PREFACE
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THIS work aims to give an account of the intense effort of the thirteen United Colonies, at the time we were becoming the United States, to secure the adhesion of the one other conspicuous member of the British colonial group in North America ; and the form of words chosen for a title seems to suggest these ideas better than any other of equal length that occurred to the author.
New Brunswick had not been organized at the time of our Revolution ; Nova Scotia, St. John’s Island, and Newfoundland were not involved in the ‘ ‘ struggle, ‘ ‘ and the region between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes, though under British law a part of Canada at that period, has never been recognized as such by the Americans. The field, therefore, is what has often been known as Upper and Lower Canada ; but the former, mainly a wilderness, had almost no share in the events.
In a sense, the “struggle” ended in June, 1776 ; but as the later operations were hinged upon those prior to that date and aimed constantly at a renewal of the effort, it seems very proper to include them.
An attempt has been made to secure completeness and accuracy of information, and also — since, in the early years of the Revolution, feeling had more influence than calculation — to help the student of the events realize for himself the situations and the states of mind which they involved.
When the author published, a few years since, a work avowedly designed to reconstruct the world of the troubadours and place the troubadours in it as living characters.a prominent critic complained that pains had been taken to be “interesting” ; and this fact suggests that in the present case the same charge maj- perhaps be brought. If so, the same reply may be made as before : certain phases of the subject are essentially of such a nature that no ac- count of them can be lifelike — that is to say, true — if it is not interesting. But the intention has been to keep the requirements of critical investigation steadily in mind, and accept literary elements only for their sound historical worth.
Every place in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain where valuable documents have seemed likely to exist, has been searched. The copjdng, when not done by the author, has been, the work of experienced persons, believed to be competent. Everything has been verified, — in many of the more important cases, twice or thrice. All the localities of any significance in the story have been visited by the author, and have been studied until he felt sure that he understood the condition of things at the period. Great pains have been taken to discover those minor data, also, which the official reports commonly take for granted, but without which the reality and life of the past cannot be felt.
As substantially all the documents drawn upon by previous writers on the subject, together with very many more, have been available, it has been possible to base the work
The manuscript sources are in fact considerably more numerous than would be inferred. The general rule has been to refer to some printed version of a document, if a sub- stantially correct one exists, since but few readers could easily consult the original even if informed where it is. For example, the originals of Schuyler’s, Montgomery’s, and Wooster’s reports in 1775-76 — or official contempo- rary copies — were used ; but, except in special cases, the references, after due collation, have been made to Force’s American Archives or other reprints. The approximate number of manuscripts used is 1425.
The lyist of Sources at the back of this volume shows what published material has been drawn upon. The intention has been to examine all the printed matter of any importance bearing on the subject, and something has been obtained from about 750 books and pamphlets. These have contributed little, however, except documents, bio- graphical, topographical, and other ancillary information, and occasional suggestions. In many cases the assistance has been too indefinite for citation in the footnotes, and a few of the books are named in the List only to show that they have been faithfully examined.
It would no doubt have been desirable to print in full the unpublished documents made use of; but they would have added a great and unwieldy bulk, and, in the case of many, the author has no authority so to print them.
To compensate in part for this lack, as well as to give the reader a constant sense of his nearness to the sources, a very large number of quotations, giving the pith of the documents, have been introduced. Owing to the frequency of short extracts, single instead of the usual double marks have been employed by the printers. Statements that read like quotations, though not enclosed in marks, give only the substance of what was said.
Consistency in the spelling, capitalization, and punctuation of the quotations could not be attained. In case the manuscript was used, the writer’s peculiarities have been followed, but in many instances only a printed and emended copy has been found. When, for the reason explained above, it seemed best to refer to the printed version even though the original was at hand, the former had to be reproduced, else any one looking up the reference would suppose the author had committed errors. To carry so large a number of irregularities with perfect accuracy through the many processes of copying and printing is much more diiEcult than one would imagine, and this is particularly true when the substance, not the form, is the writer’s principal concern. Very great care has been used to secure an exact reproduction ; but it would not be wise to guarantee perfection. This fact seems to the author of but slight moment, however. A real historical value lies, no doubt, in presenting enough of the documents in their true archaic form to give the reader a sense of contact with the period ; but this is not materially diminished, if — as may have befallen — a few peculiarities out of a great number have been accidentally normalized.
The footnotes cover substantially all the statements of the text except some matters of common knowledge and the points Tmainly topographical) ascertained personally by the author or reported oralh^ to him by local authorities. The utmost care has been taken to present these many citations to the reader without inaccuracy. To some extent the author has had assistance from others’ eyes in this phase of the work, but he believes they have been competent and attentive.
As the text was written in all cases with the documents in view, the easiest method of making references would have been to connect each, by a superior figure, with the statement it supports ; but nine thousand such figures inserted in the text would have seemed to nearly all readers intolerable. To give references for certain statements and not for others might have appeared to throw discredit upon the latter, and could have answered the queries of only a percentage of the readers. To omit references entirely has not seemed best, since many will be glad to ascertain, at the slight expense of glancing at
the foot of the page, on what basis the narrative rests, and some will desire — at which points could not be foreseen — to look into certain matters for themselves.
The best plan the author could devise was to group the references, as a rule, by paragraphs, arranging them in the order of the statements, or — in the case of an episode covered by many authorities, where this plan would have required the repetition, paragraph after paragraph, of a cumbrous mass of citations — to present them once for all and discuss in the Remarks at the end of the volume such points as require special support. Hints have been introduced in the footnotes where they seemed necessary, and it is thought that an attentive reader need seldom have difficulty in finding the reference he desires. A statement once proved is not proved again, of course ; and when, as occasionally happens, a document is used a second time in a paragraph, a second reference is not usually given. If used in the succeeding paragraph, it is again cited.
The illustrations are presented in the belief that they are a valuable complement of the text. A large part of them are from the author’s collection of photographs taken by himself. The sources of all are given in connection with the Table of Contents. As the illustrations are included in the general index, any one may readily be found.
A portion of the ground included in the present work has already been covered by the author. Foreseeing that he would not have space here to discuss and correct the very numerous errors, great and small, regarding the Kennebec expedition, which — owing to the lack of any thorough study of the subject — had come to be accepted as facts, and foreseeing also that, unless such corrections were made, many statements here set down would appear to be errors, he has recently published Arnold’s March from Cambridge to Quebec. There is no duplication, however. Arnold’ s March is not a history. It is called on the title-page “A Critical Study,” and represents a skeleton which the present work aims to bring forward clothed with its proper flesh and blood, while, at the same time, it offers many facts as well as many discussions for which there is no room here. To it the student is referred for whatever concerns the elucidation of that very complicated and often misunderstood enterprise.
As the author has suggested above, in the gathering, handling, copying, and printing of so much material, it cannot be supposed that no slips have occurred. Even in the process of final verification, continued — as it had to be — hour after hour, day after day, and week after week for months, the eye and the mind v/ould inevitably flag at instants, and in one of those instants an error, if it happened along, could steal by. Notification of any mistakes that maybe discovered will be gratefully received.
The author wishes sincerely that it were possible to name all who have aided him in his long quest for facts. As the number is too great for such recognition, he begs them to accept this general but grateful and cordial acknowledgment. In the lyist of Sources are mentioned the most important public and semi-public collections of documents used, to the curators of which he is peculiarly indebted. These collections are also mentioned in the footnotes, whenever a document belonging to them is cited. Particular mention, however, must be made of the gentlemen in charge at the Public Record Office, lyondon ; the Canadian Archives Office, Ottawa ; the Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania Historical Societies ; the lyibrary of Congress ; the New York Public Ivibrary, L,enox Branch, and the libraries of Harvard University and Dartmouth College.
J. H. S.
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