Mearne's widow sought and obtained the permission of the Privy Council in May 1684 to dispose of them on her family's behalf. Over the next four decades various members of the Sisson family (descendants of Samuel Mearne) endeavoured to sell the collection on numerous occasions to Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, the Bodleian Library, Thomas Thynne, 1st Viscount Weymouth, James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos, Frederick, Prince of Wales, the Radcliffe Library in Oxford and the antiquary and book collector "Honest Tom" Martin, but in each case the potential purchasers were put off by the high price asked. In January 1754 Elizabeth Sisson approached Thomas Birch one of the trustees of the newly established British Museum, loaning him the 12 volume catalogue, but again nothing was to come of the sale during Elizabeth Sisson's lifetime. Finally, in 1762, John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute purchased the collection on behalf of King George III for the bargain price of £300 (a fraction of the cost of forming the collection). In that same year King George III donated the collection to the new British Museum at Montagu House, where they were originally known as the "King's pamphlets" and added to the Royal Library Collection. In 1973, the museum transferred the Thomason Tracts to the British Library where they continue to be housed. Significance of the collection According to Thomas Carlyle, the Thomason Tracts were; The Thomason Tracts today Many of the publications that comprise the collection are exceedingly rare. In fact, some are not known to exist anywhere else. The tracts are bound into some 2,000 volumes and housed at the British Library's main building at St. Pancras. Because of their rarity and fragile condition, the originals are not available to general researchers. However, the library maintains paper facsimiles in its rare books collection, and in 1977 University Microfilms International released a set of 256 microfilm reels containing the entire collection. The microfilms are available at research libraries around the world. Notes References or Microsoft Word version on the author's website. Further reading , Preface by G.K. Fortescue. Volume 1 at Internet Archive Volume 2 at Internet Archive Stuart England British Library collections 17th-century documents English Civil War