^{page 137 note 1} A preliminary sketch of this paper was read to the Anglo-American Historical Conference in 1955.

^{page 137 note 2} Harley's notes are to be found Brit. Mus., Portland MSS, List 4, 29/9; Sunderland's at Blenheim, Ci-16; Dartmouth's at The William Salt Library, Stafford. I am indebted to the duke of Portland, the duke of Marlborough, and the earl of Dartmouth for permission to use, and to quote from, these documents. Harley's and Dartmouth's notes are chronologically arranged and references to these are by date only; Sunderland's are not chronologically arranged, so reference is given below by the Blenheim class mark. E. R. Turner glanced at Dartmouth's notes but failed to realize their importance, and subsequently he made the remarkable statement that no sequence of minutes of either the cabinet or the committee had survived. Turner, E. R., The Cabinet Council of England in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, 1622–1784 (Baltimore and Oxford, 1930–1932), i. 168 n. 53, 188Google Scholar.

^{page 138 note 1} Blenheim MSS C1–16, D67.

^{page 138 note 2} There is a serious gap in Harley's notes from 8 September to 10 November 1706. In 1707 the bulk of Harley's notes deal with cabinet business, yet Sunderland's memoranda make it clear that he was present at the committee. His notes for these meetings must be lost. Sunderland often refers to meetings for which there are no notes surviving.

^{page 139 note 1} Blenheim MSS C1–16, E35, F3.

^{page 139 note 2} Ibid. C4, 24, 34; D2, 4, 17, 36–7, 71, 81; E42–3. For the most recent account of this expedition cf. Gerald S. Graham, The Walker Expedition to Quebec (Navy Records Soc, 1953).

^{page 139 note 3} Ibid. B8, 10; E29–30; F4–6; for Peterborough, D31–3; for Greg, F12.

^{page 139 note 4} Ibid. B38; Browning, A., Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby and Duke of Leeds, 1637–1712 (Glasgow, 1951)Google Scholar, does not mention either these rumours or the investigation.

^{page 139 note 5} Turner, E. R., Cabinet Council, ii. ix–xivGoogle Scholar, lists the literature of the controversy up to the date of its publication. Cf. also Pargellis, Stanley and Medley, D. J., Bibliography of British History, The Eighteenth Century, pp. 65–6Google Scholar.

^{page 139 note 6} Wolfgang, , Michael, , Englische Geschichte im Achtzehnten Jahrhundert (Leipzig, Berlin and Basel, 1896–1955), i. 440Google Scholar; iii. 546–92. Michael was in substantial agreement with Salomon, F., Geschichte des Letzen Ministeriums Königin Annas von England (Gotha, 1894), p. 356Google Scholar. Turner's criticism of Michael, and Salomon, is op. cit. i. 355–361Google Scholar, and Michael's of Turner, , Englische Geschichte, iii. 551 et seq.Google Scholar

^{page 140 note 1} Williams, E. Trevor, ‘The Cabinet in the Eighteenth Century’, History, N.S. xxii (1937), 240–52; 332–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

^{page 140 note 2} References to these sources will be found scattered throughout Turner's footnotes. Nottingham's notes are in Brit. Mus., Add. MS 29591: Bolingbroke's, P.R.O., S.P. Dom., 34/3.

^{page 140 note 3} The principal cause of confusion arose because the formal name of the members of the cabinet was ‘Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council’ and all ministers had to be sworn members of the Privy Council before they could sit in the cabinet. In casual speech and writing reference was often to ‘The Lords’, ‘The Lords of the Committee’, ‘The Lords of the Cabinet’ or, more rarely, ‘The Lords of the Council’, but even Turner recognized that men in business kept mostly to a uniform usage. ‘Lords of the Committee’ or ‘Lords’ referred in the vast majority of cases to meetings without the sovereign, and this practice became much more, uniform as Queen Anne's reign progressed. Nottingham, whose experience dated from the early part of William's reign, was the most careless of all. The difficulties caused by this somewhat casual nomenclature disappear when the organization of the two bodies and their functions are understood.

^{page 141 note 1} Dartmouth MSS.

^{page 141 note 2} Brit. Mus., Add. MS 29588, fo. 265; Cal. S.P. Dom. 2702–3, p. 239.

^{page 141 note 3} E.g. meetings of 6 July 1704 and 18 August 1704 were held at secretary Hedges' house. Brit. Mus., Portland MSS, List 4, 29/9.

^{page 142 note 1} Cal. S.P. Dom. 1700–2, p. 242; 1702–3, p. 725.

^{page 144 note 1} Dartmouth MSS, 30 October 1710. ‘Mr. de Torcy and Marshall Tallard's letters were read and ordered to be reconsidered when my Ld. Privy Seall comes to town’. Harley, too, begged him to take a more active interest and tried by flattery to draw him closer to the ministry. Hist. MSS Com. (13 Rep., app., pt. ii), Portland MSS, ii. 223–6. Newcastle was not ill during this period; his death in July 1711 was quite unexpected.

^{page 144 note 2} Ibid. p. 223. Somerset attended his last meeting of the cabinet at Kensington Palace on 17 September 1710. Dartmouth MSS. Jonathan Swift wrote on 13 August 1711, ‘The reason why the cabinet council was not held last night was because Mr. Secretary St. John would not sit with your duke of Somerset. So today the duke was forced to go to the race while the cabinet was held’. Journal to Stella, ed. Williams, H. (Oxford, 1948), i. 332 and n. 6Google Scholar. Erasmus Lewis, who was Dartmouth's under-secretary, denied this rumour, but historians have uncritically repeated it. If there was any substance in Swift's rumour, it can only mean that Somerset was trying to force himself back into the cabinet after nearly a year's absence, which is improbable, for such an action would have given rise to widespread comment.

^{page 145 note 1} Townshend MSS, Raynham Hall, Norfolk. I am indebted to the Marquess Townshend for permission to use these manuscripts, ‘Cabinet memoranda’ of Charles, 2nd viscount Townshend. Also, Turner, , Cabinet Council, ii. 1–2Google Scholar. Archbishop Tenison did his major stint of committee work during the summer months when other cabinet ministers were often on vacation.

^{page 145 note 2} Portland MSS, ii. 200.

^{page 146 note 1} Swift, J., Journal to Stella, ii. 434, 436–7Google Scholar.

^{page 146 note 2} Brit. Mus., Portland MSS, List 4, 29/9. Portland MSS, ii. 208.

^{page 147 note 1} Williams, E. Trevor, ‘The Cabinet in the Eighteenth Century’, 242–3Google Scholar.

^{page 147 note 2} Dartmouth MSS, 24, 25, 26 August 1710.

^{page 148 note 1} Brit. Mus., Portland MSS, List 4, 29/9. Cal. S.P. Dom. 1702–3, p. 21.

^{page 148 note 2} References are too numerous to give. Almost every memorandum relating to the committee mentions such interviews and discussions.

^{page 148 note 3} Turner, E. R., ‘The development of the Cabinet 1688–1760’, American Hist. Rev., xviii (1913), 766–7Google Scholar.

^{page 149 note 1} Dartmouth MSS, 11 February 1711. Argyll was summoned to attend by letter from Dartmouth, Turner, E. R., Cabinet Council, i. 181–2 and n. 114Google Scholar.

^{page 149 note 2} Blenheim MSS C1–16, D42, D71.

^{page 149 note 3} Brit. Mus., Portland MSS, List 4, 29/9, 2–9 July 1704.

^{page 153 note 1} Brit. Mus., Add. MS 29589, fo. 96. Godolphin wrote to Nottingham 19 August 1703, ‘Yor Lordship knows that a resolution taken in the cabinett councill ought not to be altered but in the same place’.

^{page 153 note 2} Dartmouth MSS, various dates.

^{page 153 note 3} Ibid. 26 September 1710, cabinet, ‘The petition of Balthasar St. Michell rejected’. For Michell, St., cf. Helen Truesdell Heath, The Letters of Samuel Pepys and his Family Circle (Oxford, 1955), pp. xxiv–xxviii, 228–9Google Scholar.

^{page 153 note 4} Ibid. 17 November 1710. Other surprisingly trivial matters to reach cabinet level were the condition of the lions in the Tower (Blenheim MSS C1–16, F29) and the affair of Lord Stanhope's French cook, who had been brought to England without authority in 1710. Dartmouth's memoranda refer to this vexed question time and time again.

^{page 154 note 1} Palatines: Blenheim MSS C1–16, D44–7, Dartmouth MSS 18 January 1711 et seq.; parliamentary bills: Dartmouth MSS 19, 26 November 1710, 2 January and 4 February 1711; East India Company: ibid. 1 and 2 April 1711, Blenheim MSS C1–16, D72; plantations: ibid. C1–16, D71, Dartmouth MSS 19 September 1710, 25 February 1711; judges: ibid. 24 February 1711; proclamations: Blenheim MSS C1–16, C12, F27, F37. This list is not, of course, comprehensive: it could be greatly enlarged.

^{page 154 note 2} Blenheim MSS C1–16, A1, B51, C1, D53; Dartmouth MSS 18 April 1711.

^{page 154 note 3} Blenheim MSS C1–16, D28–9. John Chudleigh finally obtained his commission in the Coldstream Guards on 25 October 1707. C. Dalton, English Army Lists, vi. 55.

^{page 154 note 4} Dartmouth MSS 16 March 1711.

^{page 154 note 5} Ibid. 26 November 1710.

^{page 155 note 1} Dartmouth MSS 11 March 1711; cf. also Blenheim MSS C1–16, F15, for a suggestion that there might be secret matters about strategy that were not disclosed to the entire cabinet.

^{page 155 note 2} For a discussion of the differing attitudes of Harley and St. John concerning the Quebec expeditions, cf. Morgan, W. T., ‘Queen Anne's Expedition of 1711’, Queen's Quarterly, xxxv (1928), 464–6Google Scholar.

^{page 155 note 3} Brit. Mus., Add. MS 29591, fos. 28, 32–4, 128–31, 135–6.

^{page 155 note 4} Many such meetings are reported by Swift: e.g. 19 January 1712, ‘I dined to-day with lord treasurer; this is his day of choice company; where they sometimes admit me, but pretend to grumble. And to-day they met on some extraordinary business; the keeper, steward, both secretaries, lord Rivers, and lord Anglesey.’ Journal to Stella, ii. 467.

^{page 155 note 5} These have been deposited by the Marquess of Downshire at Berkshire Record Office. I am indebted to Mr. Peter Walne for drawing my attention to them.

^{page 156 note 1} Townshend MSS (Raynham); P.R.O. S.P. Dom. 35/23, 29, 31, 32.

^{page 156 note 2} For further discussion of this question cf. Plumb, J. H., Sir Robert Walpole, i. 201–3Google Scholar.

^{page 156 note 3} An exact and lucid account of the cabinet in the late 1739's will be found in Sedgwick, R, ‘The Inner Cabinet from 1739 to 1741’, Eng. Hist. Rev., xxxiv (1919), 290–302CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

^{page 156 note 4} In addition to the memoranda scattered throughout the State Papers Domestic at the Public Record Office and the Newcastle MSS (particularly Brit. Mus., Add. MSS 32993–33002, 33004), there are others, made both by Townshend and by Spencer Compton, in the possession of Mr. H. L. Bradfer-Lawrence, who has very kindly permitted me to use them.

^{page 157 note 1} Turner, E. R., Cabinet Council, i. 345–87Google Scholar. In these pages Turner very fairly sets out the difficulties and confusions caused by the slight and secondary nature of his evidence and by the absence of any continuous series of minutes or memoranda.