ABSTRACT
Abel Boyer's most important contribution, however, is as a recorder of contemporary history in the British Isles. His principal productions in this regard were his three-volume History of King William the Third, published in 1702–1703 immediately after the king's death, and continued in his The History of the Reign of Queen Anne Digested into Annals, published annually between 1703 and 1713. From January 1711 to just shortly before his death in November 1729 he also compiled a monthly periodical, The Political State of Great Britain. This provided a register of occurrences across Britain, America and Europe; abstracted pamphlets and books; offered observations on trade and public finance; and carried, as the first publication in England to do so, reports and summaries of parliamentary debates while Parliament was actually sitting. The Huguenot immigrant Boyer was, surprisingly, sufficiently knowledgeable about Westminster politics to know who the individual speakers were as well as their partisan stance.
