Sub-sub-series consists of correspondence received (both direct and by reference from other officials) by the Office of the Civil Secretary to the Governor-in-Chief. This numbered correspondence includes despatches from governors of other provinces, the British Minister at Washington and the widest range of officials as well as letters from individuals. The arrangement of the correspondence files in this sub-sub-series is chronological. Registers and indexes (see the Registers and indexes sub-sub-series) were also created in the office to provide control over and access to these files.
Petitions, memoranda, reports, letters and other documents were assigned a file number on receipt by the Civil Secretary. A single numbering sequence was used throughout the period 1841 to 1867 (see volumes 1-117). For a brief period, 1844-1846 and 1854, a second numbering sequence was in use, apparently for matters relating to "pecuniary assistance", patronage and pensions (see files 1-1041 in volumes 410-416).
The file number was endorsed on each incoming item (but not its enclosures), together with an identification of the author and subject, notes on action taken, and the date of the reply. This endorsement usually duplicates the information recorded in the registers. Documents referred from other government offices may bear file numbers from other sequences, such as the Provincial Secretary's Office, Canada East and Canada West.
Occasional duplication of numbers has been noted; the secretarial staff customarily added "1/2" to the file numbers when such errors were observed. Gaps in the sequence have not been specifically so identified. Such gaps were created when numbered files were referred to other offices and retained there (e.g., for Indian Affairs see the Office of the Civil Secretary in the Province of Canada series in the Indian and Inuit Affairs Program sous-fonds - R216, formerly RG10; or, for the Provincial Secretaries of Canada East and Canada West, see RG 4 C1 and RG 5, C1 respectively). The registers and indexes described in the Registers and indexes sub-sub-series identify the destination and thus permit tracing of these files in other series. One large gap in the numbering has been identified. The numbers 8100-8999 evidently were not used, as no files bearing such numbers exist.
Whether investigating a broad subject or a specific case, it is best to begin the actual examination of the documents with those of most recent date. Correspondence might have been brought forward and filed with the last item on a case. The custom of mentioning dates of previous correspondence also facilitates tracing related documents, linking incoming and outgoing correspondence. The numbered files in this sub-sub-series should never be consulted in isolation from the entry books in the Civil Secretary's letter books sub-sub-series of the Letter books sub-series.
