PROTOCOL

The first draft or rough minutes of an instrument or transaction; the original copy of ·a dispatch, treaty, or other document. Brande. · A document serving as the prellmlnary to, or op!!ning of, any diplomatic transaction. In old Scotch practice. A book, marked by the clerk-register, and delivered to a notary on his admi ion, in which he was di·,ecl:ed to insert all the instruments he had occasion to execute; to be preserved as a record. Bell. In France, the minutes of notarial acts were for merely transcribed on registers, which were called "protocols." Toullier, Drott Civil Fr. Uv. 3, t. 3, c. 6, a. 1, no. 413. [s. 967]