1782; beside various journals, original or copies, of expeditions (1755-1794), — making the whole number of original pieces, relating variously to the Revolution, over five thousand. The papers in the Library of Congress lack much of the official character attaching to those in the Department of State.

The papers of the Department of State, accrued from its current business, consist in the main of the following classes: Laws, treaties, proclamations of the President, diplomatic and consular correspondence, national boundary maps, reports of surveys for boundary lines, claims of citizens against foreign governments, pardons by the President, records of commissioners appointed by the President.

The condition of the records of the Navy Department is described elsewhere by Professor Soley.1 Theodore Roosevelt, in his Naval War of 1812, says that he took the official reports on the British side from published works like the Naval Chronicle; but those on the American side were found in the archives of the Navy Department, divided into letters, log-books (exasperatingly incomplete at crises, he says), contractsmuster-rolls, etc. The letters make several volumes for each year from captains, master-commandants, and other officers. He thinks the fire of 1837 destroyed many papers.

The former neglectful methods regarding the official papers of the Navy Department is illustrated in the papers accumulated by Benjamin W. Crowninshield, Madison's Secretary of the Navy, which now exist in the hands of his descendants. They contain the letters and reports of captains and fleet commanders of a char acter properly attaching them to the archives of the department.2

Mention has already been made of the archives of the War Department. There are in the Pension Bureau of the Interior Department papers relating to the participancy of the States in the Revolutionary War, which apparently have at some time been turned over to that Bureau from the War Department.

The Land Office and the Office of Indian Affairs contain many papers necessary in the study of the settlement and development of the United States

The papers belonging to the Department of State have come to it for two reasons: first, as being the nat ural inheritor of the papers of the antecedent governments and administrations; and, second, as the fitting repository for such accessions as the nation has acquired from private hands, in the main by purchase. Of these two classes some account will now be given.

--

From the committee and department of foreign affairs of the Continental Congress came the diplomatic correspondence, conducted at first by a committee of Congress; but after August 10, 1781, by R. R. Livingston, the first Secretary of Foreign Affairs. It embraces not only the correspondence with the American agents in Europe, to be supplemented from the papers of Franklin, Arthur Lee, John Adams, Silas Deane, and John Jay, — but the correspondence of the government held with Gérard (1778-79) and with Luzerne (1778-83). Copies of a good deal of this correspondence, made by Sparks, who latterly intended writing a history of the diplomacy of the Revolution,4 are in the Sparks MSS. in Harvard College Library.5

Under an act of Congress in 1818, Sparks was employed to edit a selection from these diplomatic papers, and the work, Diplomatic Correspondence of the Revolution, appeared in twelve volumes, at Boston, in 1829-30.6

Indications of serious omissions and changes made by Sparks in his edition are contained in the Report of the Committee on Printing, Feb. 6, 1888 (Senate Doc., no. 194), recommending a reprinting of the Correspondence. This report points out that Sparks omitted all letters or portions of letters tending to show the movements of French politicians in 1776 to supersede Washington by Marshal Broglie; the movements by American politicians in 1776-77 to induce Washington's withdrawal, and to have Franklin recalled from Paris; and others necessary to make plain the atrocities of British troops and of refugees in the United States, when brought forward by the American diplomatists as a claim ag inst Great Britain and a set-off against British claims for indemnity to loyalists; and that Sparks further 2.pped important passages respecting the fisheries, and such other passages as showed the extent of the views prev..ing among the negotiators of the treaty of 1782 that the treaty was one of partition, not of concession on Great Britain's part, which view

1 Ante, Vol. VII. p. 414.

2 I have examined them by the courtesy of Mr. B. W. Crowninshield, of Boston. Cf Mass Hist. Soc. Proc., Nov., 1888.

3 Ante, Vol. VII. p. 413.

▲ Sparks MSS., no. li.

5 That with Chas. W. F. Dumas, the government agent in Holland (1778-1783), is in no. lxxiv. (cf. ante, VII. p. 68); that of Gérard in no. lxxiv.; that of Luzerne in no. xc.; that of Oliver Pollock, a merchant at New Orleans who kept the government informed of events there, in no. xli. Cf. H. E. Hayden's Pollock Genealogy. A biographical sketch of Oliver Pollock. of Carlisle, Pa., United States commercial agent at New Orleans and Havana, 1776-1784; with genealogical notes of his descendants. Also, genealogical sketches of other Pollock families settled in Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Pa., 1883).

6 B. P. Poore's Descrip. Catal., nos. 3, 698, 746; Alli

bone, ii. 2191. Mr. C. F. Adams (John Adams's Works, vii. p. 4) says of tl: Dipl. Corresp of the Rev., that it is "a valuable work, but unfortunately disfigured by numerous typographical errors, especially in proper names, and wanting in a thorough index." The letters in foreign latguages are translated into English. He also (John Adams's Works, vi. p. 190) points out how inadequately this is done in me instances. Sparks has not escaped criticism for exceeding the ordinary limits of annotation in editing such works, and expressing party views upon mooted questions. John Jay's Address on the Peace Negotiations of 82-83 (1884), p. 43.

Congress voted, 1830, $31,300 to carry out Sparks's contract with Henry Clay, Secretary of State, to print the series 1778-1783; and, 1832, $12,000 for the series 17831789, with additional series in 1833, 1834. The legislation will be found in Statutes at Large, iv. 382, 513, 620, 669, 689, 743; v. 170, 171.

served to strengthen the previous territorial rights of the colonies. Further than this, the report says that Sparks omitted, and gave no signs of omitting, whatever in his judgment was unnecessary or impolitic to print; and that he changed what did not satisfy his taste in style, sometimes to the detriment of the sense. The Report then goes on to cite numerous instances in support of its allegations.

The report was probably written or arranged by Dr. Francis Wharton, then an officer of the State Department, who was finally, by a joint resolution of Congress, approved Aug. 13, 1888, entrusted with the editorship of a new collection of the diplomatic correspondence, in which the papers used by Sparks should be given "in their integrity," and others obtained from abroad and from private hands should be added to double the extent of the publication, the whole to be annotated with historical and legal notes. Dr. Wharton had

got well on in the preparation of copy, and some part had been put into type, when he died. It is understood that the work will be carried to completion under other supervision.

Further, among the papers transmitted from the Continental Congress are its domestic correspondence, the memorials and petitions presented to it, the reports of its committees, the original motions made in its sessions, and its journals. These ast daily records are almost wholly in the handwriting of Charles Thompson,1 the Secretary of Congress through all its years.2

1 He had begun his observations on passing events at the time of the Stamp Act Congress, and wrote a record of its doings, which Wm. B. Reed, in a discourse before the N. Y. Hist. Soc., Dec. 19, 1839 (p. 35), says was in his possession. It is printed in the N. Y. Hist. Soc. Fund Publ., 1878.

The papers of the Continental Congress passed from Thompson's hands into those of Roger Alden, for safekeeping, by order of Washing:on, July 24, 1789 (Sparks's Washington, x. 16. Cf. Corresp. of the Rev., iv. 99).

2 They are described by Theodore F. Dwight in a letter printed by Mellen Chamberlain in his paper on the Authentication of the Declaration of Independence (Cambridge, 1885, p. 19). The "Rough Journals " (Sept 5. 1774-Mar. 2, 1789) are the original minutes, contained in thirty-nine foolscap volumes. Of this, for the interval Sept. 5, 1775Jan. 20, 1779, there is a fair copy in ten volumes, and the published journals are said to have been printed from this copy, a committee of Congress marking out what was not to be transcribed for the printer. A third journal is the "Secret Domestic Journal," May 10, 1775-Oct. 26, 1787. A fourth is a "Secret Journal, foreign and domestic," Oct. 18, 1780-Mar. 29, 1786. A fifth is a "Secret Journal of Foreign Affairs," Nov. 29, 1775-Sept. 16, 1788, in three volumes. A sixth is an 66 Imperfect Secret Journal," Sept. 17, 1776-Sept. 16, 1788. A seventh is the "More Secret Journal," in which there are few entries. An eighth, a "Secret Journal A, 17 6-1783," being minutes afterwards entered in the public Journals. Cf. Amer. Quart. Review, March, 1827.

The earliest publication of these Journals was that of the Congress beginning Sept. 5, 1774 (Philad., 1774,- Hildeburn's Century of Printing... in Penna., ii. no. 3036). That of the session opening May 10, 1775, was printed in Philadelphia, Wilmington, and New York in 1775, and in London in 1776 (Sabin, iv. 15,543; Hildeburn, ii. 3229, 3410). What is known in the collected series of the Fournals as vol. i. (Sept. 5, 1774-Jan. 1, 1776) was printed in Philadelphia, and reprinted in 1777, and also by Almon in London. The successive volumes were thirteen in all, but they went beyond the peace to 1788. Vol. ii. covered 1776 (Philad., 1777, and Yorktown, Pa., 1778, — Hildeburn, ii. 3577, 3727). There were issues in monthly parts, and such copies as were left over were used to make cartridges (Hildeburn, ii. 3409). Vol. iii. covered 1777 (Philad, 1778, - Hildeburn, ii. 3-28). Vol. iv. covered 1778 (Philad., 1779,Hildeburn, ii. 3900). For this year there were also monthly, and, later in the year, weekly parts (Hildeburn, ii. 3898, 3899). Vol. v. covered 1779 (Philad., 1782,- Hildeburn, ii. 4206). Vol. vi. covered 1780 (Philad., 1780, 1781, in monthly parts,— Hildeburn, ii. 4014, 4016). Vol. vii. covered 1791 and part of 1782 (Philad.. 1781, Hildeburn; ii. 4117). Vol. viii. covered Nov., 1782-Nov., 1783 (Philad., 1783,- Hildeburn, ii. 4311).

-

Mr. Paul Leicester Ford tells me that he finds the monthly issues much fuller than the collected volumes, and being intended for members only, less precaution was taken

to keep secret information out of them. Mr. Ford is printing a bibliography of the Continental Congress in the Boston Public Library Bulletin.

In 1790 it was ordered that the whole series, Sept. 5, 1774-Nov. 3, 1788, should be reprinted, and they appeared in Philad. in 13 vols. in 1800, 1801. They were again reprinted at Washington in 1823 as The Public Journals of the Continental Congress, divided as follows: Vol. i., Sept. 5, 1774-Dec. 31, 1776; ii., Jan. 1, 1777-July 1, 1778; iii., Aug. 1, 1778-March 31, 1782; iv., April 1, 1782-March 3, 1789. This edition makes considerable omissions.

The Committee of Secret Correspondence and (after April 17, 1777) the Committee on Foreign Affairs kept records which were not included in the ordinary journals, nor printed in the series just described; but they do appear, in part, in The Secret Journals of the Acts and Proceedings of Congress (Boston, 1821-23), in four vols.: Vol. i., Domestic Affairs, 1774-78; ii., Foreign Affairs, 1774-Aug. 16, 1781; ., July 1, 1781-May 15, 1786; iv., May 17, 1786Sept. 16, 1788.

Neither of these printed series gives the record in full. Peter Force, in what he printed in the American Archives, seems to have collated the printed record with the originals; but, as it is presented by him, it is not altogether correct. G. T. Curtis (Hist. of the Const., i. p. ix) urged the printing of a new revised edition, but a committe: of Congress reported adversely.

G. W. Greene, in his Hist. View of the American Revolution, suggests that the full record should be printed, eked out for the debates, from as much as is preserved for us in the works of Adams, Jefferson, Gouverneur Morris, and others. Perhaps the best account of the doings of Congress after 1780 is to be found in Rives's Madison, vol. i. The Madison Papers (1841), vol. i., contain the debates from Nov. 4, 1782, to Jan. 21, 1783. Cf. Madison's views (Letters, iii. 362) on the proposed publication (1824) of the archives of the Confederation. The proceedings, from Thomson's papers as coried for Sparks, are in the Sparks MSS., Ixii. See ante, Vol. VII.

The members of the successive Congresses are enumerated in Ben: Perley Poore's Polit. Register and Congressional Directory, 1776-1878 (Boston, 1878). The fullest and most accurate of lists of members, however, is in The Collector, i., No. 8. The best key to the journals and other Revolutionary publications is in A Descriptive Catalogue of the government publications of the United States, Sept. 5, 1774, to March 4, 1881. Compiled by order of Congress by Ben: Perley Poore, Clerk of Printing Records (Washington, 1885). The work is a large quarto, double column, fine print, and is supplied with an index of names of subjects. After much blundering, a system was reached which, followed for two years, produced .this record of 63,063 publications. Mr. Poore's preface is a bold exposure of the unintelligent ways in which Congress undertook to have the work proceed, and of the makeshift manner in which it was finally done. Only 14 of

Of the second or acquired class of papers, which have been gathered in the archives of the Department of State, the manuscripts of Washington were the earliest committed to its care, and of the most importance and interest. The documents relative to their purchase at different times are printed in the U. S. Public Docu

ments.

The contributions of Jared Sparks to the history of the Revolution are the most considerable that any one has made, and the personal associations of no other historian are so closely linked with the name and fame of Washington. Born (May 10, 1789) but a short time after Washington assumed the presidency, he was the first to form any systematic scheme for the publication of Washington's papers.

The manuscripts had not been, indeed, neglected by earlier writers. Gordon and Ramsay had drawn from them, but it was at the hands of Marshall that the most conspicuous use had been made of them.

The earliest publication of letters ascribed to Washington was made in London in 1777, in a volume called Letters from General Washington to several of his friends in the year 1776. It was pretended that the letters thus published had been captured while in the keeping of a servant of Washington, who fell into the hands of the British at the evacuation of Fort Lee. The letters were meant to represent Washington as at variance with Congress, and in opposition to the spirit of independence.2 They are said to have been written by John Randolph, a Virginia loyalist.

Some years later the official letters of Washington, addressed to Congress, were copied from the archives of the Secretary of State, and the copies being taken to London by Mr. John Carey, they were printed there, in 1795, as Official Letters to the Honorable American Congress, written during the War between the United Colonies and Great Britain.3 The occasion was now taken to impose once more upon the public the spurious letters, by representing that they were necessary to complete this collection, which was genuine and accordingly, still further to confuse the public mind, other official and genuine letters, which the recent publication had omitted, were appended to them, and the whole was published in 1796, at first in New York and then in London, as Epistles, domestic, confidential, and official, from General Washington, written about the commencement of the American contest, when he entered on the command of the army of the United States, ... none of which have been printed in the two volumes published a few months ago. Washington never publicly disowned the forged letters till just on the eve of his retiring from the presidency in 1797. At this time he wrote a letter to the Secretary of State (March 3, 1797) which he desired might be preserved in the archives of the Department. He says of the letters, referring to the period of their first publication: "It was then supposed to be of some consequence to strike at the integrity of the motives of the American commanderin-chief, and to paint his inclinations as at variance with his professions and duty. Another crisis in the affairs of America having occurred, the same weapon has been resorted to, to wound my character and deceive the people." 5

15

Except the life of Washington by Marshall, already referred to, there had been no considerable or authorita

Records of the Revolutionary War, containing the Military and Financial Correspondence of Officers, Names of Officers and Privates of Regiments, Companies, and Corps, with dates of their commission and enlistment, General Orders of Washington, Lee, and Greene, etc., by W. T. R. Saffell (New York, 1858).

Almon's Charters of the British Colonies in America, (London, 1775).

Anthony Stokes's Constitutions of the British Colonies (London, 1783).

Israel Mauduit's Short view of the history of the New England Colonies with respect to their charters and constitution (London, 1776, 4th ed.).

William Griffith's Historical Notes of the American Colonies and the Revolution, 1754-1775 (Burlington, N. J., 1843).

The records of the councils of war, 1775-1781, from Washington's papers, are in no. lii., part 2, of the Sparks MSS.

A list of the general officers appointed by Congress, June 17, 1775, to Sept. 30, 1783, is in the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., Jan., 1866, p. 37, compiled by J. Colburn. Cf. Greene's Historical View, p. 452.)

Thomas H. S. Hamersly's Complete regular army

register of the United States, 1779-1879. With the official military record of each officer Also, A military history of the Department of War (Washington, 1880).

Proclamations for Thanksgiving in the United States of America, 1777-1858, with historical introduction and notes [by F. B. Hough], (Albany, 1858).

Niles's Principles and Acts of the Revolution (1822), a gathering of contemporary records, without chronological arrangement, but having an index. It was reprinted in 1876.

1 The Report of the Committee recommending an ap propriation to buy the books and papers of Washington, in Reports of Committees, no. 381, 23d Cong., 1st sess.. iii.; John C. Calhoun's Report on the papers of the Confederation and Washington, Jan. 8, 1845, in House Documents, no. 63, 28th Cong., 2d sess., ii.; and Acts, 30th Cong, ad sess. (1849), ch. 100, with Statutes at Large, iv. 712; v. 528, 691, 695, 760; ix. 162, 168, 370, 560.

2 They were reprinted in New York in Rivington's Royal Gazette in Feb., 1778, and subsequently in a sepa rate issue, as well as in other editions in London. Sparks's Washington, i. 265: v. 376, 391; Sparks's Catal., nos. 2777, 2778. Irving (Washington, iii. 332) says they were printed in New York in a handbill, and extracts were published in Philadelphia. Cf. Hildeburn's Bibliography (1778), ii. 3649. They were again printed in Philad., by Wm. Duane, in 1795.

3 They were published as vols. i. and ii. of American State Papers. They were reprinted in Boston and New York in 1796.

Sparks's Washington, xi. 184; Sparks's Catal., no. 2772; Allibone, p. 2596.

5 Sparks's Washington, xi. 192.

tive memoir of him published before Sparks began his labors on these Washington papers.1 Some time before 1824 Sparks had begun to think of collecting material relating to Washington, and finally, with the friendly cooperation of Judge Story, he succeeded, after one failure, in gaining the assent of Judge Bushrod Washington, nephew of the General, and at that time the owner of Mount Vernon and guardian of the papers,2 to examine them and make selections for publication. His contract with the Judge was signed June 18, 1827, and the friendly patronage of Marshall was also secured for the undertaking. From March to May of that year Sparks was at Mount Vernon making his researches, and from that mansion he wrote two letters to Story (May 4 and 7), the first of which was published in the National Intelligencer in Washington, May 19th, and both were printed in a tract entitled An account of the Manuscript Papers of George Washington, which were left by him at Mount Vernon, with a plan for their publication (Boston, 1827).3

The papers were removed from Mount Vernon to Cambridge, Mass., and here, with clerical assistance and some interruptions, Sparks spent ten years upon his task of selecting and annotating such parts as best suited his purpose of furnishing, according to his view, a complete memorial of Washington's character and actions. These interruptions consisted of visits to various state and family archives, and to battlefields, and covered a trip to Europe, whither he went to procure from the English and French archives such documents as he was privileged to copy, and which might aid in the elucidation of Washington's text, or furnish the material for later labors. He was particularly supplied by Lafayette with his own papers, and copies of his letters to the French government. It was while thus engaged in Cambridge that he delivered an address before the Phi Beta Kappa Society on the study of American history, in which, referring to the stores of material on our Revolutionary history at that time unexplored in this country and in Europe, he said, "No Rymers have yet appeared among us who were willing to spend a life in gathering up and embodying these memorials ;" and he refers to the period from the close of the French war to the peace of Paris as one "rounded with epic exactness, having a beginning, a middle, and an end; a time for causes to operate, for the stir of action, and for the final results."

The second but first-published volume of the Washington was ready for the public in 1833, and in July, 1837, Sparks finished the life of Washington, which constituted the first volume of the twelve. He had fairly and with clearness announced in his preface the principles and limitations of his editorial method. He had explained that in most instances he had been forced to follow the letter-books, and had shown that these transcriptions differed from the rough drafts which Washington kept, and probably differed from the letters actually sent. In cases where he could procure the letters as received by Washington's correspondents, he had followed them, instead of the letter-books; but of these he says, "The discrepancies are of little moment, relating to the style and not to the substance;" and he further said that these variations were much greater in the letters written at Mount Vernon and before the Revolution than in those composed during his service in the field, in the later war. In the introduction given in his second volume, Sparks explained how useless it would be to print in full every letter, even those selected, when they were of the same or neighboring dates and addressed to different correspondents, and necessarily in large part repetitionary. Sparks distinctly declared his intention to omit this duplication of narrative, as well as " unimportant passages, relating chiefly to topics or facts evanescent in their nature and temporary in their design." He also announced his purpose to correct obvious blunders of transcribers, and even the awkward use of words and inaccuracies of style, though the misuse were Washington's own, "maintaining a scrupulous caution that the author's meaning and purpose

2 While Wm. B. Sprague was a tutor in a family near Mount Vernon in 1816, he obtained from Bushrod Washington permission to take 1500 letters from the Washington Papers, provided he left copies in their stead. This was the foundation of Dr. Sprague's famous autograph collection. (Draper's Essay on Autograph Collections, 14.)

3 From this tract we learn in what condition Washington left his papers. It was his custom to make fair copies of all his letters, and to preserve these together with the original drafts. Before the Revolution, these were usually made in his own hand. Near the close of the Revolution (Washington, ii. p. 8) Richard Varick was employed for two years and a half (Washington. ix. p. 3), with two assistants, in arranging and copying the correspondence of the war, and in filing and indorsing the originals, giving them index letters and figures to facilitate reference. In the form of transcripts the mass pertaining to the Revo lution makes forty-four large volumes, in a chronological arrangement, with an index to each. They are divided as follows:

1. Letters to Congress and its committees, members, and foreign representatives (seven vols.).

2. To military officers (sixteen vols.).

3. To conventions, governors, etc. (five vols.).
4. To foreign ministers (two vols.).

5. To British officers and subjects (one vol.).

6. Minutes of Councils of War (three vols.).

7. Private letters (three vols.).

8. Military orders (seven vols.). (Cf. also introduction to Sparks's Washington, vol. ii.) One volume is said to have disappeared.

In this condition the papers were left by Washington, in a fireproof safe which he had built for them. Washington's orderly book during Braddock's expedition is in the Library of Congress. The widow of Washington is said to have destroyed before her death all the letters which had passed between her and her husband.

He lived at this time in the house which Washington had occupied as headquarters in 1775-76, later known as the "Craigie House," and the home for many years of Longfellow.

It was subsequently printed in part in The Boston Book (1837), and American Museum (1839), and separately from the type of the former publication.

6 Cf. ante, Vol. VII. 302.

should thereby in no degree be changed or affected." He so far departed from Washington's own arrangement as to throw all his selections into one chronological sequence. In the same introduction to his second volume Sparks draws out more elaborately the distinctive character of the correspondence of the Revolution, and says that the first drafts had been for the most part destroyed, of which even the letters in its files are often copies, -so that the question of immediate authorship, as between Washington and his secretaries, is one in most cases quite beyond solution. He also expresses his sense of obligation for the access which had been granted him in England and France to their respective governmental archives.1

These statements of Mr. Sparks had clearly defined his method of editing; but it was left for the student

subsequently to learn from the text of the book itself, as he might have opportunity for comparison of originals, the character and extent of the changes or rectifications which Sparks had felt to be necessary in preparing the letters for the public eye. In the same way the student might, as occasion offered, discover how far Sparks had made omissions, for he unfortunately had failed to employ in the printed page the customary signs of such omissions; 2 and how he had patched together letters written at different times. It was not till 1851 and 1852 that his editorial method, and his use of it, were questioned; 3 and when Lord Mahon (later Earl Stanhope) reached the sixth volume of his History of England, he joined the assailants and charged Sparks with greatly altering, in order to embellish, the language of Washington, and with modifying the expressions of the commanderin-chief so as not to wound the sensibilities of New Englanders. The charge, as put, was inconsiderate, and was in part retracted, though not so completely as Sparks could have wished. The vindication, as far as it affected the integrity of the editor, was complete; for it was made clear that the differences were in most cases due to the fact that the letter-books which Sparks followed differed from the letter actually sent; and that some of the serious omissions were simply passages repetitionary of others, where reiteration was needless. The result of the whole controversy was, that, while Sparks had completely vindicated himself from charges that affected his integrity, he had not convinced historical students that it was an editor's proper function to rectify language that better expressed the environments of the man and the occasion,5 and that

LORD MAHON.*

1 Cf. also the Sparks Catalogue, p. 229.

2 Van Buren (Political Parties, p. 104) points out a significant instance of omission of passages which affect the judgment of events.

3 New York Evening Post; International Mag.; Westminster Review. Cf. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., x. 263.

Mahon found, as he thought, ground for his charges in the comparison of Sparks's text with the same letters as printed in Wm. B. Reed's Life of Joseph Reed, and in Force's Amer. Archives. Sparks answered the charges in A Reply to the Strictures of Lord Mahon and others, on the mode of editing the Writings of Washington (Cambridge, 1852, originally in the N. Y: Evening Post). This tract was reprinted in London (1852) with an appendix containing John G. Palfrey's review of Mahon's history, taken from the North American Review (July, 1852), in which the dispute in question is examined; and while in the main he vindicates Sparks, he still questions that editor's austere repression of sympathy with human levities. Mahon withdrew his most serious charges when he responded in a Letter to Jared Sparks: a rejoinder to his Reply, etc. (London, 1852). In later editions of his History (vol. vi., App.), Mahon substituted this letter for the detailed charges which he had earlier made. Sparks made a rejoinder in a Letter to Lord Mahon, being an answer to his Letter, etc. (Boston, 1852), - originally published in the National Intelligencer.

Mr. W. B. Reed had furnished Sparks with copies of some of Washington's letters to Reed, which had also since been printed in the Life of Jos. Reed, and had thus given part of the ground for the charges against Sparks. Sparks, relving upon Reed's copies, would seem to have had some fear lest, in case Reed should ever print from the originals, some variations should appear in their texts. Cf. Cooke

Catal., p. 341. Sparks further said of these particular letters, that they seemed to him in style and construction the most imperfect that he had ever seen from Washington's pen. "They were evidently written in great haste, in perfect confidence, and without any thought that they would ever be published" (Ibid. p. 342).

Mr. W. B. Reed now published a Reprint of Original Letters from Washington to Joseph Reed during the American Revolution, referred to in the pamphlets of Lord Mahon and Mr. Sparks (Philadelphia, 1852). "The result of the comparison," says Dr. Ellis, "showed that Mr. Sparks had been a more faithful editor" than Reed's grandson, and Mr. Reed acknowledged that the omission of one or two sentences, "evidently the result of oversight," and a chief occasion of a part of Mahon's charges, was due to himself.

Sparks closed the controversy with some Remarks on a Reprint of Original Letters, etc. (Boston, 1853). These original letters are now in the Carter-Brown library. Cf. Cooke Catal., p. 340; and the present History, ante, Vol. VI.

5 Cf. Allibone's Dictionary, ii. 2192; Irving's Life and Letters, ii. 335; iv. 130, 146; Mahon's England, 5th ed., vol. vi., App. p. xxiv. It may be borne in mind how Sparks admitted that, if he had anticipated what exceptions would have been taken to some of his "stilting," he might have "weighed the matter more deliberately, and perhaps have come to a different decision." There is little enough in any event in the letters of Washington to disclose to us the fleeting sensations which enable us to depict the man as influenced by his contacts. Smyth (ii. 455) complains of this absence, where we might naturally expect such sensations to occur, in the letters to Congress.

From Doyle's Official Baronage, iii. 408.1