The Silas Talbot Papers, 1767-1867, consist of approximately 3,000 pieces including accounts, bills, receipts, account books, genealogical notes, printed materials, and correspondence contained in nine boxes. They illustrate well the varied career of Talbot as an Army and Navy officer during the American Revolution, merchant, gentleman farmer, land speculator, state legislator, Congressman, agent for the United States in the West Indies to protect American seamen, and Navy officer during the Quasi-War with France. The greatest bulk of the papers falls between 1792 and 1801 with approximately half of the total number falling in the period, 1798-1801. Well over half of the collection is composed of correspondence, perhaps three-fourths of which are incoming letters and one-fourth drafts of outgoing letters. In addition to the numerous important men whose correspondence is listed below, Talbot received a considerable number of letters from American seamen who had been impressed into the British Navy. Nearly all of the letters from these unfortunate individuals fall in the period 1796-1798.A great number of the accounts, bills, and receipts contained in the collection pertain to the outfitting of the sloop HAWK in 1778, the ship GEORGE WASHINGTON in 1798, and the CONSTITUTION in 1798 and 1800. Talbot's accounts with the United States as agent in the West Indies and as supervisor of the conversion of the ship GEORGE WASHINGTON from a merchant ship to a naval vessel are of considerable importance. Several free franks, postmarks, and seals of interest which were found among Talbot's papers have also been listed separately below. About twenty-five items in the collection are copies, some being positive photostats and others xerox reproductions.

Among the printed materials are three items of particular significance. The most important is what appears to be a preliminary printing of "Rules for the Regulation of the Navy of the United Colonies." The rules as here printed differ slightly from those adopted by the Continental Congress on November 28, 1775. This copy lacks the article numbers which exist in the published rules as they were adopted on November 28th. It also has two or three minor variants of wording and arrangements of words, phrases, or sentences. The wording is identical with that published by Gardner W. Allen in his A Naval History of the American Revolution except that Allen gives a list of rations and a pay scale that do not appear in our copy. Though it has not been determined definitely, it is thought that our copy may be a preliminary printing of the rules in the form in which the Naval Committee laid them before the Continental Congress on November 23, 1775. The other two printed items of note are successive issues of the broadside "Uniform for the Navy of the United States of America." The first bears the date August 24, 1797, and is said to be the first printing of these regulations. The other copy bears the date August 2, 1798. We have only a xerox copy of the latter.