Accustomed to give the most careful attention to any criticism on any historical point which I may have discussed, I have very rarely noticed, and indeed, from general good-will, have very rarely had occasion to notice, any effusion of personal malice. Some years ago a most unjust criticism was made on a note in the second volume of this History. I produced the document which was my authority for that note, and it was so conclusive that everybody who read it, including the author of the criticism himself, saw that I had been in the right; but the author of the criticism, instead of an apology and a correction, made his retreat with other imputations equally erroneous, for one or two of which he cited the Reverend George E. Ellis as his witness. How unfounded was a complaint made in the name of Mr. Ellis will best appear from the letters of Mr. Ellis himself, which a few explanatory words may precede. The late Mr. Grahame having written me a friendly letter in 1837, and sent me a copy of his History, I replied to him and sent him a copy of mine as far as published in the year 1838, by the Reverend George E. Ellis, then on his way to England. While Mr. Ellis was in Europe, Mr. Grahame on the twenty-eighth of February, 1839, wrote respecting me to Mr. Robert E. Walsh at Paris, and Mr. Walsh allowed Mr. Ellis to take for me an extract of this letter. Mr. Grahame also on the tenth of March, 1839, wrote to Mr. Ellis promising my enterprise "an expression of votive benediction," and sending me his "respectful and affectionate regards." This extract of Mr. Grahame's letter to Mr. Walsh, and this letter of Mr. Grahame to himself, Mr. Ellis very properly gave me, as he says, on his return from Europe, that is, certainly before the tenth of June, 1839. In 1846, Mr. Quincy wrote a memoir of Mr. Grahame, and in the introduction said: "Robert Walsh, Esquire, transmitted to me many of his letters to himself. William H. Prescott, Esquire, and the Reverend George E. Ellis have extended to me like favors." In the course of the memoir Mr. Quincy quoted from the letters of Mr. Grahame to Mr. Ellis which he had in his hands. A very great wrong having been done me in the memoir, I needed to see the letters from Mr. Grahame to Mr. Ellis, which Mr. Quincy thus acknowledged to have received from Mr. Ellis, and in general terms wrote to Mr. Ellis for a sight of them. He would not suffer me to peruse them, and gave this as his excuse for refusing my request : MY DEAR SIR, Charlestown, February 2d, 1846. I have not in my possession either of the letters of Mr. Grahame to me relating to the matter of Clarke. I loaned them all to you soon after my return from Europe, and have never seen them since, though I have frequently, as you may remember, asked them of you. GEO. E. ELLIS. Now at the time when he wrote this, a letter of Mr. Grahame to him, dated sixth of November, 1839, "relating to the matter of Clarke," was either in the possession of Mr. Ellis himself, or in the hands of Mr. Quincy from Mr. Ellis himself, as appears by Mr. Quincy's publications. On receiving the note of Mr. Ellis, I returned to him the letter from Mr. Grahame to himself, which he had given me. I did not send back the extract of Mr. Walsh's letter; the original was then in Mr. Quincy's hands, and known to be there. I now renewed my request, specifying one letter in particular from Mr. Grahame to Mr. Ellis, describing it as to date as well as I could from distant recollection, but most precisely as the letter on which I had, in December, 1839, based a letter to Mr. Prescott, to be communicated to Mr. Grahame. To this second request he made answer: MY DEAR SIR, Charlestown, March 12th, 1846. After a thorough examination of my files of foreign letters, I cannot find that one of Mr. Grahame's for which you ask. I think you must have it, as I loaned all his letters to you at the same time that I put into your hands the one you have just returned to me. GEO. E. ELLIS. The exact date of the letter for which I had asked, was, as I afterwards ascertained, November sixth, 1839. It was therefore written several months after the time fixed by Mr. Ellis himself as the time of his loaning it to me; and moreover it was then either in his own hands, or by his own act in those of Mr. Quincy, by whom a large part of it was soon afterwards printed, with the manifest concurrence of Mr. Ellis himself. THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS ACKNOWLEDGED. CHAPTER I THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES. JULY, 1776. I. July. THE American Declaration of Independence was the CHAP. beginning of new ages. Though it had been invited, expected, and prepared for, its adoption suddenly 1776. changed the contest from a war for the redress of grievances to an effort at the creation of a selfgoverning commonwealth. It disembarrassed the people of the United States from the legal fiction of owning a king against whom they were in arms, brushed away forever the dreamy illusion of their reconcilement to the dominion of Britain, and for the first time set before them a well-defined, single, and inspiring purpose. As the youthful nation took its seat among the powers of the earth, its desire was no longer for the restoration of the past, but turned with prophetic promise towards the boundless |