To be purchased through any Bookseller or directly from IMPERIAL HOUSE, KINGSWAY, LONDON, W.C.2, and 28, ABINGDON STREET, LONDON, S.W.1; 1923. Price 78. 6d. Net. This Volume has been edited and passed through the press, on behalf of the Historical Manuscripts Commissioners, by Mr. R. A. ROBERTS, one of their number. In the series of Reports this volume should be numbered 63. INTRODUCTION. The present volume continues Lord Egmont's diary for the five complete years, 1734 to 1738. As regards its subject matter, Parliament having been dissolved early in the first named year, Egmont himself ceasing to sit as member for Harwich, and his son, whom he proposed as his successor, having failed to be elected in his stead, there is no longer that full chronicle of proceedings and debates in the House of Commons which was so marked a feature of the previous volume. The circumstances of the election at Harwich, the intrigues, the plots and activities to counteract them, the local political strife of the borough intimately connected with the personal advancement of members of the small body of the electorate, are disclosed in numerous and lengthy entries. The passion engendered in Harwich itself in the course of the struggle may be gathered from the fact that one of young Percival's opponents was so overjoyed at the result that he exclaimed, "Lord, now let Thy servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen Thy salvation!" In the view of Lord Egmont and his friends, the loss of the election was to be laid to the charge of Sir Robert Walpole, however much the Minister might express his concern at the result, and notwithstanding the efforts he made to disabuse Lord Egmont's mind of the idea. In other respects the great Minister's political conduct and private life come from time to time under review and some scandalous sallies at his expense are given a place. Lord Egmont's freedom from Parliamentary attendance gave him the opportunity, of which he copiously availed himself, of recording the proceedings of the Trustees and Common Council of the Society to which was entrusted, with the aid of a grant from Parliament, the administration of the province of Georgia in America. The diary becomes increasingly, therefore, a valuable source of information for the early settlement and history of the Colony, which may be consulted with advantage side by side with the official records of the Society preserved among the Colonial Office Records in the Public Record Office in London.* Among the matters referred to in the diary which may be specially instanced in this connexion are the visit of an Indian Chief to England, with his wife, son, and a retinue of followers in the summer of 1734, and episodes in the lives of the brothers Wesley and Mr. Whitfield connected with their evangelistic services in the Colony. John Wesley returned from Georgia to England in 1738 and Whitfield left for the Colony in the same year. Other matters of interest which appear in this section of the * P.R.O., Colonial Office, 5. Nos. 666-692. Wt. 5606. b |