According to David Kahn (1967), The Codebreakers, p.1006-1007, BL Add MS 32258-32303 are the solutions, keys, and worksheets of the British Black Chamber.
Add MS 32256 and 32257 also seem to belong to the same collection. They appear to be papers of Francis Willes (1735-1827), who worked for the Deciphering Branch ca. 1758-1807 (Westminster School; Kenneth Ellis (1958), The Post Office in the Eighteenth Century, p.129-130). In Add MS 32256, f.13 (DECODE R9122) has a note "A Cypher discovered by F.W. in 1760", and f.14 has "Decyphered by me F.W. 1760." In Add MS 32257, a note (f.111, R9060) is addressed to "Sir Francis Willes", and another (f.215, R9107) is addressed "To Frances Willes Esq.r / at the secretary of State's office / London."
The present article describes some specimens from these two volumes.
Add MS 32256 appears to be directed to historical cryptanalysis of English or Jacobites' ciphers in 1640-1753.
f.4 (DECODE R9115) corresponds to "Cipher between Secretary Windebank and His Son (1640)" in another article reconstructed from deciphered materials in Add MS 32257.
f.5 (R9116), titled "King Charles I to the Queen, Oxford 1642", appears to be a worksheet counting frequency.
f.6 (R9117)=f.7(R9118) corresponds to "Third Cipher between Charles I and Henrietta-Maria (and Ministers) in Paris (Summer 1644-June 1645)" in another article.
f.8 (R9119) corresponds to "Cipher with Ministers in Oxford after Naseby (Summer-Fall 1645)" (ibid.).
f.13 (DECODE R9122) ("A Cypher discovered by F.W. in 1760") and f.14 (R9123) ("Decyphered by me F.W. 1760") are a clean copy and a worksheet on a printed template of a cipher between the Count Wratislau and the Duke of Marlborough (1707).
f.31 (R9130) is a cipher in English, annotated "an identical cipher key (c.1712-13), up to no.91 and then similar up to no.113 is in Blenheim (Sunderland) cipher papers, with another variant version in handwriting of Sarah Churchill[?] J&A 27/4/79", referring to Add MS 61575, f.64 (R8764).
f.49 (R9134) is a list of 16 code numbers, endorsed "Late Ld Mar to his wife."
f.16 (DECODE R9125) and f.22 (R9127) seem to be original pseudonym lists attributed to Lord[?] Cooper. (F.16 has an entry for "Lord Coupar.")
f.18 (R9126) is simply a list of words, names, and phrases, explained in f.28 (R9128). Code numbers 950, 951, 952, ... are implied for the entries of the first column; 900, 901, 902, ... are for the second column, etc. A third party can "make nothing of it, seeing no numbers at all."
The entries suggest these belong to ca. the 1710s.
f.36 (DECODE R9134) is a Vigenere table for a-z plus 1-17.
f.50 (DECODE R9144) is an intercepted cipher of the Old Pretender. It is endorsed "The King's Cypher", but the word "King's" is corrected to "Pretender's." Annotated "Taken by Sr George Byng at sea in 1719 & given me by him." The person who received this from Admiral Byng (1663-1733) may have been Edward Willes, the father of Francis Willes.
f.57 (DECODE R9148) is a cipher in Italian partially reconstructed on a printed template 1-1000. Alphabetical arrangement (DE=101). Endorsed "Cypher of Ct Sanseverino's inclosed under cover to Cl: Ré, & directed to ....; in Italian / 1720 / Supposed from the D. of [P]arma to L. Pererb[orough]."
Peterborough was in touch with the Duke of Parma in plotting against Cardinal Alberoni (Annals and Correspondence of the Viscount and the first and second Earls of Stair, vol.ii (pdf), p.121)
F.58 (R9149) appears to be a worksheet for frequency counting, with plaintext syllables and words. French. Alphabetical arrangement (DE=81). "Cypher from anonymous to the Marq. de Monteleone [supposed to be L. Peterb.] 1720." F.60 (R9150) is the same cipher on a printed template 1-1000. "An anonymous person wth the marques de monteleone 1720 [supposed to be L.Peterb.]"
F.62 (R9151,again in R9190) is a printed template for reconstructing a 1724 cipher (DE=213), with entries of the 1720 cipher (DE=81) added for comparison. "Vol.III page 31" "Peterborough a Monteleone 1720" "Cortancr Provana"[?] "London May 1724" "Vol. IIId Page 126" "1724"
F.64 (R9152) is a handwritten cipher (reconstruction?) in Italian. Alphabetical arrangement (DE=24). "Peterborough avec le Duc de Parme et le Cte Rocca / 1720/21"
F.66 (R9153) has four Polybius-square ciphers. "L[?] Peterborow" "part[?] cypher"
The two upper tables are used in January, March, May, July, September, and November. Of the two, the first is used for odd pages, and the second is used for even pages. Similarly for the lower tables in the other months.
Two-digit numbers including 7, 8, 9, or 0 are nulls ("false"). In three-digit numbers, 7, 8, 9, 0 in the last digit should be dropped when reading (the remaining two-digit figure may be false or significant).
Some are related to persons involved in the Atterbury Plot (1722) such as George Kelly or Dennis Kelly (see another article).
F.77 (DECODE R9160): "Taken amongst Captn Dennis Kelly's Papers July" "Kelly 1722".
F.78 (R9161) "This is said to be in G. Kelly's hand writing & taken, amongst Captn Dennis Kelly's papers, July or August 1722".
The series includes many template sheets in which Arabic figures are printed, in which plaintext reading is written during codebreaking.
There are also some templates for enciphering, in which alphabetically ordered words are printed: f.118 (DECODE R9184), f.120 (R9185), f.122 (R9186 & 9187).
F.196 (R9202, R9203, R9204) is a printed cipher in English, in which both code numbers and plaintext are printed. "1745"
Some appears to belong to Thomas Sheridan (Wikipedia), who was an advisor to the Young Pretender during the Jacobite Rising of 1745.
F.214 (DECODE R9206): "Cant names & an alphabet" "Taken upon Sheridan May 1746"
F.215 (R9207): "A Copy of a list of Cant Names taken upon Sheridan wth his Cyphers May 1746"
F.219 (R9208): "A list of cant names &c[?] taken upon Sheridan May 1746"
F.221 (R9209): "A key taken from Sheridan May 1746 English No.1." A cipher on a printed template 1-1000.
F.223 (R9210): "A key taken from Sheridan 1746 French No.2." A cipher on a printed template 1-900.
This encompasses at least 1776-1816.
In this period, some codes included entries up to 10000. F.5-f.38 (DECODE R9025-R9041) include printed templates numbered 1-1000, in each of which two series of plaintext (in French) are written. For example, f.12 (R9029), f.20 (R9033), and f.26 (R9036) are each used for numbers in the 8000s and 9000s (these belong to different codes).
There are many printed templates in which unintelligible letters are written (e.g., f.44 (R9044)). This must be part of cryptanalysis but its working is not clear to me.
F.39 (DECODE R9042) is a memo of a cipher in French, including "S. Deane to M Beaumarchais Philada 3 Decr 1778" "one hundred million of dollars publick debt 1/2 of which was contracted in 1778". The verso has an extract of the letter. (Silas Deane's letter from this date is not in Deane Papers, v (Google) round p.103; it appears Beaumarchais corresponded with Deane in English (p.284) but in French with Robert Morris (p.101).)
The code (DE=770/449) is the same as one used by Vergennes, French Foreign Minister etc. that I reconstructed before ("Code A" in another article). But it seems unlikely that the French diplomatic code was shared to Silas Deane and Beaumarchais. The verso shows a sentence in another code in English ("A. Lee (307) has in his letters (306) much (310) blamed (456) Spain (593) & left France (213) & England (136) pretty much alone.") and a letter substitution table. This may be the code between Deane and Beaumarchais.
F.56 (DECODE R9050) is "Keys from Doctor Wallis", including copies of three simple ciphers: "From Dr Wallis's Book Page 169 lent by Mr Hy[?] Blencowe 1788" "From Ditto p.217" "from Ditto p.229." Of course, "Wallis's Book" must refer to the bundle of deciphered keys of the celebrated codebreaker, John Wallis, or its copy deposited to the Bodleian Library at Oxford. It appears some descendant of William Blencowe, grandson of John Wallis and the first official decipherer in England, lent Wallis' materials to the Deciphering Branch. (About this time, the original was in the possession of William Wallis, great-grandson of John Wallis.) (See another article.)
F.66 (DECODE R9056) is a printed code ranging 1-4200 titled "G. 1792", with entries of the form "2 prof,liga,cy,te,ound,uf,e,ion." (Thus, the code "2" may represent "prof" "profliga" "profligacy" "profligate" "profound" "profus", ....) Such use of a code number for representing more than one words/elements are also seen in French ciphers (e.g., another article). Deciphering (with a key) of such a multivalent cipher is demonstrated in f.211 (R9105).
F.73 (R9056) begins an enciphering part in which the entries are arranged alphabetically. (The record terminates at "I have, the, Honour, to - 3501".)
It has the following instructions for the encipherer.
It is remarkable that four separate codes could be switched at will. The Appendix about indication of switching is found in the following:
F.81 (R9058) is Cipher "H. 1792" with the same instructions. F.88 (R9058) is an "APPENDIX" in which special symbols are defined for nulls, punctuation, deleting the number on each side, deleting the preceding number, etc. For code switching, it provides the following:
F.96 (R9059) is Cipher "K. 1792", again, with the same instructions.
If this series of codes in English was indeed British code rather than intercepted French code (the above appendix suggests this code in English was used with another in French), it is wondered how come the British came to use code switching similar to that in French diplomatic code (see another article).
F.111 (R9060) is a word list (annotated "circ. 1795") "To Sir Frances Willes", subscribed "Gicorrille[???]".
F.160 (R9078), annotated "?1807", is a letter code in which words are represented by two- or three-letter symbols (e.g., "Abandon. ment Za.") as well as by Arabic figures.
F.167 (R9080) is a note "R[eceive]d Feb[ruar]y 11 - 1814" "4 Letters sent by Mr H[illya]r dated U.S. Frigate Essex at Sea Pac. Ocean. July 22d & 23d 1814. Capt. Porter." That is, when US Frigate Essex (Wikipedia) under Captain Porter was seized by a British frigate under Hillyar in March 1813, the latter sent four letters home.
It has a short ciphertext dated 13 June 1809 with frequency counting ("Calc.n Porter's C[iphe]r").
Some sheets have notes referring to historical events such as Declaration of Frankfurt (1813)(Wikipedia), Treaty of Reichenbach (1813) (Wikipedia), Treaty of Kiel (1814) (Wikipedia) (f.177, DECODE R9085), treaty of commerce with Naples (1816) (f.183, R9088)
F.215 (R9107) is a word list addressed to "To Frances Willes Esq.r / at the secretary of State's office / London", with a note "Russia guarantees to Austria & Prussia their acquisitions in Poland & those powers engage themselves to ensure Russia the independency of the Crimea (Wikipedia) & the Nav^n of the blacksea." Although this is filed late in the volume, the event seems to refer to the first Partition of Poland in 1772, which coincides with the period when Francis Willes was removed from the Deciphering Branch to serve as under secretary of state (1772-1775) (Ellis, p.130).
F.204=f.205 (DECODE R9099, 9100) are two copies of a full syllabic cipher, in which the 25 letters of the alphabet (no J) and all the two-letter combinations are assigned random three-digit figures in a table. F.203 (R9098) is a deciphering table.
Héder, M ; Megyesi, B. The DECODE Database of Historical Ciphers and Keys: Version 2. In: Dahlke, C; Megyesi, B (eds.) Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2022. Linkoping, Sweden : LiU E-Press (2022) pp. 111-114. , 4 p. [pdf]
Megyesi Beáta, Esslinger Bernhard, Fornés Alicia, Kopal Nils, Láng Benedek, Lasry George, Leeuw Karl de, Pettersson Eva, Wacker Arno, Waldispühl Michelle. Decryption of historical manuscripts: the DECRYPT project. CRYPTOLOGIA 44 : 6 pp. 545-559. , 15 p. (2020) [link]
Megyesi, B., Blomqvist, N., and Pettersson, E. (2019) The DECODE Database: Collection of Historical Ciphers and Keys. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Historical Cryptology. HistoCrypt 2019, June 23-25, 2019, Mons, Belgium. NEALT Proceedings Series 37, Linköping Electronic Press. [pdf]