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 resources for resistance to Napoleon’s attack.  Russia could not but regard it as an unfriendly act, equally bad for political and commercial interests.  Spain and Portugal, whose armies were fed largely if not chiefly on American grain imported by British money under British protection, dreaded to see their supplies cut off.  Germany, waiting only for strength to recover her freedom, had to reckon against one more element in Napoleon’s vast military resources.  England needed to make greater efforts in order to maintain the advantages