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 preliminary to or opening of, any diplomatic transaction. In old Scotch practice. A book, marked by the clerk-register, and delivered to a notary on his admission, in which he was directed 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 formerely transcribed on registers, which were called "protocols." Toullier, Droit Civil Fr. liv.

3, t. 3, c. 6, s. 1, no. 413.