Excerpt from Report to the Legislature of Massachusetts Made by the Commissioners Appointed Under Resolve, Chap. 60, 1884, Upon the Condition of the Records Files, Papers, and Documents in the Secretary's Department: January, 1885 In the opinion of your Commission, a thorough revision of the Archives would involve the breaking up of these vol umes for te-arranging, in the main, by a strict chronological order, as has been done with the documents in the English State Paper Office; they hesitate to recommend such a process, however, as the printed references of many histo rians would be vitiated, and the expense would be consider able, while much of the merit of the chronological system is secured by the index already described. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.