Vol. 63, No. 3 autumn 2018


184 In the latter case, you will need to search the letters by hand, using


your timeline as a guide to speed your search.


For date-sorted letters, you can use the “binary search” technique popular among computer programmers to speed your search. Split the letter pile in two roughly equal leſt (earlier) and right (later) halves. If the date you are looking for is before the date of the letter in the middle, repeat the split process on the leſt -hand pile, otherwise on the right-hand pile, until you fi nd your target letter. Normally, you will fi nd your letter in little more than four or fi ve splits.


Please have sympathy for future users by


preserving the date


ordering of loose letters. Also, to my understanding, the bound volumes were made sometime in the latter nineteenth century, and the bindings can be in various states of severe decay. Please try not to worsen their condition.


Table 3.


To further direct your search, Table 2 describes the ADM series I have found to be most useful for searching eighteenth-century sailing navy vessels. T e rightmost column of this table suggests a search strategy. Website search is more effi cient if the ADM series has been cataloged or is organized by some identifying information, such as ship name. Unfortunately, for series organized by date, like ADM 6 and ADM 95, the information you seek may be very sparsely distributed. In these cases, use your timeline to direct your search into relevant time periods only. For ADM 6 in particular, experience suggests you should start earlier than your timeline suggests and continue beyond its end to enhance your chances of fi nding something interesting.


Daily eighteenth-century communication to anyone


outside of the immediate vicinity was accomplished by handwritten letter. A substantial portion of each day must have been devoted to writing letters, even when a staff of clerks was on hand. ADM record series are distinguished by the “direction” of the letters they contain. Series containing letters received by an organization are said to contain “in-letters,” whereas those sent to others are “out-letters.”


Of course, one organization’s out-letter can be another organization’s in-letter. To avoid this sort of directional confusion, letters are classifi ed by the ADM series they reside in. So, a letter from the Navy Board to the Admiralty is a Navy Board out- letter if it is in ADM 106, but an Admiralty in-letter if it is in ADM 1. Admiralty out-letters, ADM 2, are eff ectively orders to one or more ship or dockyard commanders.


Finally, the structure of eighteenth-century letters can be somewhat unfamiliar to twenty-fi rst-century


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