Note 2 — THE PREFACE

Of these records belonging to the state carried away by Cromwel to secure our dependence on England, there were 85 hogsheads lost Dec. 18, 1660, in a ship belonging to Kirkaldy, as she was returning with them from London. And as for the church records and registers, a great many of them also (either through the confusion of the then civil wars, or falling into the hands of the prelates while prelacy prevailed in Scotland) are also a-missing. Preface to Stevenson's History.