page 162 note ¹ Williamson was appointed Keeper 31st Dec. 1661, “on surrender of Thomas Raymond, esq. with the usual annual fee of 1601. paid quarterly.” (S. P. O. Doc. vol. i. No. 127.)

page 162 note ² Williamson, being already secretary of Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State, was appointed Keeper of the Paper Office, December 31, 1661. In 1666 Williamson undertook the superintendence of the London Gazette, which was registered as the property of Thomas Newcombe, also registered proprietor of the Oxford Gazette, which had been begun the year before at Oxford, and had reached the No. 24 when the first number of the London Gazette appeared. (Chalmers's Life of Euddiman, p. 422.) News-letters in manuscript were also systematically circulated to subscribers and correspondents, whose letters furnished the materials for the Gazette and the news-letters. This report explains in detail how the letters were made, and gives a list of the parties to whom they were sent, mentioning the sums annually subscribed by those who paid. Mr. Ball, who makes the report, is one of Williamson's most frequent and regular correspondents, and the whole of the Paper Office arrangements were done by clerks of the Secretary of State's office under Williamson's superintendence. For some further details see Mrs. Everett Green's Preface to the volume of Calendars of State Papers of the reign of Charles II. 1665–6.