While Hutchinson’s continuation of the story beyond 1749 was as yet unknown, George Richards Minot planned to take up the narrative and carry it on. Minot’s _Continuation of the History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay from 1748_ shows that he made use of the files in the state house as well as their condition then permitted, but he was conscious of the assistance which he might have had, and did not possess, from the papers in the English archives. His first volume was printed in 1798; and he died before his second volume was published, in 1803, which had brought the record down to 1765, but stopped abruptly.[349] Grahame (iii. 446) calls the work “creditable to the sense and talent of its author,” but considers “his style frequently careless, and even slovenly and ungrammatical.” His contemporaries viewed his literary manner much more favorably, and were inclined to give him a considerable share in placing our native historical literature upon a scholarly basis. More painstaking research, with a careful recording of authorities, characterizes the only other _History of Massachusetts_ of importance, that by John S. Barry, whose second volume is given to the period now under consideration,—a work, however, destitute of commensurate literary skill, or its abundant learning would give it greater reputation. Haliburton, in chapters 2 and 3 of book iii. of _The Rule and Misrule of the English in America_, traces in a summary way the turbulent politics of the province of Massachusetts during its long struggle against the royal prerogative. Emory Washburn’s _Sketches of the judicial history of Massachusetts from 1630 to the revolution in 1775_, Boston, 1840, contains biographical notices of the judges of Massachusetts, and traces the relations of the study of the law to the progress of political events. William Henry Whitmore’s _Massachusetts civil list for the colonial and provincial records, 1630-1774_, Albany, 1870, is a list of the names and dates of appointment of all the civil officers constituted by authority of the charters or the local government. The general histories of Maine (during this period a part of Massachusetts) have been sufficiently characterized in another place.[350]