lish commercial policy during this period are voluminous, those for the French even richer; and there is need of many regional studies on the history and effect of the continental system upon particular. areas. American consular reports, inclosures in the diplomatic correspondence, and the manuscripts of private firms, like the five hundred volumes of the papers of Stephen Girard, afford many materials for the discussion of profitable topics like the Baltic trade of that time, the commercial position of the subsidiary states under Napoleon, the amelioration of the system by licenses, English and French, smuggling, and places like Halifax and Amelia Island, which constituted strategic points comparable to Heligoland.1

Mr. Abbott P. Usher, of Cornell University, dwelt upon the international aspects of commercial history and the need of observing them in spite of the natural temptation to observe national boundaries unduly because the deposits of material are national. He instanced Schmoller's history of the Prussian grain trade in the "Acta Borussica," in which the ignoring of the relations of Polish and Baltic trade to Prussian leave the book a work of erudition rather than a vital history of important movements; and the history of the bill of exchange, Goldschmidt's work being confined to Italian sources instead of following in the archives of all important countries alike a subject which is essentially cosmopolitan.2

Mr. Clarence H. Haring, of Bryn Mawr, spoke of the archives of the Indies in Seville, and of the opportunities which they afford for a study of the origin, organization, and history of Spanish colonial commerce, and especially of the Spanish silver fleets, for which the accounts of the treasurers of the Casa de Contratacion and of the various colonial treasurers afford ample materials, while the registers preserved in Seville of ships sailing to and from America are invaluable for the general study of colonial trade and navigation. Dr. Stewart L. Mims, of Yale, from the point of view of a student of the French colonial empire, adverted to the difficulty of generalizing at present, the need of first securing many special studies of individual colonies in the Antilles, individual ports of France, and individual divisions of French colonial commerce, such as the sugar trade and slave trade.

Dr. N. S. B. Gras, of Clark College, closed the discussion by remarks on a group of new sources for the history of English customs and commerce, namely, the great mass of port books and coast bonds recently saved from destruction and brought to attention at the Pub

1 In an expanded form Mr. Lingelbach's paper will be found in the American Historical Review for January, 1914, under the title "Historical Investigation and the Commercial History of the Napoleonic Era."

2 See post, pp. 143-144, for a fuller text of this paper.

lic Record Office, and in which the history of English commerce in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries can be followed in minute detail of ships, exports, and destinations.1

A special session of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, presided over by its president, Dr. Reuben G. Thwaites, of Wisconsin, was held on Monday morning, the general subject of the four papers read being New England and the West. Prof. Archer B. Hulbert brought new light to bear, from his investigation of the Craigie papers in the library of the American Antiquarian Society, on the history of the Scioto Company and its short-lived and unhappy settlement at Gallipolis. The Scioto Company, he stated, had no real organization, but was composed of Col. Duer, Andrew Craigie, and Royal Flint, as principal associates, who with others styled themselves "trustees," and, under the wing of the Ohio Company, attempted to carry on a speculation pure and simple. Their methods were the purchase of United States claims, the attempt, through foreign financiers such as Brissot de Warville, to secure transfers of the foreign debt or to make loans abroad on Scioto stock, and the exchange of Scioto shares for those of other corporations. The speculators, Mr. Hulbert stated, had no intention of exploiting and settling the region on which they held options, gave no such right to the French company, and should not be held directly responsible for the Gallipolis episode. In the second paper, Dr. Solon J. Buck controverted the generally accepted view that the people of early Illinois came almost entirely from the South and held all "Yankees" in aversion. On the basis of statistical study of the nativity of office holders in Illinois before 1833, he showed that the New England element was about 12 per cent (one-third of the northern element). The participation of New Englanders in Illinois politics was greatest from 1818 to 1824, and the part they played in the slavery struggle was distinctly honorable. The New England emigration was especially strong just after the War of 1812. Prof. Karl F. Geiser, dealing with the early New England influence in the Western Reserve, pointed out that the social and political institutions of that region had developed out of New England Puritanism modified by forces springing out of the new soil to which it was transferred. The settlers from New England formed the nuclei of the various communities, the leadership of which they retained, shaping the development of religion and educational institutions, long after they were outnumbered by other elements.

Mrs. Lois K. Mathews's paper on the "Mayflower compact and its descendants" developed the idea that compact making was a wellknown process to the Americans of 1775, and survived after 1865,

1 See post, pp. 145-147.

while side by side with the idea of compact, indeed as a corollary to it, developed that of secession. The plantation covenants of early New England, such as those of Providence, Exeter, and Dover, were discussed. The New England confederation of 1643 represents the same principle on a larger scale, and the Articles of Confederation were in a sense a still more developed outgrowth. It was not, therefore, theoretical knowledge alone which the delegates to the constitutional convention possessed, but much practical experience of compacts. The application of the compact theory by no means ceased with the adoption of the Constitution, for numerous colonies or settlements in western territory bound themselves by compact. The conclusions reached were that government by compact was evolved from practical necessity, not from theoretical speculation; that its beginnings are to be found in the separatist church covenant; that the germ of the larger compacts is found in the town compacts; and finally, that the institution often accompanied further settlement, changing its character to suit changing conditions; all of which suggest the need of studying the church covenant and the town compact, (1) among settlers from New England, (2) among settlers from the southern seaboard, and (3) among the Scotch-Irish.

On the afternoon of the same day, the last whole day of the sessions, the Historical Association and the Political Science Association met in joint session at the new lecture hall of Harvard University. The first two papers of the session pertained to the field of political science, the last to history. President Harry A. Garfield, of Williams College, in a paper entitled "Good government and the suffrage," skillfully led up to the conclusion that for the purposes of good government a universal franchise was neither a danger nor an essential, however desirable it might be for other reasons. Prof. Adam Shortt, of the Canadian civil service commission, explained with some detail the historical development which resulted in the present relationship between the Canadian executive and legislative bodies. The first of the papers in the field of history was presented by Prof. Frank M. Anderson, of the University of Minnesota, and dealt with the enforcement of the alien and sedition laws of 1798.1 While the alien law was never actually enforced, Burk, the editor of the Time Piece, of New York, was obliged to go into hiding until the close of the administration, and the departure of Gen. Victor Collot was all that prevented action being taken against him. Several prosecutions that occurred before the actual passage of the sedition law (July 14, 1798) are often alluded to as sedition law cases. The number of persons

arrested under the act seems to have been about 25 and at least 16 were indicted, of whom 10 came to trial and were pronounced guilty.

1 Printed below, pp. 113-126.

These cases were discussed in four classes: Proceedings aimed at prominent Republican newspapers; proceedings aimed at minor Republican papers; proceedings against important individuals; and cases against unimportant persons. Charges of unfairness in all these cases were numerous. It seems true that the juries could scarcely be called impartial, and the defendant was not in all cases given a fair chance to present his side of the case.

1

Prof. E. D. Adams followed with an interesting paper on the "Point of view of the British traveler in America, 1810-1860," 1 the object of which was to study "the mental attitude" of the writers of the various accounts. Guided by this principle, one may group the British writers into five classes. Those writing in the decade 1810– 1820 were middle-class Englishmen, interested in agriculture, discontented with the social order at home, and attracted by the industrial opportunity offered by this country. For the second period the books were of two distinct types: Books written by the laborers themselves dilating on their wages, their food, their comfortable housing; and books written by those whose attitude toward American political institutions was distinctly critical. The third decade, 1830-1840, was characterized solely by writers whose judgments, sometimes friendly and sometimes unfriendly, were predetermined by their political opinions. From 1840 to 1850 the majority of travelers were primarily observers, apparently without strong bias. From 1850 to 1860, as in the decade from 1830 to 1840, the writers were concerned chiefly with political institutions in America, the feeling of friendliness predominating.

The last evening of the sessions in Boston was given to the reading, before a general audience, of papers in European history. The first was a brilliant discourse "Anent the Middle Ages," by Prof. George L. Burr, of Cornell University. After some discussion of the beginnings of modern tolerance, and their relation to the demarcation of the Middle Ages, Mr. Burr showed how medieval history may most properly be thought of as the period when Christian theocracy was the usual ideal; how, beginning the Middle Ages with Constantine, we may rightly allow them to overlap ancient history at one end; and how, overlapping modern history at the other, we can not think of them as ending till, after Luther and Calvin, the ecclesiastical city of God is supplanted by the lay state.

In the second paper, "Antecedents of the Quattrocento," Mr. Henry Osborn Taylor, of New York, took for his topic the fundamental identity of relationship borne by the Middle Ages as well as the humanists of the Quattrocento to the antique past from which they

1 To be printed in the Political Science Quarterly for June, 1914.

2 Printed in the American Historical Review for July, 1913.

8 Printed below, pp. 87-94.

both drew the substance of their thought. In each succeeding medieval century, as in the Quattrocento, scholars were always reaching back, beyond that which they had received from their immediate predecessors, in the fruitful endeavor to appropriate and profit by a larger share of the great antique past. In this respect the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries resemble the twelfth and thirteenth.

In a systematic and thorough descriptive paper on the "Court of star chamber," Prof. Edward P. Cheyney, of the University of Pennsylvania, set forth in entertaining fashion the composition and functions of the court, its relations to monarch and council and Parliament, its practices and procedure, and the true facts as to its operations and the part it played in the history of the time-all supported and enlivened by concrete examples drawn from exhaustive researches.

Mr. William R. Thayer's paper entitled "Crispi: A legend in the making" consisted in a comparison, made step by step through the successive stages of Crispi's career, between the actual historic facts and the representation of those facts which is now coming before the public as the result of Crispi's dealings with his own papers and of the publications, out of that collection and from other sources, which have been made by his nephew and other apologists. He described the early days of conspiracy, the relations of discipleship with Mazzini, the Orsini episode, and the remarkable part which Crispi played in the Sicilian expedition as lieutenant of Garibaldi, as private secretary, and as intriguer for Sicilian and personal interests rather than for those of united Italy; the adhesion of Crispi to the monarchy, his long career as parliamentary privateer, his periods of ministerial power, his policy in external and internal affairs. At every step he showed how nepotic piety and that of lesser adherents has been of late sophisticating the actual facts and creating the legend of a highminded, unselfish, and farseeing statesman.

In view of the lateness of the hour which had now been reached, Prof. John M. Vincent, of the Johns Hopkins University, abstained from reading his paper on "Sumptuary laws in the eighteenth century." The paper was intended to show the duration of this intimate paternal legislation in certain of the old independent cities of Switzerland where the ordinances were persistently renewed and reenacted throughout the century. The French Revolution seems to close the period of serious "blue-law" making. Mr. Vincent has been investigating the extent to which these ordinances were enforced. The execution was usually in the hands of a social court or commission for the refor

1 Printed in the American Historical Review for July, 1913.

2 An anonymous article in the Nation of January 16, 1913, will give to students, at considerable extent, an excellent notion of what was said upon this interesting topic by Mr. Thayer.