Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/272

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2 62 P. Mantoux the following Thursday ; as soon as I have them, I will get them translated for you." ^ We have already mentioned a few original reports written in English, which we happened to find among the translated docu- ments. But these did not come through the same channel. They were not dated from London, but from Boulogne, where a sort of spying office seems to have been at work in the years 1730 to 1760. Thence they were forwarded to Paris, where one d'Heguerty, whose name we have met often in volumes 390 to 440 of the Correspondance Politique, received and translated them.- Who was this man d'Heguerty? His name, in spite of the French spelling, sounds Irish. Some of his correspondents were Irishmen (O'Bryen, cf. vol. 390, f. 356). In volumes 54, 78, and 79 of the " Memoires et Documents (Fonds Stuart)" are many letters and memoranda writ- ten by him, from which it appears that he was a Jacobite agent, in more or less regular relations with the French court. The fact that two sources of information on English affairs were available at the same time, and that we are now in possession of reports of parliamentary debates from both sources, shows how important such reports were thought to be, and goes far to prove their general accuracy. IV. We must now point out how these hitherto unused documents can be turned to account. First of all, we can find among them reports of some debates which are not to be found either in the Parliamentary History and the previously printed collections of debates, or in the contemporary periodicals. These latter gave to their readers but a selection of the most important debates of each session. The editors of the Parliamentary History, whose chief authority was the magazines, tried to fill up the gaps by means of then unpublished documents, such as the Hardwicke Papers. ^ Some of the documents at the French Foreign Office can be used to the same end. After the Prince of Wales's death in 1751, a bill for organizing the regency, in tlie event of King George II. 's dying before his grandson's coming of age, was brought before Parliament. Upon 'Count de Cambis to Amelot. April 17. 1738, vol. 398, f. 48. "In 1746 d'Heguerty was holding a correspondence with secret agents in England. Cf. vol. 422, ff. 148, 156, 173. In 1751 he sent to the French am- bassador a " Present State of Great Britain showing that the English are bent on a War with France", vol. 431, ff. 4-10. He was then living in Paris, Rue de la Vrilliire. Ibid. 11. 'Cf. Parliamentary History, XIII.-XVI.