Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/270

 26o p. Mantoux How did the senders procure the reports of the debates? Did they keep a permanent staff for that purpose, or did they resort to professional reporters, who did not work for them only? They seem to have tried both systems. The reader will remember that M. de Cambis, when he complained of his not being able to get information on parliamentary business as easily as his predecessors, wrote as follows : " I am convinced that I shall succeed only by dint of money, for the men who report the debates have to pay a dear price for the ushers' compliance, and to employ several copyists who cost them much." ^ Agents in the permanent service of the embassy would not be alluded to in these terms ; most probably he meant independent reporters, who were paid for each of the reports they brought. - It may be suggested that they were the men who did the same sort of work for the editors of periodicals. If it were so, our esti- mation of the documents kept at the French Foreign Office should be much lowered. But the texts show many points of difference which in most instances forbid the hypothesis of a common origin. It is just possible that the embassy did sometimes resort to the reporters who worked for the magazines in order to get certain parliamentary documents before they were printed. In a letter dated JNIarch 8, 1768, we read the following lines': The bill entitled ' an act for regulating the transactions of the United Company of Merchants trading in the East Indies "... was lately read for the third time. As there has been much noise here about that affair, on account of the many persons who hold shares in the East India Com- pany, and as one of my friends has procured for me an abstract of the opponents' manifesto, which up to the present time has been kept secret by order of the House of Lords, but which will be printed in the Political Register soon after the dissolution of the present Parliament, I thought you would like to get it beforehand. But the wording of this letter shows that the person who wrote it was not in direct communication with the editor of the Political Register, and was indebted for the document he sent — a protest drawn up in the customary form — to some private correspondent. 'Vol. 397, f. 104. And a little further, in a letter dated February 20: "I include ... an abstract of the debate in the House of Commons on the number of the land forces, "l found it rather hard to procure it. since it is now impos- sible, as I had the honor to let you know, to use the same means as we did in the last few years. However, I hope to get the accounts of other debates in the same way, when the matter debated upon will be worth the while" (ibid. f. tiS). "A report dated April 28/May 9, 1735, ends thus: "They promise to get for us the continuation of this debate next week" (vol. 391, f. leo"). 3 Vol. 4S4, f. 18.