Every careful student of history is aware that it is no longer possible to write the general history of any important country from the original sources; on any period, the materials which accumulate in a year are more than can be assimilated by one mind in three years. The general historian must use the results of others' work. It is therefore essential that the great phases of political and constitutional development be treated in monographs, each devoted to a single, limited subject and each prepared on a careful and scientific method. This first number of the historical series of the Fay House Monographs aims to.