upon certain self-evident truths. In the first place, there is no check on the course of historical study in the United States: on the contrary, the volume becomes daily greater. In the second place, there is no decrease in the number of historical writers. Confined no longer, as in a former epoch, to the elegant, wealthy, and studious society of Federalist New England, they are now found in every district of the land, and among men of every shade of political and religious opinion. In the third place the reading public is daily enlarging, and its intelligence, as we trust, is proportionately increasing. These phenomena are probably both cause and effect with regard one to the other; but, taken as a whole, they create a grave responsibility, which earnest and patriotic men have long felt should be recognized and assumed by somebody. This is the responsibility for co-ordination and intelligent criticism in historical work. The strength of this feeling has long been noticeable; and when at last, in several centres of learning simultaneously, it became too strong for repression, the movement to give it outlet and direction was virtually spontaneous among all historical workers. The unity of purpose and the disinterestedness displayed were unique in the history of similar movements, so far as the United States are concerned. The universities laid. aside their rivalries, scholars emerged from their closets, representatives of cities and districts contending for distinction as literary hearthstones banished every jealousy, there was a singleness of hearty feeling, and a sturdy good-will to overcome all obstacles. This review, therefore, must, by the auspices under which it begins, display the largest catholicity possible, and an impartiality willing always to hear the other side. It can in no sense be an organ of any school, locality, or clique. Controversial it certainly must be, but we trust always within the limits of courtesy. The mission of critic, to which reference has been made, implies much. There is something in the very word "criticism" which in established usage indicates blame; and we too often use it as synonymous with sarcasm and depreciation. But among the countless advances made by the human spirit none is greater than the substitution of the constructive for the destructive notion in the highest and most advanced criticism. It is in this direction that we hope the new periodical will move. Its primary object is indicated by its name of Review. No doubt it must and should print articles embodying the results of investigation and monographs of importance; but it ought chiefly to be a critical review, fearless to denounce a bad or superficial book which solicits public favor, equally courageous to sustain one which presents unpopular truth,

and sufficiently learned to give reasons for its opinions. Incidentally, too, the amount of notice should as far as possible be indicative of the relative values of the volumes named. Finally, it must assist historical scholars by furnishing materials that could not otherwise be published, and by keeping its professional readers abreast with the latest news in the field which most interests them. Believing that our democracy with its growing numbers, wealth, and intuence will nevertheless remain historically minded and therefore afford proportionate support to the best historical work, we trust that all the elements it embraces may find representation and encouragement in these pages. The profounder our study of ourselves, the stronger will grow our conviction of the organic relation between our own history and that of the world. Every division of the field of general history from the earliest to the latest times should be represented here as it is among American investigators. At the same time the orientalists and the classicists, being compelled to use philology, archæology, and the other disciplines kindred to history, as the chief instruments of their work, have each their own particular and special periodicals: so also have the students of political economy, political science, and jurisprudence; we can have no intention to appropriate the fields already pre-empted by their able reviews. Consequently, therefore, in the selection of material for our readers, while we shall welcome contributions in ancient history, oriental or classical, we must emphasize the importance of mediæval, modern, and contemporaneous history, not excluding a fair consideration for uncontroversial ecclesiastical investigation, and using all these terms in a sense so broad as to put no hampering limitation upon them, remaining ever hospitable to themes in the line of biography or historical philosophy, and especially to discussions of method and system in historical science. The disciplines concerned with humanity claim as an advantage over those concerned with the external world that they have no hard and fast boundaries, and that they afford free play to the discursive faculties. We must frankly confess that expediency, timeliness, and similar considerations will necessarily govern those who manage an historical journal like this one, but as far as the present writer has understood the deliberations of his colleagues, their general purpose is indicated, though roughly, in the sketch he has given of their aims during the time they are intrusted with the charge of THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW. Its ability to sustain its interest, to secure the strongest contributors, to preserve its independence, to furnish valuable material, and to do the best work generally for the cause to which it is devoted

will now depend on the kindly consideration and material support of the large public to which it appeals; for it is already assured of the hearty co-operation of scholars and specialists. Whatever measure of money is intrusted to it will be entirely expended in the returns made to the readers. The editors and guarantors feel themselves amply rewarded by their opportunity to serve a great cause. WILLIAM M. SLOANE.

THE PARTY OF THE LOYALISTS IN THE AMERI

CAN REVOLUTION

I

THERE cannot be a more authentic introduction to the Loyalists of our Revolution, than is to be had through an acquaintance with their literature. As we turn over the pages of that literature, -political essays, pamphlets, sermons, songs, satires, epigrams, burlesques, lampoons, -a literature now having almost a pathetic insignificance as it slumbers under a hundred years of dust and contempt, perhaps the first notable fact that calls for attention. is, that, in point of time, its development lags somewhat behind that of the Revolutionist party, and does not become of much value until within the twelvemonth preceding the Lexington and Concord skirmishes, - that is, until about the time of the Congress of 1774.

Of course, from the very beginning of the dispute there had been American writers who, while doubting the wisdom of the colonial policy of the English ministry, likewise doubted the soundness of the constitutional claim set up in opposition to it by many of their American brethren; and, at any rate, deprecated all violent or extreme measures in the assertion of that claim. Nevertheless, during the eight or ten years prior to 1774, it might fairly have been assumed that this Anglo-American dispute was but one of a long series of political disagreements that had broken out, at various times, in John Bull's large and vivacious family, and that this particular dispute would probably run its natural course and come to an end, just as its predecessors had done, without any permanent rupture of the interior relations of the family, and, indeed, to the great advantage of all its members through a clearer definition of those constitutional principles which had enabled them all to live together so long under the same enormous and kindly roof. Not until after the failure of Lord North's clever device for inducing the Americans to take the taxation which they liked so little, along with that cheering beverage which they liked so much, was it necessary for any person to regard the dispute as one of peculiarly deep and tragical import. It was, per

haps, on account of this confidence of theirs in the natural limitations of the problem then vexing the colonies and the mother-country, that so many of the ablest conservative writers in America refrained, in that stage of affairs, from engaging very actively in the discussion. Thus it is that we may in a measure explain why, in this controversy, so little part was taken prior to 1774 by the most powerful of all the Loyalist writers, Daniel Leonard, Joseph Galloway, Samuel Seabury, and Jonathan Odell. But with the events of the years 1773 and 1774, came a total change in the situation, and in the attitude of all parties toward it first, the repulsion of the gentle tea-ships by several American communities, and the destruction of valuable property belonging to liegemen of the king; then the series of stern retaliatory measures to which Parliament was thereby drawn; finally, by one large portion of the colonists, the fearless summons for a great council of their own delegates, solemnly to determine and to proclaim some common plan of action. With the gathering of this celebrated council-the First Continental Congress - the wayfaring American though a fool could not err in reading, in very crimson. letters painted on the air in front of him, the tidings of the arrival of a race-crisis altogether transcending those ordinary political altercations which had from time to time disturbed, and likewise quickened and clarified, the minds of his British ancestors.

Naturally, therefore, from about this time the process of political crystallization among the colonists went on with extraordinary rapidity. Then, every man had to define both to himself and to his neighbor, what he thought, how he felt, what he meant to do. Then, too, the party of insubordination in these thirteen agitated communities had, for the first time, a common and a permanent organ for the formulation of the political doctrine and purpose which should sway them all. Finally, around this official and authoritative statement of doctrine and purpose, the opposing tendencies of thought could clash and do intelligent battle, having a set of precise propositions to fight for or to fight against, and having, likewise, the grim consciousness that such fight was no longer a merely academic one.

In a valid sense, therefore, it may be said that the formation of the great Loyalist party of the American Revolution dates from, about the time of the Congress of 1774. Moreover, its period of greatest activity in argumentative literature is from that time until the early summer of 1776, when nearly all further use for argumentative literature on that particular subject was brought to an end by the Declaration of Independence. The writings of the