To the Honorable City Council:

GENTLEMEN, — I transmit herewith a descriptive list of the autographs and manuscripts purchased at the Leffingwell sale, for which the City Government appropriated the sum of $1,000, to be expended by the City Clerk, by an Order approved Dec. 23, 1890. The purchases, which include fortyfour lots, or more than one hundred separate pieces, were made at my request by Mr. C. W. Ernst, to whom the credit is due for the excellent selection made, and also for the very complete descriptive list. Of the amount appropriated, there is still left a balance of $96.68 that will be used at the next sale, which will take place in the near future.

Respectfully submitted,

EDWIN U. CURTIS,
City Clerk.

BOSTON, Jan. 19, 1891.

MR. EDWIN U. CURTIS, City Clerk, Boston: —

DEAR SIR, I submit herewith forty-four lots of autographs and manuscripts bought at the Leffingwell sale; also a description of the same, with historical references; and my account. As the Order under which the purchase was made. provides that the total outlay shall not exceed $1,000, and that it shall be confined to "manuscripts or printed documents which deserve a place in the city archives," as kept in the custody of the City Clerk, hardly anything has been secured that does not bear directly upon the records of the Town of Boston. Nearly every document secured was once the property of Boston. The competition for these was extraordinary. In fact, the prices obtained at the sale were very high. A document signed by Josiah Winslow and others (catalogue No. 2,729) brought $550; a Roger Williams letter (2,727), $310; a John Eliot letter (2,004), $500; an imperfect document signed by him (2,005), $220; a letter of Roger Sherman (3,206), $145. The Crispus Attucks inquest (535) went for $220. As the paper remains in Boston and will be accessible, and as it is not an official paper of the Town of Boston, it was not deemed advisable to risk a higher sum of money. But $185 was given for the petition of Sam. Adams addressed to the Town of Boston, and clearing his name of a grave charge. This historical document; the memorial on the Blue-hill lands to be used for the Latin School (521) : the Neponset deed of 1638; the Franklin memorial on Dock square (2,409), and the iron works letter of 1652 (2,728); as also the conduit paper of 1658 (3,087 of the sale catalogue), and the Rumney-Marsh report of 1666 (S. C. 3,131), are all great prizes that should be in the possession of the City. The Public Library did not bid against the documents of an official nature wanted for the City Hall archives. But every paper not directly connected with the government affairs of Boston might well be transferred to the Public Library. The second half of the Leffingwell collection will be sold March 17-21, but contains relatively few papers, though some, that should be secured for the City Hall archives.

Respectfully,

C. W. ERNST.

LIST OF PURCHASES.

1. (Sale Catalogue 71.) Petition of the Town of Boston to the General Court, asking for an addition to the sum of 600 pounds left by Thomas Hancock toward building an insane asylum in Boston. The petition is dated May 28, 1766, and was authorized by a Town vote on May 10, 1766. (See Rec. Comm. rep., vol. 16, p. 184.) It is signed by Samuel Welles, Foster Hutchinson, Ezekiel Goldthwait. William Phillips, Joseph Jackson, Benjamin Kent, and Samuel Sewall, the Town committee. The object was not attained, and the hospital was not built until 1837, being first occupied in 1839. The document is, perhaps, the earliest bearing upon the erection of a Boston hospital for the insane.

2. (S. C. 506.) Petition of Samuel Adams, addressed to the Town of Boston, and asking for his discharge as taxcollector. The petition was presented at the annual Town meeting on March 13, 1769, and was granted by "a very great majority," as the Town Records state. (See Rec. Comm., vol. 16, pp. 271-2.) This important historical document. never published, clears Adams of the charge of defalcation" brought against him by Hutchinson's history (vol. 3). The vote of the Town was ratified by the General Court (see Province Laws, latest ed., vol. 5, p. 27) on July 15, 1769. See Hosmer's "Samuel Adams," p. 37, and especially Goodell's remarks in "Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society," XX.. 213-226. The petition of Samuel Adams is unquestionably one of the most precious manuscripts in the possession of the City, and should be guarded with the greatest care.

3. (S. C. 508.) Six pieces. Petition of Ames Angier, supported by some 250 inhabitants, asking that he might be appointed master of the South Writing School, newly established on the Common (now Mason Street). The documents were written at the end of 1718 and the beginning of 1719. At the annual Town meeting of 1719-20 Angier was given the place (Rec. Comm., vol. 8, p. 143) ; but a year later he was discharged (1 c., p. 164-5), the inspectors reporting that "it will be no Service to the Town to continue mr. Anger in that Employ." The documents are interesting as throwing light upon the origin of free grammar schools in Boston. The South School is entered upon the Bonner and Burgiss maps, and led to the establishment of our school headquarters in Mason Strect. Angier's petition is an amusing document.