Polignac is gone to Paris, but the Duke thinks not to be Minister. Polignac told him that he wished to return here, as he thought he could do more good here than there. [Page Head: THE STATE PAPER OFFICE.] Yesterday I went with Amyot to the State Paper Office to look after my Council books. I found one book belonging to my office and nearly thirty volumes of the 'Register of the Council of State,'[28] which I mean to ask for, but which I suppose they will refuse. Amyot suggests that as all the acts of the Council of State were illegal and of no authority they cannot be considered as belonging to the Council Office, and are merely historical records without an official character. I shall try, however, to get them. Mr. Lemon showed us a great many curious papers. When he first had the care of the State papers they were in the greatest confusion, and he has been diligently employed in reducing them to order. Every day has brought to light documents of importance and interest which as they are successively found are classed and arranged and rendered disposable for literary and historical purposes. [28] [Of the time of the Commonwealth. The 'Privy Council Register' extends from the last years of Henry VIII. to the present time, not including the Commonwealth.] Lemon has found papers relating to the Powder Plot alone sufficient to make two quarto volumes, exceedingly curious; all Garnett's original papers, and I hope hereafter they will be published.[29] We saw the famous letter to Lord Mounteagle, of which Lemon said he had, he thought, discovered the author. It has been attributed to Mrs. Abington, Lord Mounteagle's sister, but he thinks it was written by Mrs. Vaux, who was a friend of hers, and mistress, probably, of Garnett; it is to her that many of Garnett's letters are addressed. It seems that Mrs. Vaux and Mrs. Abington were both present at the great meeting of the conspirators at Hendlip, and he thinks that the latter, desirous of saving her brother's life, prevailed on Mrs. Vaux to write the letter, for the handwriting exactly corresponds with some other writing of hers which he has seen. There is a remarkable paper written by King James with directions what questions should be put to Guy Faux, and ending with a recommendation that he should be tortured first gently, and then more severely as might be necessary. Then the depositions of Faux in the Tower, which had been taken down (contrary to his desire) in writing, and which he was compelled to sign upon the rack; his signature was written in faint and trembling characters, and his strength had evidently failed in the middle, for he had only written 'Guido.' There is a distinct admission in the Plot papers in Garnett's own hand that he came to a knowledge of the Plot otherwise than by the Sacrament of Confession, which oversets Lingard; a paragraph by which it is clear that the Pope knew of it; and a curious paper