The series of ordinary Council minutes maintained at the Archives of the Political Secretariat at Galle actually commenced in the year 1640, shortly after the capture of Galle by the Dutch from the Portuguese on the 13th March 1640.

After the capture of Colombo in 1656 however, as Colombo was made the Headquarters of the Central Government in Ceylon, the series of previous minutes of the Political Council which were filed in the Archives of the Galle Secretariat were taken over to Colombo and filed in the Archives there. They have accordingly been listed as nos. 1 to 6 in the "Catalogue of the Archives of the Dutch Central Government at Colombo" (published by Miss M.W. Jurriaanse in 1943). However, since they were the first recorded proceedings at the original headquarters of the Dutch Administration at Galle, and therefore really belong to the Archives of the original Secretariat at Galle, these six files are re-listed here in order to complete this series [1]. The series contains a regular record of the minutes extending up to the 26th February 1796, ten days after the capitulation of Colombo to the British.