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Investigation into the history of the various and successive issues of labels, wrappers, and envelopes connected with the Postal systems of the British Colonies in North America does not present the difficulties which had to be surmounted in the case of the Australian Colonies, and perhaps does not therefore include subject matter of so interesting a character as that comprised in the recent “Oceania” Catalogue.

Reference Lists of the North American Colonies have nevertheless been hitherto crude, as well as deficient, and even incorrect in detail, thus affording but superficial aid to the Philatelist: and the endeavour of the Society in the following pages has been to amplify the information at present in the possession of collectors; and by the collation of contents of recent papers in Canadian and English journals, as well as by reference to official gazettes and correspondence, to present as far as possible a complete history of the Postal Service in these Colonies.

In this endeavour it has derived a large amount of assistance from the researches of its late Secretary, Mr. E. D. Bacon, whose Notes at the head of each Colony were originally intended to have been read as a paper before the London Society, but which, by the desire of the Committee entrusted with the revision and publication of the accompanying lists, he has consented should be amalgamated with them, thus adding to the completeness of the present work. The Society is also largely indebted to Mr. Donald A. King for the permission to reproduce the valuable contents of certain papers he contributed to the Halifax Philatelist.

The lists of Canada and Newfoundland, the only two of the Colonies now using distinct stamps, have been completed to the end of June, 1889.

The same mode of illustration by the Autotype process, which proved successful in the case of the “Stamps of Oceania,” has been adopted on the present occasion, and is undoubtedly the most satisfactory of all methods of reproduction in fac-simile which have come under the notice of the Society.

August, 1889.