Page:EB1911 - Volume 18.djvu/570



[The substitution of two secretaries for one was the consequence of the increase of business There was no distinction of departments, each Secretary taking whatever work the king saw fit to entrust him with. During the reigns of the first two Stuarts, however, there was a tendency to entrust one secretary with the correspondence with Protestant states and their allies, and the other with the correspondence with Catholic states. Probably in the reign of Charles II., and certainly as early as 1691, two departments, the Northern and the Southern, were instituted. In 1782 the departments were changed to Home and Foreign. A third secretary of state was appointed in 1794, and he was called the Secretary for War and the Colonies from 1801 to 1854, when the work was divided, and the War and Colonial Secretaryships were instituted. The Secretary of State for India was appointed in 1858.]