A set of shipping accounts kept by the purser of an English ship, the Trinity of Bristol, on a voyage to the ports of Andalusia and North Africa in 1480–1 was discovered recently in the Mercers' Hall in London. It is a very early example of this type of record, for accounts of privately-owned merchant vessels are rarely found in English archives before the files of the High Court of Admiralty begin in the reign of Henry VIII. Its value is enhanced still further, however, by the fact that the ship in question was a vessel of outstanding importance in the early history of English exploration overseas. The Trinity of Bristol was one of the first English ships known to have set out in search of land across the Atlantic more than a decade before Columbus made his first landfall in the New World. This document shows the Bristol men aboard the Trinity in personal contact with the Franciscan friary of Santa Maria de la Rábida, near Huelva, where Columbus found his earliest and most devoted supporters in Spain for his own projected expedition across the western ocean. New lines of speculation are opened up on links between the earliest English and Iberian voyages of discovery, making this a document of great interest to historians of trans-atlantic exploration.

This parliamentary diary was deposited in Cambridge University Library by Lord Braybrooke in 1947. I wish to thank his Lordship for permitting me to publish it, and the University Librarian for all the help which I received while working on it.

‘Leicester house’, those politicians associated with the Prince of Wales' court in Leicester Square Fields, played an important part in the development of the concept of ‘Opposition’ during the eighteenth century, and particularly between 1717 and 1760. There were several periods when this faction was particularly active, and these activities have acquired peculiar importance for many historians in view of the supposed intentions of George III of putting into effect precepts urged either at his own court as Prince of Wales or at that of his father, Frederick. As a result, considerable attention has been paid to the activities of Leicester House, and particularly to Frederick and his colleagues. Although Frederick was active, politically, between 1737 and 1751, it was after 1746 that he was virtually head of the Opposition, and it is in this period that he becomes most interesting, perhaps because it is for these years that there exists a body of documents illustrating his activities in such detail that it is possible to ascertain the nature of his plans. None of Frederick's own papers survive, and the documents in the Royal Archives at Windsor are derived from the records of his earlier associates. His principal associate after 1749 was John Perceval, second Earl of Egmont, whose father's diaries were published by the Historical Manuscripts Commission some forty years ago. Egmont was a Lord of the Bedchamber to the Prince and was the last in a series of favourites intended as future Prime Ministers, so that the papers drawn up in consultation between the two undoubtedly represent the intentions and plans of the Prince in these years and especially in the spring of 1750, to which period many can be dated from internal evidence.

This Parliamentary diary is taken from shorthand manuscripts in the archives of the Harrowby MSS. Trust at Sandon Hall in Stafford-shire. For nearly a century from about 1713 successive members of the Ryder family recorded much of their personal, legal and political activities in shorthand notes and diaries. This practice was begun by Sir Dudley Ryder, who used a variant of Rich's shorthand system, which had been devised in the seventeenth century. He taught the system to his son Nathaniel, the author of this diary, and he in turn taught it to his two eldest sons, Dudley, later first Earl of Harrowby and Foreign Secretary 1804–5, and Richard, Home Secretary 1809–1812. Legal business comprises much of the material thus recorded, and many other notes concern personal and social matters, or estate management and accounts: but a considerable amount of important Parliamentary and other political information has also been discovered. Altogether, the surviving shorthand documents at Sandon Hall amount to some four million words. During the last thirty years or so, the Earl of Harrowby has sought to have these documents transcribed as part of his plan to put his family records in order. Since 1949 this task has been undertaken on something approaching a voluntary basis by Mr. K. L. Perrin of Great Comberton in Worcestershire, a hobby of great benefit to past, present and future historians.