ike a
naval officer. Of purely literary qualities, the history presents a
high order of constructive art in amassing minute details without
obscuring the main outlines; luminous statement; and the results of a
very powerful memory, which enables him to keep before his vision every
incident of the long chronicle with its involved groupings, so that an
armory of instructive comparisons, as well as of polemic missiles, is
constantly ready to his hand. He follows the latest historical canons as
to giving authorities.

The history advances many novel views, and controverts many accepted
facts. The relation of Napoleon's warfare against Hayti and Toussaint to
the great Continental struggle, and the position he assigns it as the
turning point of that greater contest, is perhaps the most important of
these. But almost as striking are his views on the impressment problem
and the provocations to the War of 1812; wherein he leads to the most
unexpected deduction,--namely, that the grievances on _both_ sides were
much greater than is generally supposed. He shows that the profit and
security of the American merchant service drew thousands of English
seamen into it, where they changed their names and passed for American
citizens, greatly embarrassing English naval operations. On the other
hand, he shows that English outrages and insults were so gross that no
nation with spirit enough to be entitled to separate existence ought to
have endured them. He reverses the severe popular judgment on Madison
for consenting to the war--on the assumed ground of coveting another
term as President--which every other historian and biographer from
Hildreth to Sydney Howard Gay has pronounced, and which has become a
stock historical convention; holds Jackson's campaign ending at New
Orleans an imbecile undertaking redeemed only by an act of instinctive
pugnacity at the end; gives Scott and Jacob Brown the honor they have
never before received in fair measure; and in many other points
redistributes praise and blame with entire independence, and with
curious effect on many popular ideas. His views on the Hartford
Convention of 1814 are part of the Federalist controversy already
referred to.

THE AUSPICES OF THE WAR OF 1812

From 'History of the United States': copyright 1890, by Charles
Scribner's Sons.

The American declaration of war against England, July 18th, 1812,
annoyed those European nations that were gathering their utmost
resourc