted at the end of the volume. |